Amsterdam’s Removing 10,000 Parking Spaces is a short film about the Dutch city’s plan to do just that (link from Peter Bihr’s Connection Problem newsletter).
One of the things that we miss when we talk about the migration from internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles is that, especially as long as we retain the private-ownership model, the need for parking remains.
It would be political suicide for a city councillor in Charlottetown to even hint at the notion of reducing parking; I’m not sure what the bridge to such thinking is.
But what a wonderful world it would be.
Comments
Peter
Does or will Amsterdam limited the number of cars, trucks etc in the city? I think increased public transportation and government encouragement/support of the use of bicycles would be a great start for Charlottetown
The bridge is to eliminate the requirement to keep building MORE parking spaces. Down with minimum parking requirements on new developments.
This is one issue on which Mr. Banks and I are in agreement: we need to decouple development and parking.
Looking at an aerial photo of my neighbourhood from 1968, I see that there was a parking lot in front of the Coles Building:
Would anyone argue that we should take what’s there now – green space that’s a vital park of Queen’s Square – and turn it back to parking?
So we’ve moved in the right direction before.
For reference:
1 - The Many Costs of Too Much Parking https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/11/20/the-many-costs-of-too-muc...
2 - Parking Minimums Must Die
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/11/20/parking-minimums-must-die
3 - Why Parking Minimums Almost Destroyed My Hometown and How We Repealed Them
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/11/22/how-parking-minimums-almo...