According to the following article from Livescience.com, the sprawling county of Tippecanoe, Indiana has 355,000 parking spaces... to just 155,000 residents. The number of spaces is over twice the number of residents and three times the number of licensed drivers. It is also a foreboding sign of things to come under the current engineering and land use ideology that values parking and wide travel lanes over all else.
Sadly, the Tippencanoe experience is hardly unique. I recently returned from a trip to Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill North Carolina. (Note: when a region has become so sprawled that that there's no distinction between being in one city and the next, thus forcing the use of hyphens, that's a sad sign.) In the triangle, as it's called, there are a couple small downtowns like Chapel Hill and Durham, and endless collector roads lined with strip centers, hotels, garden apartments, and the like.
In New England, we're lucky to have established towns and home rule control of zoning. And when I say lucky, I mean that local towns have been able to implement their own growth plans and development regulations. Of course, many aren't happy with the amount of growth, and an even larger number aren't happy with the quality of the 'growth' they've seen. As a result, most communities clamp down on growth hoping to weather the storm.
Having a growth mitigating strategy itself is not the problem. Far from it. Massachusetts put towns in charge of their futures and they have made their decisions. The problem is that the 1950's vintage tools they're using are out of date and harken back to a time when the car was the future and trees were defined 'roadside hazards' to the daily driver. The result? A set of land use rules, tables, and specifications that encourage 13 foot travel lanes (even in a dead-end cul-de-sac), 5 to 1 parking ratios, and recommended 'widenings' to ease traffic. These rules made sense at the time, when it was assumed future americans would make all daily trips by automobile and everything should be built accordingly. We know these systems as Euclidean Zoning, Federal and State roadway design standards, Subdivision Control Regulations, etc. etc.
The problem here in New England, where we have examples of great old towns and great old buildings, is that very few buildings of any lasting value have been built under this regime. Houses are ugly, stores are ugly, and schools are ugly. Subdivisions are quiet, but they consume enormous amounts of land and their roads are so wide and open that speeding is a constant safety issue.
As we think about the future of our towns, we need to think about what they will look like if the 1950's engineering schemes are carried out to their end goals. For Holbrook, what will the place look like when every open piece of land is a subdivision, every commercially zoned property has 40 foot setbacks and 5:1 parking, and no one can walk anywhere? The answer to that question is not something I like to think about.
The answer for Holbrook and towns like it is to be proactive about what they want to look like and what quality of life they want people to have. They need to create authentic neighborhoods where people can walk, preserve open spaces for recreation, and develop town centers where commerce can happen in a civilized, non-automotive manner.
MM
Parking Lots Outnumber People, Add to Pollution
By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 17 September 2007 08:29 am ET
Sprawling suburban parking spaces outnumber drivers by three to one in a Midwestern county, a finding that typifies a troubling trend nationwide that increases urban heating and pollution, researchers say.
Digitalized aerial surveys taken in 2005 were used to calculate the total area devoted to parking lots in Indiana's Tippecanoe County and revealed the paved lots covered an area larger than 1,000 football fields and that there were three times as many parking spaces as drivers who lived in the county, said study leader Bryan Pijanowski of Purdue University.
Pijanowski said that his study was relevant across the country because generally Americans are paving an increasing amount of land each year on which to park when they go to the store, work, school or other places.
Article continues at LiveScience.com here: Parking Lots Outnumber People, Add to Pollution
Sadly, the Tippencanoe experience is hardly unique. I recently returned from a trip to Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill North Carolina. (Note: when a region has become so sprawled that that there's no distinction between being in one city and the next, thus forcing the use of hyphens, that's a sad sign.) In the triangle, as it's called, there are a couple small downtowns like Chapel Hill and Durham, and endless collector roads lined with strip centers, hotels, garden apartments, and the like.
In New England, we're lucky to have established towns and home rule control of zoning. And when I say lucky, I mean that local towns have been able to implement their own growth plans and development regulations. Of course, many aren't happy with the amount of growth, and an even larger number aren't happy with the quality of the 'growth' they've seen. As a result, most communities clamp down on growth hoping to weather the storm.
Having a growth mitigating strategy itself is not the problem. Far from it. Massachusetts put towns in charge of their futures and they have made their decisions. The problem is that the 1950's vintage tools they're using are out of date and harken back to a time when the car was the future and trees were defined 'roadside hazards' to the daily driver. The result? A set of land use rules, tables, and specifications that encourage 13 foot travel lanes (even in a dead-end cul-de-sac), 5 to 1 parking ratios, and recommended 'widenings' to ease traffic. These rules made sense at the time, when it was assumed future americans would make all daily trips by automobile and everything should be built accordingly. We know these systems as Euclidean Zoning, Federal and State roadway design standards, Subdivision Control Regulations, etc. etc.
The problem here in New England, where we have examples of great old towns and great old buildings, is that very few buildings of any lasting value have been built under this regime. Houses are ugly, stores are ugly, and schools are ugly. Subdivisions are quiet, but they consume enormous amounts of land and their roads are so wide and open that speeding is a constant safety issue.
As we think about the future of our towns, we need to think about what they will look like if the 1950's engineering schemes are carried out to their end goals. For Holbrook, what will the place look like when every open piece of land is a subdivision, every commercially zoned property has 40 foot setbacks and 5:1 parking, and no one can walk anywhere? The answer to that question is not something I like to think about.
The answer for Holbrook and towns like it is to be proactive about what they want to look like and what quality of life they want people to have. They need to create authentic neighborhoods where people can walk, preserve open spaces for recreation, and develop town centers where commerce can happen in a civilized, non-automotive manner.
MM
Parking Lots Outnumber People, Add to Pollution
By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 17 September 2007 08:29 am ET
Sprawling suburban parking spaces outnumber drivers by three to one in a Midwestern county, a finding that typifies a troubling trend nationwide that increases urban heating and pollution, researchers say.
Digitalized aerial surveys taken in 2005 were used to calculate the total area devoted to parking lots in Indiana's Tippecanoe County and revealed the paved lots covered an area larger than 1,000 football fields and that there were three times as many parking spaces as drivers who lived in the county, said study leader Bryan Pijanowski of Purdue University.
Pijanowski said that his study was relevant across the country because generally Americans are paving an increasing amount of land each year on which to park when they go to the store, work, school or other places.
Article continues at LiveScience.com here: Parking Lots Outnumber People, Add to Pollution
1 comment:
Keep up the good work.
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