Sydney Street, photo by Flickr user Mark Sanderson
You can always learn a lot about where you’re from by travelling to somewhere else. Sometimes visiting a place where the way of life is very similar to the place you are from will let you learn more about where you’re from than would visiting somewhere very different (this will make sense shortly). I experienced this second phenomenon when visiting Australia recently.
While in Sydney I noticed there is significantly less on-street parking than there is in most America cities. In the CDB, there is nearly no on-street parking where a car can linger for more than an hour or two. Thinking about this made me realize that in Japan – where I have lived and visit at least once a year – for the most part on-street parking isn’t a thing that exists. There, if you want a place to put your car, you need to either build a spot for yourself on your property or pay some one to let you leave your car on their property.
Both of these are significantly different from the United States where the default situation is that the right-most portion of the public roadway is a fine place to leave your car for as long as you’d like unless otherwise noted. As an encouragement for driving, this is massive. In this study prepared for Transportation Alternatives looking at two similar neighborhoods in New York City, showed a marked increase in driving for residents who lived in the neighborhood that had more on-street parking.
As a data point, according to a parking “census” performed by the city last year, there are 525,000 on-street parking spots in Seattle. Of these, 490,000 are free, unrestricted spaces.
I was just thinking about this. I’ve been thinking a lot about inexpensive ways to improve cycling infrastructure in Seattle and honestly the cheapest ROW could come from on street parking. Parking garages abound in Seattle and last I checked, people still have legs. Parking at Pacific Place and walking a few blocks to where you’re going should be the norm. Plus, unrelated bonus. It might start to become taboo to pull over to the side of the road, throw on your 4-way flashers and occupy a full lane of traffic whenever you please.
I had a similar experience just last week. I lived in Japan for several years, but just realized that there was almost no on-street parking while on a visit last week. Also, in order to buy and license a car, you need to show that you have a place on your property, or that is rented from someone else, to place that car. This has a side effect of seriously cutting down on the number of “junkers” that are seen around, because there is no cheap/free place to put that car. As a point of reference, even in small cities, a rented carport costs somewhere around $100 a month.
Unfortunately, taking away this kind of subsidy for drivers would be all but impossible without a serious change in the culture here…
Also in most parts of Seattle there’s no good reason to “take away the subsidy.” Within neighborhoods, the streets that have already been built are wide enough for driving and parking. These 490,000 unrestricted parking spaces are unrestricted because there are usually enough spaces for all the cars that people want to park there. Time restrictions and fees are not necessary to keep the demand lower than the supply.
I suppose you could go ahead and impose some sort of annual fee for people to park in front of their own houses on existing streets, but what would be the point? Any fee high enough to bring in significant revenue over and above administration costs would simply encourage people to put their cars in their own yards, leaving the streets empty and lots of voters angry.
It’s a massive city owned asset that is currently generating no revenue. The streets in Seattle are a mess in many places, and we need to get the money to fix them from somewhere. I think that more people would be willing to pay for street parking if they knew the money would flow back into their local area to help maintain the infrastructure.
It’s just an idea, and I’m not saying it is appropriate for all parts of the city.
In essence, you want to increase property taxes. That’s what charging for neighborhood parking would do. I guarantee that the voters would stomp the living hell out of you at the first opportunity.
I’m not completely sure that’s true. On the western slope of Capitol Hill, there’s a whole lot of streets which are over 100% capacity for most of the day (by which I mean, the number of cars parked exceeds the number of legal spots).
I agree with you that, Belmont Ave north of Olive Way (and many similar streets) is wide enough for parking and driving. I don’t agree that there’s enough supply for the demand. Seattle could easily charge $1/hr for parking on every block in that area, and there might still be some blocks without a free space.
Those 3 streets have the very last free parking anywhere near downtown. I know, because on the very rare occasions where I have to drive downtown, that’s where I park.
Now shush.
