From the Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"A paradigm shift. . . is occurring in transportation planning. The old paradigm relied primarily on supply-oriented solutions. . . It assumed that parking problems should generally be solved by increasing parking supply, usually by raising the minimum parking requirements for new development. From this perspective, parking demand is an unchangeable force that must be satisfied. . .
The new paradigm places more emphasis on management solutions. . . It recognizes the need to provide adequate parking, but values strategies which result in more efficient use of parking resources and reduce the amount of parking needed in a particular location. From this perceptive, too much parking supply is as harmful as too little. With this approach, parking demand can often be managed in ways that reduce costs. . . ."
To some degree we have to build the world we want to live in. Attempting to provided 1.5 off street residential parking spaces for every car in Brisbane is not the answer. Austerity is the new road that lays ahead of us. Learning to do more with less, use our space and resources to the best advantages and to accept that we cannot have it all and that no street, home or person is ideal.
Although this proposal has the most noble of intentions, new construction is so limited, that it can little positive effect. What is can do is beleaguer those who build homes and destroy precious open space and disrupt ecology.
What does parking cost us?
Dark roof tops and asphalt paved parking alters the Earths albedo or the amount of light the earth reflects and contribute to the heat island effect. Asphalt contains heavy metals which should be of particular concern to us since Brisbane has so much ground water. It reduces the space available for plants and other living things as well as the space available for housing. Unless expensive permeable surfaces are used, it creates problems with run off. All of these things take away from some where else or someone else. There is no such thing as free parking.
I wasnt able to track down the carbon foot print of building a garage but I did find some data. Building a small 2 bedroom home costs about 80 tonnes of CO2. Our home is approximately 950 sqft and has 2 bedrooms. 80 tonnes / 950 sqft = 168 lbs of carbon dioxide per square foot. I reduced this by 21% (the amount assigned in the article read to plumbing, fixtures, flooring, etc.) = 133 lbs of carbon dioxide per square foot. A two car garage could then have a carbon foot print of roughly 53 thousand pounds or 26.5 tonnes. This says nothing about toxicity, deforestation or any of the other issues associated with the built environment. It makes sense to spend resources to improve housing for people, it dosnt make sense to spend resources to house cars.
From a purely money aspect "Current parking practices are comparable to about a 10% tax on development, and much more for lower priced housing in areas with high land costs."-Todd Litman
What could we better do with our resources?
The loss of open space is of particular concern in Brisbane since we are already facing a localized housing shortage.
More specifically, using the purposed city of Brisbane building codes, a 2,750 sqft home with three bedrooms will be required to include 5 parking spaces. 5 parking spaces at 200 sqft each = 1000 sqft of parking to 2750 sqft of living space. Cars should not occupy 27% of a new home. A cars should not occupy slightly 1/3 the space that is allotted to 4 people for living, sleeping, eating, bathing and relaxation.
Ultimately, what do we want to do with our land? House cars or house people? Store cars of preserve open space?
According to Todd Litman of the Victoria Transit Policy Institute, "Current practices of requiring generous. . . residential parking contradict society’s goals to provide affordable housing, reduce environmental impacts, conserve resources and develop a more efficient and diverse transportation system." Mr. Litman's study mostly refers to the large parking lots attached to apartment buildings, but his statements still holds true. There is such a thing as over doing it.
Are there better alternatives to building more garages?
YES!
- Public Transportation
- Brisbane needs new businesses. How about a car share like Zip Cars?*
- Ordinance requiring a permit to park on the street. Number cars minus the number of off street parking spaces = number of free permits. Each additional permit costs $$$ per year.
- Local car storage spaces for lease.
- Greater police enforcement of the 72 hour limit.
- Better bike lanes.
- Local carpool/car share network
- More local services reducing the need for people to drive
- Sponsor a clean out your garage day
*"Carsharing (vehicle rental services designed to substitute for private vehicle ownership) tends to reduce vehicle ownership and parking demand (Filosa, 2006). Cervero and Tsai (2003) found that when people join a San Francisco car sharing organization, nearly 30% reduce their household vehicle ownership and two-thirds avoided purchasing another car, indicating that each car share vehicle in that program substitutes for 5-10 private vehicles." -from Victoria Transit Policy Institute Study.
What should our goals be? How do we want things to change?
In looking at 13 past emails on Brisnet pertaining to parking, 1 called for a public parking lot for boats, RVS etc to get them out of residential areas, 5 complained about the lack of parking down town, 2 complained about the loss of street parking during the re-striping, 1 said there is no problem and 4 complained about the lack of enforcement. If we use this metric, then the most pressing parking issue is in the commercial areas and the lack of general enforcement. Enforcement, designating a place for public storage of vehicles and car sharing are all solutions that could be implemented much faster and more broadly than altering building stock.
What is the basis for residential parking requirements being so high? Why are the number of assumed occupants so high?
These high numbers are in part bases on the assumption that due to the economic down turn and large number of children returning home, more and more homes will house extended families. According to the 2006-2010 American Community Survey, 6.4% of households contain an adult child living with his or her parents. Even if this number was to double to 12.8% this will reduce the average number of cars per household since rate of car ownership does not rise as quickly as the number of occupants. Using the bar graph provided by the 2006-2010 American Community Survey, if a 3 person household becomes a 4 person household the rate of car ownership actually drops rather than raises as adults pool their resources.
