July 2021

The highly controversial removal of parking spaces on 30th Street in North Park to make way for cycle lanes is part of a national trend to rethink the need for vehicle parking in an effort to remake metropolitan areas for the better .

San Diego and many other cities have reduced and eliminated parking requirements that, for decades, have been mandatory for development of almost every kind. At the same time, they replaced parking spaces and vehicle lanes with more pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, open-air restaurant seating, cycle paths and, in some cases, housing.

Urban planners and other supporters of this approach have high expectations for the results: moderating climate change, facilitating lower-cost housing, improving road safety, encouraging healthier lifestyles and increasing social interaction.

Since policies to relax parking mandates are still relatively new across the country – truly in the last few years – not enough time has passed to judge their success in achieving these lofty goals. .

Michael Smolens on the San Diego fix:

Certainly, the idea that less parking will mean all of these good things to its skeptics. Just ask the business owners along 30th Street and their community customers.

“We barely survived COVID, and now that pretty much puts the nail in the coffin,” Liz Saba, owner of Presley & Co., a 30th Street jewelry store, said during a recent protest after the city painted the curbs red in advance of setting up cycle paths.

The 30th Street Protected Bikeways Mobility Project is installing bike lanes from Juniper Street to Adams Avenue. To do this, the city is getting rid of 450 curb parking spaces.

“The city has been pushing projects all over the city, trying to improve safety, and this is just a continuation of that,” Everett Hauser, program manager in the city’s transportation department, told Andrea Lopez-Villafaña of the Union-Tribune of San Diego. .

”. . . This ties in with the other major policy objective, the Climate Action Plan, which has. . . the ultimate goal of reducing our dependence on vehicle travel. (This reduces) emissions and improved bike paths are that perfect candidate, especially in a community like North Park, which is very dense and has destinations close to you.

He added that a limited number of on-street parking will still be available and an underutilized parking garage in North Park will still be available. The city plans to eventually study the economic impact of cycle paths.

Overall, San Diego has eliminated parking requirements for subdivisions within half a mile of transit lanes and reduced them elsewhere. There are no parking requirements for secondary suites, formerly known as “granny flats”, anywhere, which has caused dismay in some suburban neighborhoods.

San Diego is also considering lift parking warrants for businesses in certain regions.

This does not mean that subdivisions and businesses cannot provide parking, but that would be largely left to market forces. As elsewhere, San Diego is preparing to make parking an optional accessory, likely to cost the user directly.

Already, parking spaces are very expensive and occupy valuable real estate.

The city has estimated that parking needs add $ 40,000 to $ 90,000 to the cost of building a home, which can increase rents and mortgages.

Some city planners, like Donald Shoup at UCLA, point out that mandatory parking usually forces people to pay for it even if they aren’t using it. He adds that the so-called “free parking” – in parking lots and on city streets – simply encourages driving while depriving cities of more land use and increased tax revenues. arise.

Limiting parking and making it more expensive, for example through higher meter charges at certain times of the day, is not universally supported. Nor does the notion of limiting when and where people can drive or charging congestion charges for driving in specific areas during rush hour.

Experts say such disincentives only work if there are practical transportation alternatives. San Diego and many other cities don’t, at least not to the extent that it drastically changes the way people travel.

There is a lot of ambition for a great expansion of public transit at the municipal, state and federal levels. We won’t know how these plans unfold for years to come. Meanwhile, the age-old political battle of roads versus public transportation doesn’t seem to be going away.

What also doesn’t seem to be going away, however, is the tendency to revamp the parking strategy. Buffalo, NY, became the first city in the United States stop requiring that development projects include at least a minimum number of parking spaces, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Other cities across the country, including San Diego, have adopted similar measures.

The California legislature has grappled with parking requirements in past legislation, and more are on the way. Many policies, like the one in San Diego, do away with warrants within half a mile of transit. It doesn’t sound like much, but it can be a long walk if a bike or other alternative isn’t available or feasible.

One of the big concerns in getting people to stop using their cars has been to fill the so-called “first mile, last mile” gap that many face in getting from home to transit to their destination and back. . The same problem arises for half a mile. In San Diego, smart cars, scooters, and dockless bike rentals haven’t been the answer so far.

American car culture really exploded after WWII, with the growth of suburbs and highways. That was over half a century ago.

As government leaders and planners seek to move towards denser housing with access to nearby commercial, recreational and social spaces, the discussion tends to focus on zoning redesigns and transit solutions.

But the fate of the small parking lot can play a disproportionate role in all of this.

In 2018, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit District The board agreed to build affordable housing in its parking lots which officials said were not being used enough. It could be a sign of things to come.

Tweet of the week

Go to the San Diego Union-Tribune (@sdut), referring to a story that highlights the state of local politics.

“Republicans who want to keep just one seat on San Diego city council still need to find a candidate.”