Good ideas all. Like Douglas I’m not sure there is a good way parking can be completely unbundled via regulation. However like a parking tax I believe there can be incentives to unbundle parking. Things like lowering the parking tax if the parking is unbundled or reducing the minimums in areas that still have them.

As a further idea I’d like to see regulations that encourage centralizing parking somewhat within neighborhoods. This means the sort of pre-war small and mid-scale less than full block developments common in the past become somewhat more practical again as the development itself doesn’t have to have on-site parking but can share parking among multiple neighborhood developments. This assumes of course the market would accept such solutions as would neighborhood groups worried about the potential impacts of a development on traffic and on-street parking. Again this becomes important mostly in areas that still have parking minimums.

Because of transit in Toronto, one really doesn’t need a car. However, if one does need a car, instead of renting a car, people can share a car. There are a couple of automobile sharing companies where you can have use of car, mini-van, or hybrid for a time.

Some developers are now selling condos partnered with car-sharing companies. That way, if one needs a car for some purpose, they use a car that is shared with the other condo owners.

The difference is that the park-and-rides are charged by the day rather than by the hour. I think a good place to start would be about $5 per day for a park-and-ride, which would generate enough revenue to actually pay for the structure, meaning that no subsidy would be necessary.

This approach creates a “middle way” between the most convenient, most expensive approach, (driving and parking downtown), and the least convenient, least expensive approach (walking to a bus stop, waiting for the bus, riding a bus to the light rail station, then transferring to the light rail). By park-and-riding (and paying a reduced rate) a person can have medium convenience at medium cost. More options means your system serves more people and enhances the urban village concept.

The problem is this, if you offer a park and ride inside an urban village that parking could be usurped by local residents. The problem here is like a reverse RPZ. Unbundling I like the idea mentioned by Barnett of ‘unbundling’ parking purchases, but figuring out the way to develop this through regulation that also allows for commuter use would be very tough. My hat off, in advance, to anyone that could figure it out without being a control freak.

Barnett occassionally has something to say, but she thinks she knows more than she does. I’d chalk it up as irresponsible journalism – thanks for the ‘parking ticket’ in this Seattle Transit Piece. Aaron Ostrom’s attack on the balanced neighborhood approach to developing viable, distributed, urban villages in the end only supported the building of additional parking downtown and created bad blood between certain segments of the environmental community and folks who care about working with their neighbors, including those who actually work for a living.

When I lived in a building with an underground garage, I sometimes went a month without using the car. When I moved to a building that didn’t have parking, I drove more often. I had to move it from one block to another every 72 hours anyways, so it was tempting to make a quick trip to the grocery store or the library which I could have done by walking or taking a bus.

For a lot of people, the first step to letting go of the car is finding a safe place to let it sit.