For the last 30 years, the rate of young persons getting drivers licenses has been steadily dropping nation wide. It has dropped from 92% to 77% between 1978 and 2008. If a person isnt licensed to drive a car, then they are unlikely to own a car. Only about three out of four potential boomerang children will be licensed to drive and even fewer will own cars and bring them home so it is unlikely that boomerang children will have a large impact on parking. Perhaps they will even improve the parking situation by taking the cars off the street and driving them elsewhere.
I couldnt find any data on the rate of car ownership among senior citizens, what ages or the rates of elderly parents moving in with adult children. However if it follows the general trend of fewer cars with increasing household size, then we can expect that this shift could actually lower the rate of car ownership as adults share cars within the household and senior citizens age beyond their driving years.
Use of bedrooms to house 1-2 people: Given the character of Brisbane with its strong artists community it is safe to surmise that the rate of bedrooms being used as accessory rooms is rather high. I feel that we all can be certain that the use of bedrooms as bedrooms is not 100%. Choosing to presume that there are 5 people between the ages of 16-80 with drivers licenses in a 4 bedroom home is an extreme case and not what we should plan for. Instead we should expect that the number of unused bedrooms might counter balance the number of bedroom with two drivers.
Why have car ownership rates risen within Brisbane?
This is simple. The median income of Brisbane is in the top 10% and home ownership is at 67% but Brisbane lacks any reasonable public transportation options. One of my good friends chose to live in Hunters Point rather than buy a home here in Brisbane ~because~ of the lack of public transportation. 17.34.010 E states one of the purposes of the chapter as being "To minimize dependence on automobile travel by encouraging transportation alternative in project design where appropriate." In Mr. Litman's study from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, he indicates that increasing parking increases the desirability of car ownership and that goes against this chapter. In the current climate of limited resources, we much decided which side of the scales to press down upon. The side that elevates the car or the side that rejects cars? In San Francisco just over the mountain 30% of households do not own cars.
The price of gasoline and economic status are both better predictor of the number of cars a household will own than the number of bedrooms or the number of people in the household. I understand it is unreasonable to tie building codes to the variable price of gasoline or the fluctuating economic climate, however I think we can all be certain the price of gas is going to continue to rise over the next decades. We should therefore expect the rates of car ownership to fall just as we have seen with the rate of new licenses among young adults.
Tulare St. Case Study
Garages in current stock of housing
Current rate of garages to homes on Tulare st. 56 units / 80 garages or an average of 1.42 garages per unit. The survey says Brisbane has an average of 2.31 bedrooms per home (129 bedrooms total). If we assume this holds true on Tulare St. that would be an average of 0.6 garage space per bedroom which I agree is too low.
New construction.
The new standards would have 1.2-2 parking spaces per bedroom meaning that the new stock would have twice the parking capacity of the old stock but how many major projects will be built on any Brisbane St.?
I would like to purpose a different solution. It would be better to hold a lower rate of garages and instead mandate a dedicated storage area for new home or homes undergoing substantial improvements. The dedicated storage areas would be smaller than a parking space reducing the amount of built environment. In some cases it could mean improving and retrofitting an existing space in these cases the increase in the building foot print would be zero. A friend of mine once said the greatest loss known to the American home is the loss of the attic.
If we accept that there is not currently enough parking, how much parking is actually needed?
According to the survey cited Brisbane homes average 2.3 bedrooms and 1.76 cars meaning that to provide 100% off street parking the home must have 0.76 parking spaces per bedroom not the 1.2-2 parking spaces per bedroom that is purposed. This is supported by the 2006-2010 American Survey of Vehicle Availability Rates.
0.76 garages per bedroom would look something like this,
1 bedroom = 1-2 off street parking space + ?? sqft of dedicated storage
2 bedrooms = 2off street parking space + ?? sqft of dedicated storage
3 bedrooms = 3 off street parking space + ?? sqft of dedicated storage
4 bedrooms = 3 off street parking space + ?? sqft of dedicated storage
5 bedrooms = 4 off street parking space + ?? sqft of dedicated storage
6 bedrooms = 4 off street parking space + ?? sqft of dedicated storage
Misc Items.
17.34.030 J. Parking lot landscaping. For any open parking area containing ten (10) or more parking spaces subject to design permit approval, landscape plans shall be submitted to provide trees, shrubs and ground cover, as appropriate. The landscape plans shall provide at least one tree for every 10 parking spaces, which may be planted in diamond shape tree-wells or parkway strips, located as to break up the expanse of paved area.
17.34.030 J. Parking lot landscaping. For any open parking area containing ten (10) or more parking spaces subject to design permit approval, landscape plans shall be submitted to provide shade trees, or shade trees with ground cover, as appropriate. The landscape plans shall provide at least one tree for every 5 parking spaces, which may be planted in diamond shape tree-wells or parkway strips, located to mitigate the heat island effect and provide shade.
A possible parking permit system.
A parking permit system would probably need to be implemented from the top down. Neighborhoods are unlikely to form agreements themselves and I believe this is due to a natural resistance to engendering ill will.
A household with 2 operable cars and 2 off street parking would get 0 free permits but could purchase any number of permits. A household with 2 operable cars and 1 off street parking space would be issued 1 free parking permit but could buy additional permits. In this way, people are not taxed for owning cars but only for cars they cannot house. This system would not differentiate between garages and other types of off street parking so people would be free to use their garage as storage only so long as they had other off street parking available. This would provide and incentive to remove non-operable vehicles.
Guest Parking. Short term guest staying less than 72 hours would not be subject to any restriction. Residents can obtain a fixed term guest permit for guests visiting for longer durations.
Fees. Fees should be set higher than the marginal cost of issuing the permits and enforcement all the way up to mildly punitive.
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