If You Build It with Less Parking, They Will Still Come

nats.jpg 

We’re nearly a couple of weeks into baseball season, and fans of the Washington Nationals are enjoying their new transit-, bike- and pedestrian-friendly stadium. The DC complex, with its transit links, shuttle buses and valet bike parking, is so accessible — and city efforts to encourage fans to get there by alternate means so successful — that on Opening Day its relatively few parking lots weren’t even full, reports Greater Greater Washington:

Good for DC for resisting the warnings from team owners and various
commentators that the world would end unless the entire neighborhood
were converted to parking as New York did to the South Bronx. Looks like parking demand is elastic, after all.

In related news, there’s no news on whether or not there will be MTA or DASH buses to Dodger Stadium this season.  Baseball season started two weeks ago this coming Monday for the Dodgers.

Photo: ShepDave/Flickr

Story by Brad Aaron, with slight edits by Damien Newton

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

STREETSBLOG USA

Fifteen Is Serene: DC Considers 15 MPH Speed Limits

By Angie Schmitt |
Here’s what’s happening around the Streetsblog Network today: DC Considering 15 MPH Speed Limit on Residential Streets: You’ve heard of the “20’s Plenty” campaign? Well Washington DC will (possibly) do you one better. According to a report from Network blog Greater Greater Washington, the city is considering reducing the speed limit to 15 miles per […]

DC to Devote Parking Fees to Livable Streets

By Damien Newton |
  In a first for a big east coast city, Washington, DC, is putting the ideas of celebrated parking reformer Don Shoup to work. Spurred by concerns over game day traffic surges caused by the opening of a new baseball stadium, the city council recently created two performance parking pilot project zones. The most important […]

Less Parking, More Healthy Food

By Sarah Goodyear |
The other day, we looked at a supermarket in a densely populated part of New Haven that is unwelcoming to pedestrians. Today, courtesy of member blog The City Fix, we’re taking another look at urban supermarket planning, specifically the issue of how to get quality food markets built in underserved neighborhoods (so-called food deserts) — […]