I follow closely the various comments from the public - both on the street and in this blog - about perceptions of parking issues, especially in the West Ward. In order to succeed in the battle to stop Riverwalk's over scaled and misplaced parking deck I was required to immerse myself in the vagaries of parking management theory. As mundane/arcane as this may sound, a whole world of unknown urban planning philosophy emerged from that study that proved to be something of a civic epiphany for me. I only hope that I can transfer the essence of what I learned to the powers-that-be in Easton for it
will be a forgone conclusion in my view that the future of America will not be about cars and parking.
As this relates to Easton, I have provided a link here to a planning blog post from the Planetizen website. In this case the blogger is speaking about Hoboken NJ...a place with real parking problems. I'd like you to take a look at it. It is rather long and includes some terminology you may not be familiar with, but I'd be glad to answer any questions and explain any processes that are mentioned. I think it would give a good perspective about how parking "needs" are relative not only to location but civic goals while also exposing you to recent theory guiding today's urban planner regarding parking management vis-s-vis pedestrian friendly cities. If nothing else it will make you feel better that you don't have to deal with the extremities of Hoboken's issues in Easton.
Do you see anything in this article that hits a nerve or switches a light bulb on over your head? If so, please let me know what you think about it.
DRL
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11 comments:
2 things jump out at me from that article: parking permits and structured parking. there are too many cars for the available space here in the WW (or, the available space is not near the cars). so, you can either limit the amount of cars or increase the amount of parking.
in my neighborhood, there are crowded streets (thats what you get w/ 3-5 drivers in an apartment)but WAY underutilized space (the old circle system parking lot, the Concordia Manecor lot, and the Armory lot)all of these could be developed into lots that permits could be issued for.
thats whats done downtown; the lot at 126 Bushkill (Genesis/Prudential lot) does. it's a private lot that you can rent spots in.
Dennis and I have commented about one thing that could immediately help alleviate parking; getting people to learn HOW to park!I still don't 'get' how someone will park in the middle of TWO spots when they KNOW how bad parking is on the block!
EHB
I heard an interesting excuse for the practice that EHB mentions of parking in the middle of two spots--a lot of newer cars are made without true bumpers, so people in general are getting more nervous about having their car "packed-in" because they're afraid that other irresponsible drivers will not maneuver out of their spots carefully and will dent their cars. For the same reason, they don't want to park close to a corner. One one hand, this is yet another example of the almighty car being more important than anything else--including civics--to some people, but on the other hand, people are just afraid of the expense and headache of paying for damage and dealing with insurance companies.
The main things I would like to see residents focus on regarding the parking issue are: 1. writing state and local officials to urge them to bring passenger rail to the Lehigh Valley, and 2. urge local officials to aggressively market de-conversion incentives to investors at every turn to bring down the density that has accumulated over the decades because the city has allowed so many conversions of single family homes and storefronts into multi-family rentals.
I would also like to echo what Dennis is saying here about "real" parking problems. I have never had to look for more than a few minutes for a parking space in Easton, even in the West Ward at night, so anyone who has never spent 30-60 minutes in NJ or NYC looking for a parking space doesn't know just how bad it can get. A real parking problem does not mean not getting to park in your favorite spot right in front of your house on a public street each day. A real parking problem is not being able to find parking within five blocks of where you live.
It CAN get worse, so as residents we need to keep emphasizing to City Council the need, over and over again, to aggressively MARKET de-conversion incentives to bring down our rental density here. It is not enough to just have incentives on the books. This will also help with garbage issues in the WW.
Land lords are know getting money to weatherize there property.So I think the rental stock will most likely not go down to fast. Just a thought.
EHB...Limiting cars to the available space is so clearly of the essence in an urban environment that it should be automatic, of course you get immediate push back from those who would say you are limiting their "freedom". Freedom to do what? Freedom to consume Detroit sheet metal at unlimited quantities or freedom to monopolize the public thouroughfares with the storage of private property?