Another factor in Japan that relates to the absence of junkers in Japan is the the “Jidōsha Kensa Tōrokuseido”, which basically requires car owners to prove that their cars aren’t junkers every other year. Once the cars get to be too expensive to fix up to the standards, they are simply not allowed on the road anymore and often exported, even though by American standards they’re just fine.
I remember hearing about this as a method for boosting domestic consumption of cars in Japan, since it often becomes economical to replace the cars sooner under this system and it’s harder for car owners to defer maintenance.
Also, it’s at least $600 every two years. ;)
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-vehicle_inspection_(Japan)
Minor quibble – “unrestricted” but you are supposed to move the vehicle every 72 hours. (I’ve never seen it explained what “move” means – does 12 inches count?)
You have to move it to another block. (SMC 11.72.240 – No person shall move and repark a vehicle on either side of a street within the same block in order to avoid a parking time limit regulation specified for either side of the street in that particular block.)
(Note that SMC applies to all time restrictions, whether 2 hours, 10 hours, or 72 hours.)
Thanks for including that section of the code. I’ve always thought if I drive my car to the grocery store one evening and then park it back in the same spot, that counts.
I have kind of another issue with the 72 hour thing, I know it’s to keep junkers off the side of the road, but for me, it encourages extraneous driving. I walk to work so could leave my car parked for weeks at a time. However, the 72 hour rule often lends me to driving to places I could easily walk or bike to just because I need to move my car, and if I’m out there moving it anyway I might as well use it to drive somewhere.
I would gladly pay $100 a year or even a bit more for some sort of tag to be exempt from that rule. Although, I’ve never gotten a ticket because of it and I live in downtown Fremont, where you would think they’d pay attention.
From what I have gathered from experience, the 72 hour rule is generally only enforced if someone complains – or at least that is true where I live.
Yes, but that 72 hour rule is only enforced if someone complains. Parking enforcement is not keeping a massive database of all cars in the city and where they were last time.
That makes sense. My old roommate had a massive clunker station wagon and she would get tickets because the neighbors hated it in front of their houses.
In my part of the CD we had a problem for several years with stolen cars being dumped on our block. If they were there for more than 3 days I could be pretty sure they had been stolen and dumped. so the rule came in handy for those cases. If you know your neighbors, odds are good you know their car(s), and so don’t call them in.
My understanding and experience, though, is that on-street parking creates a better pedestrian environment by creating a buffer zone from traffic. I suppose if all traffic was going 15 MPH or less that advantage might go away, but it seems real to me.
I don’t think he is proposing to replace that parking with more traffic lanes. We could replace those parking lanes with another kind of buffer: landscaping, curb separated bike lanes, even a transit lane. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen; so pedestrian advocates stick with parking as a buffer, albeit not a very attractive one.
I would love to see more tranist lanes instead of parked cars. I just dont see a reason that you need on street parking downtown. There are plenty of garages. Downtown roadways are at a premium. Plus as people parallel park the have to block an entire lane. Just stupid to me.
But this will never happen. Just look at the fight Metro is going through to get some tranist lanes for Rapid Ride C through West Seattle.
Transit lanes work best when they’re continuously used (or when they’re simply incompatible with GP use, e.g. streetcar rails or the DSTT). Otherwise, you’ll inevitably get people asking why we have a lane sitting empty most of the time.
Consider the transit-only surface streets in Seattle:
- Parts of Aurora during peak (up to 12 buses per hour)
- 15th Ave W during peak (up to 16 buses per hour)
- 3rd Ave during peak (too many to count)
If there are others, I actually don’t know what they are.
In all of these cases, we’re talking about a lane which will have a bus at least every 4-5 minutes. And yet people *still* complain that the lanes are underused.
Do you really think we could ever get a transit lane on 15th Ave E? Or N 85th St?
