San Diego, 741 F Street, demolition continues on this historic warehouse to make room for surface parking. Until recently, the building was being used by International Male and Braun Clothing. It was a key component of the low key retail district “Behind the Post Office” (name of several alternative clothing stores that occupied the neighborhood in the nineties) around F St. and 8th through 7th Avenues.

The demolished building is one of several downtown buildings owned by the late Morris Slayen, who attractively remodeled warehouse and other historic properties downtown as office and retail. He was not only a pioneer of downtown redevelopment but also a pioneer of co-workings spaces, creating such notable co-working incubator office spaces as the Carriage Works in the Gaslamp Quarter. His heirs have shown little regard for their father’s building legacy. Moreover, the demolition was approved in a faulty process in which the City ignored several key requirements in removing the historic designation, notifying the public, and allowing a parking lot to take the place of the buildings. The demolition as spawned a Petition Against Demolition for Parking Lots in San Diego. 

urbdezine, 18.03.13.

oh, san diego. sunny yet so sad.

The social costs of driving that are not paid by the driver amount to a $300 billion subsidy each year. The EPA (Lowe, 1988) found that if employees were directly handed this subsidy, transit and bicycle use would go up and auto traffic would go down by 25 percent. A Seattle study found that society pays a $792 subsidy to each motorist each year (excluding a $1,920 annual free parking subsidy). In New York City, the metro area loses $55 billion each year in hidden auto costs associated with safety and environmental damage. More than 90 percent of all commuters park for free at work.

…Dispersed, auto-dependent development in Loudoun County, Virginia, is a net loss to the tax base of $700 to $2,200 per dwelling unit. In San Jose, California, planners determined that such development would create annual deficits of $4.5 million compared to a $2 million surplus if future development is compact.

nozziwalkablestreets, 05.03.13.

next time you’re reading the comments on a news article and some ignorant biased guy caps locks saying bicyclists should pay for the road, get licenses, etc, point them to this article.

“Most people in transportation focus on the five percent of the time that cars are moving. But the average car is parked 95 percent of the time. I think there’s a lot to learn from that 95 percent.” Donald Shoup when asked why he studies parking.

…So what?

First, I have confirmed that Shoup’s estimate of 95% does seem widely applicable. Across the world cars seem to be parked at least 92% of the time and typically about 96% of the time, according to the 1995 data mentioned above. I doubt more up to date or accurate data sets would change this number much. 

But why should we care?

One reason to talk about this is to highlight the importance of parking. It is what cars do the vast majority of the time.

It highlights a crucial inefficiency of mass private car ownership. It points towards huge parking space savings (an enormous land bank) that shifts away from mass car ownership might open up, if only we could massively improve the alternatives including making car-sharing and other ‘metered access to shared cars’ (MASC) more of a mass market phenomenon.

read more: reinventingparking, 22.02.13.

we need more carshare and rideshare. (in addition to changes in parking policy, transportation policy, etc..)