I don’t have a car. I rely exclusively on foot, bike, transit & occasional Modo. Save tonnes of money. I’m relatively high income . if we didn’t require parking (at $80k-$200k/ space) in new developments, and gift public space to it for free, we’d have more affordable hsng and less car ownership… - ThreadSky

brendanmcewen.bsky.social • 22 days ago

I don’t have a car. I rely exclusively on foot, bike, transit & occasional Modo. Save tonnes of money. I’m relatively high income .

if we didn’t require parking (at $80k-$200k/ space) in new developments, and gift public space to it for free, we’d have more affordable hsng and less car ownership…

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vanpolimorphus.bsky.social•22 days ago

Nope. People want cars. No evidence to suggest otherwise. I'm saying to study how much parking is truly needed and reduce accordingly because yes, there are some like you, but who are not. You only have to look around you or at the actual data.

brendanmcewen.bsky.social•22 days ago

Further point on this… you’re saying “people want X, so we should study how much they want if they don’t have to pay for it”.
I want an additional room for my home office. And a big tasty salmon twice a week. We should study how many feel same, and ensure we require enough free offices and salmon

brendanmcewen.bsky.social•22 days ago

Home offices and salmon have more socially beneficial externalities than parking. But we don’t require it be provided for free as a condition of building new housing, nor govt provide it. We let market decide.

Not everything is appropriate for market discipline. But parking definitely is.

vanpolimorphus.bsky.social•21 days ago

Sorry, you lost me.

brendanmcewen.bsky.social•21 days ago

Excellent books on this topic include The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoupe and Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar. They are both steeped in evidence, as well as hilarious polemical reads

vanpolimorphus.bsky.social•21 days ago

These theories do not accurately capture the high cost of not providing needed parking. They only consider one side of the issue. Like saying we could build more housing if we didn’t waste space with kitchens.

brendanmcewen.bsky.social•21 days ago

Also Sightline Institute has done great work on this - https://www.sightline.org/research/housing-cities/beyond-parking-mandates/

I especially recommend the December 2024 article about parking reform boosting housing production 40-70%

brendanmcewen.bsky.social•22 days ago

That Venice gets so many tourists is evidence otherwise… people want mobility & access, goods & services, not cars

vanpolimorphus.bsky.social•22 days ago

That's like saying Disneyland gets loads of visitors so we should make our city like Disneyland. Venice is amazing, but not how people want or can live here. We are not going to change Vancouver into Venice or Disneyland. Reality does not support your wishes. Car ownership is trending up, not down.

brendanmcewen.bsky.social•22 days ago

The more we can make urban design in Vancouver similar to Venice or Disneyland over the next few decades, the better. It’d be quiet, beautiful and fun. We could take transit or walk everywhere. Other than the cornball characters and the lack of grit, Disneyland urbanism is better than here.

brendanmcewen.bsky.social•22 days ago

We’d have lower cost housing, good, services & office space if we built cities like Disneyland

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