On street parking narrows the travel lane, which makes drivers slow down. From what I read, a lot of neighborhood streets in Japan are very narrow by North American standards, like 16-24 ft. Which means there isn’t any space on the streets for parking and cars already drive slowly.
The streets are less narrow in newer cities, rural areas, or in suburbs. Even these places have no on-street parking.
The relevant point here (where’s d.p. when you need him?) is that street width matters.
If you have a street that’s excessively wide, then it will feel empty, and people will stay away. This is what happens in most pedestrian zones in North America.
Boston has two great examples of this phenomenon. Downtown Crossing is pedestrian-only, and it’s amazing how dead it feels, especially compared to Tremont Street just one block over.
Similarly, Newbury Street is the main shopping street in Boston. One street over is Boylston, which is not quite as busy, but still well-used. But one street over in the other direction, Commonwealth Avenue is over 200 feet wide, and much, much quieter. (Incidentally, west of Kenmore square, Comm Ave has a light rail line instead of the park, and it becomes really busy. Who would have thought?)
In North America, most streets are simply too wide to be useful as pedestrian-only corridors. You’ve got to do something with the rest of the space, and it’s got to be something that will get used, rather than just sitting empty. So either you have 4-6 lanes of traffic, or you have bike lanes (sometimes), or you have on-street parking. Bike lanes are great when they’ll get used, but many streets in Seattle are so steep that a grade-separated bike lane would just be mockery. So that often leaves parking as the “least bad” option.
@Aleks
There seems plenty you can do with excessive space though — for instance, widen the sidewalks greatly, plant trees. Then you get an attractive ped street that still offers some traffic.
[I was gonna say "put in some benches" but maybe that's not such a good idea with Seattle's massive homeless problem...]
Miles: Wide sidewalks and lots of trees is exactly what Commonwealth Avenue has. It doesn’t work. The street needs to feel busy.
I think a useful way to think of it is, what is the “speed” of the street? That is, if you look at an arbitrary object, how fast is it likely to be moving?
On the best urban streets, the average speed is just a little faster than an average person’s walking speed. There’s a lot of pedestrian traffic, some amount of vehicle traffic that isn’t moving very fast, and very little ROW that isn’t taken up by a moving object.
As you proceed in either direction, things get worse. On one extreme, you have major arterials (e.g. 15th W, Aurora) and highways, where the speed is so fast that pedestrians can’t keep up. And on the other extreme, you have quiet streets where nothing is moving at all. The few people walking are overwhelmed by the vast amount of still space. That’s perfect for a nature preserve, but it’s not going to produce a vibrant pedestrian area.
Once on a visit to Boston, I walked on that section of Comm. Ave. There is a nice walkway in the wide median; I thought it was very pleasant. It wasn’t super busy, but there were plenty of people there. Not like the hustle-bustle of other areas, but what’s wrong with that?
aw: It’s not like Comm Ave is abandoned. It’s just noticeably quieter than the other streets around it.
If you purposely want to build a street which doesn’t have hustle-and-bustle, then whatever. I just want to make the point that, if you go around turning parking lanes into sidewalks, then you’re going to end up with some exceptionally quiet streets. That’s a prescription for a sleepy small town, not a vibrant city.
Aleks, Comm Ave (where I used to live, at the corner of Fairfield, BTW) doesn’t need to be busy and active, because it has Newbury and Boylston so close by. It’s also fortunate enough to have enough pedestrian activity to keep it safe and inviting, thanks to sheer residential density and the median service as a 24/7 dog park for all of the surrounding streets.
Even in NYC/Paris/Tokyo, every single street need not be an activity generator; the great benefit of residential density is that most of your streets get to enjoy the middle ground — enough foot and vehicular through-movement to avoid feeling desolate (in the way Seattle’s low-density side streets do) without requiring all-hour hustle and bustle.
But I digress. Your main point about width and pedestrianization schemes is correct: if Comm Ave were closed entirely to traffic, or even engineered to prevent through traffic, its expansiveness would become less inviting rather than more!
