Parking

Back east, NYC Streetsblog loves UCLA Professor and "Parking Rock Star" Donald Shoup.  Shoup is best known for advancing the theory that there is a high cost to a community of undercharging for public parking.  While LA Streetsblog would certainly count ourselves as fans of the professor and his work; I've always found it ironic that the LA based professor gets so much more play from advocates on the east coast than on the west coast.

Photo from Last Year's Parking Day by Matthew Loranger  via the Trust for Public Land

When a coalition of public interest groups including Transportation Alternatives released the "Suburbanizing the City" report last month, we learned that, following current New York City parking policies, the construction of new off-street spaces is projected to result in over a billion additional miles driven per year by 2030. Startling as it was, this statistic crystallized what many livable streets advocates already accept as conventional wisdom: more parking equals more driving.

The following letter will be faxed to all the members of the City Council Transportation Committee.  The letter is a compilation of reader comments to an article asking for people’s opinions whether or not the city should set aside dedicated parking for car sharing programs.

 

Three weeks ago, I announced a new Streetsblog feature where "every Friday" we'd examine a particularly bike-unfriendly place to visit. The idea was to show how far we have to go to have the Los Angeles that we all want and that's it's not all a political problem.  Many places in Los Angeles can actively discourage bicyclists from visiting by doing the little things wrong, such as not having bike parking or just being rude to people with helmets. While I asked for submissions, I also promised that I would write the first one up on my own. However, if there's a place you would like to receive the same treatment, please email me at damien@streetsblog.org. If you have pictures to support your story, all the better.

Today we're launching a new feature on Streetsblog -- Wiki Wednesdays -- where we'll highlight new content coming online at StreetsWiki, the community-created livable streets knowledge base.