US cities are starting to reform laws that required developers to provide minimum amounts of parking. But there’s more they can do to loosen the auto’s grip on downtowns.
The typical car is parked 95% of the time.
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As many cities grapple with the housing crisis, some places are rewriting regulations and finding creative ways to repurpose these hulking masses of concrete that suck up valuable real estate.
Beautiful shopping streets attract people — and that’s good for business. Images of ten reimagined local shopping streets show how they can become the beautiful hearts of their local communities.
School children walk along a quiet street in Nakano, Tokyo.
Image: Rebecca Clements
Seeing Japanese parents send toddlers out on their own to do errands has shocked viewers. But not that long ago our neighbourhoods were also child-friendly, and we can make them so again.
Roadsides have long been reserved for parking cars, but the pandemic led to many experiments with other ways of using scarce and valuable public space. We can put it to better and more flexible uses.
Many people prefer the status quo as they struggle to imagine the alternatives. The pandemic has been the catalyst for urban experiments that have opened our eyes to new possibilities.
Instead of free parking, our post-COVID CBDs need a big vision to become attractive destinations that aren’t car-friendly at the expense of being people-friendly.
What does a future full of AVs mean for all the spaces reserved for downtown parking?
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The global trend is to free up valuable city space by reducing parking and promoting other forms of transport that don’t clog roads and pollute the air. Australian cities are still putting cars first.
Taxis have traditionally competed for kerbside space in our cities, but they now have many new competitors.
Neil Sipe
Australian cities have a glut of parking, even as politicians move to protect parking spaces or promise even more. There are better ways to keep congestion manageable and our cities liveable.
With more than a million Australians using public transport to get to work each day, demand for car parking at the station is virtually insatiable.
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The Commuter Car Park Fund announced in the budget sounds big, but is likely to create only around 30,000 extra spaces – a marginal benefit for Australia’s 1.2 million daily public transport users.
Nottingham sees the benefits.
Peter James Sampson/Shutterstock.
Many US cities are investing in bike infrastructure and shade trees. Properly located, these additions can make streets cooler, cleaner and safer for all users – even those who drive.
A parking attendant strolls through a rooftop car park in Melbourne.
Jay Miller/flickr
Looking back through all Melbourne’s strategic plans from 1929 onwards, it becomes clear that the 20th-century legacy of car-centric planning and its focus on parking is still deeply entrenched.
We are told driverless cars will be much safer, because human error causes more than 90% of crashes.
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