On the best urban streets…there’s a lot of pedestrian traffic, some amount of vehicle traffic that isn’t moving very fast, and very little ROW that isn’t taken up by a moving object.
This.
Of course, this is why cities with forethought took their transit systems off these streets a hundred years ago, so transit could get people around at much faster speeds than the ideal surface mix would allow.
(That a 45th St Link spur isn’t being fast-tracked leaves me with little hope for this city ever “getting it.”)
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Cascadian, you’ve got a point about creating comfort zones. But if that’s the goal, is your best buffer several hundred thousand dollars worth of idle machinery per block- which also becomes part of the noise and pollution problem as soon as it’s put to use?
Wouldn’t trees, shrubs and rockeries do just as well?
And Jake, I don’t think it’s “smug” to make an effort to ensure that street space graded, structured, and paved for moving vehicles isn’t wasted by being blocked with vehicles standing still.
Fact is, these days I board jetliners as seldom as humanly possible, a policy that will continue until the experience is once again fit for humans. Recently deliberately spent a night on Greyhound to avoid flying home from California.
But on the point of elitism on the part of people objecting to parking and transit advocates in general, let me say this:
I’ve got a lot of problems with punishing people for driving automobiles when they’ve got no choice about it. And I hate automatic punishment administered for the mutual profit of local governments and private companies in places like Arizona and Texas. We fought the Battle of Glorieta Pass for a reason.
So in my book any energetic campaign against parking has got to include an equal effort to provide transit. From what I’ve seen in Europe, a streetcar lane is a lot friendlier to pedestrians than either street parking or traffic.
Mark Dublin
[ad hom]. You actually think that Seattle’s voters are going to sit still for being charged to park in front of their home.
Okay, fine. In fact, please try it out. Stick that one on the ballot. Make my day.
Jake – what you say is true. Many drivers in the United States feel they are entitled to a free place to park, free local roads to meander on, and free limited access highways on which to commute to destinations near and far at their leisure.
All they have to do is pay for the car (which we’ve easily enabled via auto loans), pay insurance and maintenance, and pay for fuel. Once they have done these things, they feel they are entitled to the rest, and if anyone tries to take away any of these things, or make them cost more, it amounts to a war on cars.
As a car owner, bike and/or transit commuter, and frequent pedestrian, I don’t feel this way. But you might, and you are not alone. Certainly there are shades of gray which describe most folk’s views. But if we are smug to think maybe the current assumptions made about public amenities to individual drivers are too great and encourage more driving, you are just as smug to put every proposal to the “would it pass a public vote” test and declare it a “blind” position.
I could go on and list a whole bunch of ideas that even you would agree are horrid that would most certainly pass at the ballot.
Like I say, please try to pass a ballot measure authorizing the city to charge people to park on the street in front of where they live. Honest to God, I want you people to do that. Please bare your teeth, so all can see. Maybe then you’ll learn.
The city already has the authority.
[comment policy whining]
“Many drivers in the United States feel they are entitled to a free place to park, free local roads to meander on, and free limited access highways on which to commute to destinations near and far at their leisure.”
Who do you think paid for the streets, roads and highways? “Non-drivers”? lol
Actually, yeah, I do. We already do just that in many neighborhoods, it’s called a Residential Parking Zone. 2 hour parking is free, long-term parking requires a purchased pass. There’s no need to put anything on the ballot, all that’s required is for the city to do a parking survey and find a shortage of spaces.
Residents generally like it, because it means they can actually find parking without circling the neighborhood. And the fees are pretty low. One neighborhood I lived in, the fee was $15 annually, and I was damn happy to pay it and get the sticker.
As far as being charged to park in front of your own home it already exists in areas that have zones neighborhood parking. You pay a fee per year to be allowed to park more than two hours in neighborhoods that have zoned parking.
Not to mention, a whole lot of people (myself included) live on metered streets!
