Are Parking Lots Ruining Your City?

You all are going to love this one. I promise.

"this is one of the most valulable pieces of land in the city due to its location, so they thought it'd be a great place for a parking lot" 💀

I'm a local elected official, and strong towns/not just bikes has truly woken me up to the importance of walkable, human-friendly downtown spaces. I'm so excited to see more guidance on how to make these spaces a reality in the US, and while I think my town does OK in terms of accessibility, I can't express my gratitude enough and hope I can use this information to help make my borough yet another example of a place that is designed for people to live! ❤️

Always blows my mind when people outside of a city who do not pay taxes to the city DEMAND residents who pay taxes to pay for infrastracture whose primary purpose is to accomodate free loaders who travel into the city

Imagine how many great places could exist if we simply remove parking minimums.

"Park once" . . . keep that message. Keep that idea. A lot of people are so used to driving everywhere individually. But a walkable city is where you only have to drive in once. Doesn't mean that parking is difficult. It just means that you can do everything by parking once, rather than having to drive to every single business you want to visit individually. Since the city isn't spaced out by parking lots everywhere you go, businesses can be close enough together that you can realistically walk to all of them.

This is absolutely correct. I once wanted to open up a skatepark in an older warehouse. It required a zone change to be a recreational facility. All the requirements were easy to meet except one thing, meeting the parking requirements. They required 30 some parking spaces and at least 3 handicap spots. That wasn't even possible with the space available. It was a warehouse and designed for loading and unloading trucks and that was about it. Even though there was plenty of street parking and a neighborhood nearby I still needed a parking lot. So I couldn't do it and the space never got updated until many years later when the warehouse got leveled and apartments were put there with underground parking.

I love your positive tone. It's a balm against the jadedness and despair that I and many other urbanists have about the state of our cities.

Are parking lots ruining our cities and towns? YES.

Fayettevillian here! I'm so proud we're making this progress! This is my hood that you're featuring here. I live right downtown, and yes, it is a super cool place to live, but we still need to work on getting better walking and bike infrastructure on the South side of town, which is where more poor people live, but I'm working on it! Thanks again for featuring my hometown!

"People like the big ideas ... public transit, affordable housing, but they are very uncomfortable with the specific strategies and decisions it takes to actually achieve those goals." Saying the quiet parts out loud here. This is kind of in my backyard, as my Mom lives nearby. She's definitely one of the people being addressed with this statement, though, I'm sorry to say. My personal experience is that, even in the heart of Fayetteville, the only remotely city-like area in the whole region, there is still an overabundance of parking, and stroads cordon off whatever little urbanity there is. People visiting the old post office plaza area can't be bothered to park in the parking lot just around the corner, they feel entitled to park right in front of their specific destination. The street parking is a bit oversupplied, as we've only parked in that lot like once. They sometimes close that area to vehicular traffic, for events. It's obviously a nicer place without all the vehicles trolling for convenient parking spots. I don't mean to be too hard to Fayetteville, as it's got some things going on that other places here could only hope for. There is a nucleus of urban form left in there, and it seems there are residents who see that as something aspirational.

Former mayor Sarah Marsh’s statement about having to move your car every time you go to a different shop really resonates with me. I can stand having to do that! Fantastic video!

This video came out in perfect timing. Gainesville FL cracked down hard on their downtown parking and people came out to protest.

Thank you for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed this case study of Fayetteville's progress! What are some victories happening in your community?

Ireland has an issue with car-centric planning, like too many other countries. So glad to see the rising urbanism movement

As a resident of Texarkana, I'm so glad its problems were showcased in this video. After a trip to the Uk, I fell in love with the 'walkable city' and couldn't help but notice how inhospitable towns here in the Us are to that ideal. I'll be moving out of state soon because like many before me, I've realized there's nothing here in the way of opportunity.

Love seeing that Strong Towns is making their own videos now. I learned about you guys from Not Just Bikes, the guy who opened my eyes to what life could be like. I have become obnoxious with my advocacy for walkability and it has only gotten worse now that I live on a very walkable college campus and have had direct experience with how nice it is being able to walk ten minutes to the grocery store. I have walked to the grocery store just to buy a single donut. I never did that back home when I had access to a car, I would just sit around and whine about how much I wanted a donut but couldn't be bothered to go get one (despite the fact that the drive to the grocery store was only ten minutes; it just felt like such a hassle to deal with the car, traffic, and parking). I have also learned just how convenient it is having a bus that comes by every 15 minutes. Better then being stranded in an area for an hour (on the weekend at that) because you missed the last bus and now you have to wait for it (the only bus on a very long route) to do a full lap and come back to get you. I'm going to miss this area when I graduate and have to move back home. And I'll have to move back home, walkable college towns are expensive to live in because a lot of people also want to live there (and a lot have to live there, of course).

Yes. Walk around your city. So many people to run into and places to discover. Get lost intentionally...say hi to the local businesses.

9:56 What Sarah Marsh says about down town(s) being a "park once" district reminds me of my parents. They do this all the time and it's always annoyed me. While in recent years my dad can be excused due to decreasing mobility from an old injury, that hasn't always been the case. I remember, years ago, getting in the car so we can move it across a main road, from one part of the same carpark to another on the other side of a shopping centre, from one street in a vacation town to another (a few hundred metres apart!), from a motel to a side street slightly closer to a cafe, I think more than once the car has been moved so the air-con could be used because "it was too hot to walk", etc., etc. I think I was a teenager when during a particularly egregious example I first asked, "Why don't we just walk?" I got a sheepish response along lines of that we probably should, but <blank>. Whatever the excuse was it wasn't worth remembering. I think a further point about public transit can be made here. No city centre is too small for a tram/streetcar so that people can park nearby and get everywhere. I know this is borderline impossible in the US for political reasons.

America’s zoning is absolutely ridiculous. Especially Single-family home zoning.