Streetsblog Reader Interview II: Claire Bowin Talks Parking, Livable Places, Transportation Noise
Yesterday, Streetsblog published the first of a two part interview with L.A. City Planning Department’s Claire Bowin. Bowin has had her finger in a lot of pots in her tenure with Planning, working on the Bike Plan, the Mobility Element, the Housing Plan, the Cornfield Arroyo-Seco Plan, and Bike Plan Implementation.
As you’ll see below, she also has some strong feelings on car parking minimums.
Read the first part of the interview by clicking here, and the second part by reading on.
A lot of planning and development decisions hinge on parking regulations, set by the Planning Department. Critics, including UCLA’s Donald Shoup, have shown these parking minimums to be inconsistent, unhelpful, and biased toward suburban auto-centric development. What’s in store for the future of parking in Los Angeles?
Ah, parking, one of my favorite topics. If you build it they will come- this has certainly been true with parking and cars. Communities, fearful of density and an influx of people and cars, are often the first to demand more parking- not realizing, of course, the self- fulfilling prophecy they’ve put in motion. But, now that we’ve got all these cars and parking lots how can we wean people off of them? Read more…