By the way, Mark, this isn’t Europe. If you want to live in Europe, move there.
Yes, this is America, where people are entitled to their opinions.
Not so much on this blog, though!
[comment policy whining]
[comment policy whining]
Street parking is something I always struggle with. I don’t buy the argument that it is a useful “buffer” for pedestrians. Both for movement and visually it creates a barrier between the two sides of the street. Sure it’s nice when you’re near a highway like street but for most urban streets I think lack of street parking is better. 5th Ave downtown is a good example, it is a lovely street for walking because there are enough amenities and the sidewalks are proportionally nice compared the street width.
But from an efficiency standpoint on-street parking is a hell of a lot cheaper than the cost of off-street parking, and also more evenly distributed. Even further, and ideologically I’m not sure this is a good thing but it can’t be denied, publicly owned parking can be a revenue generator used for other improvements. Although presumably the city could build its own off street (underground) facilities. Of course public pressure for cheap prices usually makes this a bad Benefit-Cost idea.
On a different note: I totally know what you mean about visiting somewhere that is similar but different. I’ve been living in Portland for the last few months and although generally quite similar, there are so many weird little difference. Example: they don’t have any rules about parking near stop signs. This can be very frustrating when trying to cross a busy street on your bike.
The book “Suburban Nation” talks about built-in garages reducing the appeal of the face houses present to the street.
I don’t think this is a problem to which we can fit an umbrella solution. Neighborhoods differ, as to individual blocks. There need to be solutions for existing, especially older areas, but also rules for new development.
New development should include streets with broad sidewalks and bike lanes, greenery, and there you have your buffers. Street parking should only be used where absolutely necessary. IMO, there is no excuse not to provide garage or below-grade parking. Keep in mind, you need areas for loading and unloading, both in residential and commercial zones.
I work in Pioneer Square. First and Jackson, IMO, should NEVER have stopped vehicles on the sides. However, the underused alleys, and other side-streets are where couriers, sanitation workers, and commercial load and unload should take place. We could solve the buffer problem by using a right-lane instead of left-lane alignment for the streetcar. Bicycling is always going to be a problem in this neighborhood due to the narrow sidewalks and lack of cycling infrastructure, but that comes with the old buildings and streets.
Before everyone decides to take the most uncharitable opinion of what I’ve written (too late?), I didn’t advocate for anything.
I’ve been to both of these cities and, while I agree with the assessment regarding the CDB, and parts of Shinjuku, I think you’ll find the same thing in older, denser, and highly cramped spaces of many US cities.
There is a lot of on street parking in both Sydney and Tokyo — just not in the picture you’ve taken. ;-)
Also, I found Sydney’s public transit a bit strange — the train system really needed some work and they seem heavily reliant on buses, similar to Seattle.
Tokyo is a public transit dream — even if a visitor doesn’t speak or read a word of Japanese and is travelling alone through the country. :-)
There is very little on-street parking in Japan, and it’s not something you can generally count on. In Odaiba, I think there’s some (the name means big wide place), and I can think of a little in Yokohama. But even in these places, overnight parking is illegal everywhere from what I know.
Tokyo is a cramped city, for sure, and on the less busy residential streets there is less parking than here in Seattle. They do have a lot of on street parking that I saw when I was there though. Take a look through this flickr pool:
http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=tokyo+streets
Sydney, outside of the CBD, is full of on street parking.
Also, regarding Tokyo, I’d expect having a car there would be as big of a pain as having one in Manhattan — a bike or the trains seem like great options. :-)
Uh, which of those photos show on-street parking? I saw a couple with cars stopped on the side of the road, but nothing with permanent, leave-your-car-over-night spaces
Ok, after looking though more than 100 photos in that list, I see two with parking:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpellgen/2396234583/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25094692@N03/2548135869/
All of these spots are metered (That’s what those off-white boxes are). Even though, it’s just a couple of spots, in a couple of photos. The vast majority of streets parking on them, which is my point (not that there is zero, just that there’s so few it might as well be zero).