If you emptied the contents of your living room into the street in front of your house and left it there for a week, your neighbors would have little reluctance to let you know about it asap. Why do we feel our privately owned vehicles are any different. As you say, the idea of shared parking (and another idea from the story: car sharing) should be instituted in the private lots that sit empty all day or on weekends.
We - as a society - must get over our childish preoccupation with the car. It is just a way to get around. It is a valuable tool when we use it properly. When it controls us, as is now does in almost every way, we all suffer for it.
DRL
Noel,
I'm really not buying the bumper defense. Seems to me that bad parking is another symptom of what most people are afraid to admit...that we have become a very stupid and lazy society where two ideas dominate:
1) When you wish upon a star your dreams come true (Lotteries, Las Vegas vacations).
2) I can get something for nothing (Home Depot discounted materials and zero building skills equal quality built, well designed projects).
These attitudes must change as we slide down the back side of the oil scarcity curve and people realize how many things they can't do well themselves without cheap energy and that skilled trades matter again.
As for parking, the city of Easton can become a great place to live again if we aren't afraid to abandon the nonsense that drive other places to failure: insistance on bribing businesses to relocate, short term corporate tax breaks that don't produce permanent jobs and rejecting the attitude that parking surpluses make a downtown more attractive to shoppers.
If we have the balls to take this seemingly counter-intuitive stance on many issues we will not lose the putative new residents and businesses we seek but will instead attract those who want to live in the type of sustainable community we provide. People are self-sorting...we will get those that we choose to attract.
DRL
CelticWarrior...I wonder how many landlords (or people in general) we will attract to this program. I think they want to do 200 properties but I'm very skeptical that many who could take advantage will be exposed to the opportunity based on what seems to me at least to be the WWNP's limited ability to market their programs. I hope I'm wrong. Maybe someone knows the response rate they've received so far.
On the parking issue as it relates to rentals; you are right that now is not the time to expect a reversal of the rental/owner ratio. The mortgage/housing mess has created a whole new realm of renters who have either lost their homes through forclosure or are choosing strategic default - walking away from home loans in good standing because the property values have decreased below the mortgage amounts...why keep paying on a losing bet?
Renting may need to be re-evaluated as a much more neccesary component of typical daily life. We will have to be very creative and vigilant to keep this situation from decimating the neighborhoods.
DRL
We need our storefronts back, period. I cannot see how we can have a sustainable, walkable neighborhood economy without de-converting those storefronts that generations of administrations in this town have allowed investors to convert into multi-family rentals, erasing a potential entrepreneurial locations from existence and adding more population density (and therefore, more cars) to our blocks.
Regardless of whether or not there are bound to be more renters in America soon, we need to aggressively market de-conversion incentives--especially for former storefronts. It is not enough to have the incentives on the books and say the incentives don't work. The City should be pushing them and creating more wherever possible to relieve density in our neighborhood. I'm glad to see that one of the new green rehab projects that the Redevelopment Authority is is fixing up will be a de-conversion. Best news in a long time.
As for the dependency on cars, I lived my first 6 months in Easton without a car at all--it's that walkable (and I got a lot more exercise then!). Then we finally broke down and got one car, and that has done just fine for us as a couple. We don't need the "freedom" of not having to coordinate with each other when one of us uses the car--it's not a big deal.
I think that it is a challenge though, for couples where both are working, and having to commute. If one spouse's job is not immediately off a bus route, there is no getting around needing two cars. If we get the train back though, couples may be able to get rid of the expense and headache of having two cars and streamline back to just one. I think a lot of couples would welcome effective mass transit as a means of getting out of maintenance, insurance and gas on a second vehicle.
Ah, parking, the sacred cow in America!
I didn't really have a car until I was 40. After high school, I had chosen to live only in places where having a car was worse than not having one, like Manhattan, London, a village in Wales with high-speed trains to London, and a large city in Australia with superb light rail service.
