Comments on: Parking Reformer Lowenthal Continues to Get Attacked in the Press. Let’s Help Him Out

By: beany

beany — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:25:34 +0000

I'm a little late to this complaint-fest, but I will be sending this article on why all that parking is not awesome. I don't live in a city that looks like it was bombed in a war.

By: Zane Selvans

Zane Selvans — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:18:01 +0000

Does anybody happen to know what the corresponding bill is in the state assembly? I’d like to call my assemblymember and ask them to support it.

I love that the very first, and also the simplest option on the list, worth 20 points all by itself, is simply to remove all parking requirements, and let the developers, the drivers (and non-drivers), and the market decide how much parking should be provisioned. I don’t really understand what strong arguments there are against that approach. Developers don’t want to provide as much parking as they have to now. Employers don’t want to provide as much parking as they have to now. Drivers only want as much parking as we’ve got now, because they don’t realize how expensive it is. In rural and unmanageably sprawly areas (like where I grew up… east of Fresno), which are not served by transit, and not walkable/bikeable by design, land prices will be generally lower, and providing parking generally cheaper, and demand for parking generally higher, so they’ll probably still end up with lots of parking. Somewhere like Pasadena (where I live now) will come to a very different equilibrium.

By: Katie

Katie — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:12:17 +0000

I agree with in concepts with the ideas introduced SB 518, but If you take a look at the list of incentives in the bill (and yes, I have read them), you’ll see that they’re primarily aimed at dense, urban communities with significant transit service.

That’s great, but what about all the rest of California?

Before I can wholeheartedly support a bill that sets parking policy at a statewide level, I’d like to see more thought given to the types of incentives that work outside of cities. Also, it can’t hurt to bring back the incentives for walkable community design–those seem to have disappeared from the list.

By: ubrayj02

ubrayj02 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:17:35 +0000

I didn’t spend any time reading the bill before posting about it in another thread – guilty as charged. Being as out of it as I am makes for poor discourse. I am sure that Washingtonian is in the same straits.

By: JW

JW — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:51:55 +0000

By the way, as your comments revolve around refuting the harm green house gases cause (I guess roses flow from the tailpipes of cars idling on the 405), Europe, and mass transit….you haven’t even spent 3 minutes to read what is actually being proposed in this bill.

Am I correct?

By: JW

JW — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:43:10 +0000

Ah, so it’s “the culture” and/or a “love it or leave it response.”

Both of which fail to recognize that the only constant in humanity is the rise and fall of cultures. How many cities or countries are really the same over 50-100 years?

If you want to continue the strip mall, cul de sac future you so lovingly embrace, why isn’t it you that’s being asked to move to Las Vegas?

LA used to be hundreds of small towns, orange farms, vineyards, all that cute stuff. It’s not anymore, and it’s not going back.

By: Washingtonian

Washingtonian — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:33:11 +0000

I don’t think that Europe has high density because it doesn’t have parking. It’s more culture, differences in preception of personal space and could be a measure of the liberty members of the society experience.

I take it the point is to force high densities? If people want high densities, they would live in New York or Chicago.

By: JW

JW — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:35:09 +0000

“There just aren’t the European densities in SoCal for mass transit (gov or private) to be effective.”

….and there never will be with minimum parking requirements.

That’s, um, kind of the point.

By: Washingtonian

Washingtonian — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:19:27 +0000

Greenhouse gasses, are you guys still stuck on that? It’s been proven that CO2 has nothing to do with warming & if you are really concerned you would maintain your forests so they don’t burn. The forest fires you have every year release more CO2 than all human activity in the state for years. You need to build more nuke plants (it would reduce your “carbon footprint”) and not suck out all our power.

There just aren’t the European densities in SoCal for mass transit (gov or private) to be effective.

By: Erik G.

Erik G. — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:59:19 +0000

Above I wrote “lack of innovative public transportation planning” when in fact I should have said “lack of coordinated public transportation policy”. All day express-bus services from/to the region’s nodes would be an easy start!

By: Erik G.

Erik G. — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:50:21 +0000

Only in Car-addicted, Oil-reality-challenged Southern California, where the idea of reducing SOV use is stuck in a 1950′s Twilight Zone, due primarily to the lack of innovative public transportation planning, is an idea like Lowenthals being scoffed at.

L.A. better hope that the rest of the world doesn’t wake up to how incapable we seem to be in accepting the changes to public policy like this one that are occurring around the world. They might stop supporting our economy.

By: Dana Gabbard

Dana Gabbard — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:33:02 +0000

SO.CA.TA plans to discuss the bill at our meeting on Saturday the 13th. If we endorse it we can submit letters to the Assembly Committee that takes it up, which could always be helpful when the Consultants do their analysis.

You can read the text of the bill and related materials via the online database leginfo, searching SB 518. There is even an option to subscribe to updates to track the bill as it navigates the legislative process, with updates about revisions, hearings, etc. sent via e-mail.

http://leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html

Good luck to everyone on their letters!