Everytime I have relatives come from Japan to the States for the first time the first thing they say is “these streets are huge and everyone’s car is parked on them.” My sister-in-law was shocked that we have two cars and park both of them on the street.
Sorry, I get extremely pedantic some times, look at this. The number of on-street parking spaces is shockingly small.
This again describes what I have been saying:
Even out in the sticks:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26435776@N06/2478593620/in/set-72157604967543705
Interesting, and totally true for Japan (I haven’t been to Sydney but know Tokyo well) — it is basically 100% off-street parking. But I’m not sure about generalizing from such a unique place to the U.S. Many older NE cities like New York, Washington, and Chicago have extensive on-street parking, and it doesn’t seem to hurt the pedestrian experience in those cities…on the other hand, I tend to fall into the “buffer” camp and appreciate the parked cars, plus I think they help add activity to the street, and they definitely slow down traffic.
I like street parking in that it adds some flexibility. You can use it to remove lanes in off-peak hours for traffic calming, and remove it in the peak hours to provide full capacity.
However, it should be the absolute lowest priority for land use. All-day street parking should only be there if we have extra unneeded room on the ROW, as a way to kind of bank the land for future productive use.
This is in large part due to my view that vehicle parking is 100% a private sector problem, and providing it should not be the mission of our governments.
Dere is lot free park in blare .nebraca. an mandan no. dakota. Also, marmoth no dakota No bus sorvis tho
As a Sydneysider, I think you’ve got it the wrong way round – on street parking here is pretty much the norm. People regularly park on major arterial roads (except for peak hour restrictions). There is no 72-hour time limit like Seattle, as long as your registration is up to date you can leave your car there as long as you like (I only move mine once a fortnight, because that’s how often I drive it). Parking in the CBD is time restricted, and metered (just like Seattle), but almost every CBD street has at least one lane of parking, if not two. Whenever there are any parking spaces removed, a massive uproar ensues.
Your photo is a bit misleading – It’s taken at a major bus junction and road intersection, so of course there are few cars parked in frame.
It’s true I didn’t base it on any real data. But it seemed like noticeably fewer spots per street and noticeable shorter time limits per spot.
In other words, you just made it up. Congrats. You’ve been busted.
Genius, matey. You caught me!!!!
How about this as an alternative use of space currently devoted to street parking:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/nyregion/new-york-picks-alta-to-run-bike-share-program.html?hpw
We need to distinguish between downtown, neighborhood centers, and transit corridors on the one hand; and single-family residential areas on the other hand. Business areas could certainly put the parking lanes to better use. And converting parking lanes to bus-only or streetcar-only lanes would be the cheapest way to massively improve transit. But in single-family areas we wouldn’t even know what to do with the space if we banned parking lanes. You can’t have bicycle lanes on every minor street, and no bus is ever going to travel on them. There’s also the issue of older houses and apartments built before cars were common: they don’t have on-site parking.
Does Tokyo or Japan even have single-family houses? I’ve seen cities in Europe where there doesn’t seem to be even one. Where do people park when they’re visiting a house, or there’s a house party, or Cousin Joe comes to stay with you for three months?
Yes.
In fact, 55% of the 49.6 million dwellings in Japan are detached houses.
Woah. 12.83 tatami units per person is 21 sq meters or 228 square feet per person. My office at work is nearly that large.
Northern Europe has a lot of SFH and row homes etc, if not on the same scale as the US. Southern Europe, is much more apartment based in the towns and cities.
In the UK, very few main streets have parking. Most of our cities have narrow streets that can’t function with parking and traffic or newer main roads that are designated clearways for higher speeds. Often where a road is wide enough, they have replaced parking with bus lanes. Only supermarkets and out of town shopping centres have free parking. Any residential area near a railway station is often covered by a controlled parking zone.