But then I moved to the Lehigh Valley (downtown Easton) where living without a car is probably worse than being dead - most 'real' human amenties and essentials are beyond reach without a car, given the pathetic state of public transportation here.
Now that the United States has finally become, by design, dependent on at least one car per person, cities really go against the plan. So long as cities like Easton stayed vacant and undesirable, say from the 1970s to recently, no problem.
But all of a sudden people now seem to want to reinhabit, or at least haunt for bars, restaurants, theatres, etc., the ghosts of cities-past.
Of course they insist on bringing their many cars with them when they do so, and demand to park them on public streets at their doorstep, not an inch beyond. Funny that at a mall they'll walk for blocks to get to the entrance far away in a sea of cars. But at least they won't get a parking ticket, like they would shopping in downtown Easton when they enjoy it so much they forget to feed a parking meter!
Accommodating a car, by superimposing a suburban (moonscape) footprint onto an urban streetscape, only destroys what makes a city an urban environment, unless vast car-storage caverns are built beneath the existing buildings (not likely).
Quite the design challenge to reverse sixty years of federal initiatives to get everybody into a car and keep them there.
Possibly not able to be solved, since most Americans with the power to solve the problem are happy living their suburban lives and don't perceive a problem, except temporarily when stuck in traffic avoiding a life in cities.
the neighborhood storefront is a nice fuzzy feeling idea, but I wonder how beneficial it truly is. the sucessfull ones I can think of are the A-Z store on S 9th is it? there's a crappy little store across from the bakery. there's a little storefront on bushkill and 9th that tries to make a go of it; it's a ice cream shop right now.
too many of these places have drug dealers and thugs hanging out in front of them. a few generations ago a kid could go to the store for his mom to pick something up but no more, it's not safe.
the stores disappeared for a reason; not because they got converted into apartments, but because they were not able to make any money.
peoples habits have changed and the missing storefronts is directly related to the car. same reason passenger train use fell off. and the car is such a necessary component of American (and the world) society that you can't just make it go away; it won't go away. you can't 'force' a society to change, they will rebel. especially in a country where everyone values their so-called "freedom", things will have to evolve.
I am posting a copy of a reader's comments from another post here:
David Caines said...
Hi all,
This is going to be a bit off point, but I felt it fair to post it anyway.
The community policing thing and some local changes-
We had the EPD by last night as the result of a loud angry argument over a "Stolen" parking space. They came pretty quickly considering the weather and thankfully a peaceful silence followed thier exit. At least for a few moments before we had to call them back. As always I waived as they left, oddly they waved back. On thier return, the nieghbors had broken apart and quiet came with it. Our nieghbors have come to know what it means when I'm on the front porch with phone in hand (It means that I'm on the phone with the dispatcher and that EPD are comming). With the trouble makers off quietly grumbling EPD gave a last slow drive by, I waved, they stopped, we chatted, shared a joke and I went back inside and back to sleep. I assume this means that Lt. Remally's(probably misspelled sorry) community policing hints are taking hold. We've long been grateful that EPD is a quick and efficient force, but yeah, friendly is also nice.
A great number of posts have appeared on this blog noting that EPD don't "engage" with we "Locals", well they did this time. And yeah, It's nice to feel as though our local police are more engaged in the nieghborhood. What this spells for the future? I don't know. One other positive change, the nieghbor who was at one point a focus of our calls to EPD was out on her porch last night phone in hand telling our rowdy's that the police were on the way. Ahh..change, but it seems like good change.
I liked that article on Hoboken.
Maybe we need to rethink our policies on conversions. It seems that parking problems may reflect a successful urban environment. Laws of supply and demand will create more parking areas. Our policies on conversions should be related to requiring significant investment in affected properties, For ex. Don't permit conversion of storefronts by simply allowing exterior plywood to cover the showwindows. Make the owners do a complete conversion and take out thewindows and return the building to its former design
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