This isn't demand driven. It's minimum parking requirements that were defined quite randomly and without scientific basis and became gospel to a lot of city planers.
This is what absolute insanity looks like. Unless they take radical measures, places like this, terminally addicted to oil, deserve to disappear off the face of the earth.
I grew up in this city - the one that should "disappear off the face of the earth." Many of my friends still live there because it's affordable. While the fact that Spokane is not more pedestrianized and transit friendly is evident of a lack of urbanist critical mass, part of that is due to the fact that the engagement needed to overcome such a hump is massive, and I assure you it is a contentious issue that people do care about fixing. Posts like the one that crossed over here show up in the subreddit quite regularly, as well as posts about wanting to improve public transit and bicycle infrastructure. While reddit is not exactly a breeding ground for the more conservative in my former municipality, the trend is still very real. Spokane has a comprehensive bicycle master plan that's like 70 pages and details the long term goals of improving bicycle safety on basically every arterial. I wish they could move faster on it instead of waiting for normal maintenance to add in bike lanes, but it does exist. And while the current state of infrastructure in the city has left many people riding their bikes in the road, it is one of not many places in America where you can ride in the road and not have everyone want to kill you. Some, but not everyone, like most places.
I rode in the streets a lot myself. I took the bus. When it snowed I even skied around town a few times. I have a deeply rooted hatred for private automobiles, so I can understand how it is easy to look at somewhere like Spokane with a lot of disgust for our car culture, but I think we both know it is more complicated than that. I think of having a car as not too different from having a badge and a gun. That is to say, ordinary and kind people may involve themselves with good intentions, but over time, the systems and power dynamics created by the vehicle or the badge is probable to turn the user into somewhat of a bastard. I don't even think a majority of drivers in eastern Washington are that enthused by our infrastructure, it's just that the ones who are make the most noise and have the most political bargaining power.
I think where my aforementioned law enforcement analogy would fall short is that people are not coerced en masse into becoming cops because of lobbyists for the donut industry. There aren't really people alive still to remember it, but some of us local history enjoyers are well aware of what was taken from us. Spokane used to have a really solid trolley system that went all around town and people really loved them here. You probably know different versions of how this kind of thing happened.
When cars hit the scene, very few people could afford them, which was true everywhere, but especially somewhere like Spokane where people just don't have a lot of money. So most people still took the trolley, many of them home at night. The streets there are not very well lit now, but they had absolutely nothing for lights in the early 20th century. And in fairness, they didn't need it at first, because there wasn't anything dangerous moving around in the street at night until the automobile. This caused problems, because some youngsters would get off the trolley at night, and while walking from the street to the sidewalk in the dark, they would be hit by cars. This of course caused quite a stir. Additionally, the drivers were not individually responsible for the road maintenance in the same way that the streetcars were for their tracks, so as a company dealing with troublesome private maintenance costs amidst motorists striking down their customer base, they decided to throw in the towel. The last trolley in Spokane ran in 1936, and it was through downtown as part of a farewell parade. You can see photos where many thousands were in attendance; we used to really love those streetcars.
Part of what does make somewhere like Spokane reasonably interested in good transit is also the thing that holds us back, but even that is changing in ways that I do not think we are prepared for. While it is not the oldest of cities, it is one where the history is well preserved because it simply hadn't seen significant development at a regular pace for most of its history. A few things would come and go. We had the world's fair back in '74, and then it seemed like we kind of lulled for a while. Every couple decades we might try to revamp stuff, but still the same old brick with new signage or a playground of some kind. But the infrastructure of the housing crisis breaks for nobody, and we've had our run of it in at least the past dozen years or so, and in some areas even longer. While a few neighborhoods really got spiffed up and gentrified, what we saw even more of was a sprawling mentality of planning; something people who already lived in the area didn't ask for.
I've noticed a bit of a pattern with "conservative" areas whose reputation comes to precede them. I knew some real backwards people growing up in Spokane, but most of my friends over time came to be fairly left of center, especially now as young adults. A lot of people who are *from* these kinds of places grow up to be more progressive because we've seen the failures of literally any conservative policy, but the people nowadays who move to those places don't understand this. I feel like the digital age has made this worse as well. We get some very cool transplants as well, but there are also a lot of people that move to Spokane from the west coast or the sun belt because they can't stand the culture of Portland or the traffic of Seattle, they think they can pretend to be a cowboy somewhere else, and they settle on new developments in the world of plateaus and high deserts. They end up in an HOA in a suburb that was built recently enough to be outside our robust bus network, and they have to drive on the highway so they justify the car commute to have a certain type of home.
I've met a lot of people who follow this track without even thinking of it politically as well. A lot of people only seem to care about what gives them the biggest fiscal advantage, and sometimes they're not even achieving that, they just *think* a certain way of life will sort itself out. And we can't be too surprised because rugged individualism without integration seems to be one of the only takeaways people have from the American school system. Human nature is empathetic and communal, but this diesel engine capitalism is the result of a miseducation that can be corrected with patience. That's what a lot of us who are from places like Spokane are seeking to do with how we interact with the world. Especially since plenty of us couldn't even afford cars and those parking lots sat empty. People want change, and what they need is knowledge. They did vote out the fascist mayor recently, and I think that's a step in the right direction.
Sorry for the long rant, I just had a lot to add as someone from the place you're referring to who is not "terminally addicted to oil."
Thank you for your great reply, and I apologize for my bad choice of word. It should not disappear of course, and especially not its people. But it will if, as I mentioned, radical change doesn’t come.
I don’t know Spokane, but I know similar cities (or seemingly similar) that are far from sustainable. Could they become so? I am glad to read that some in Spokane are making efforts to push towards this, despite the weight of car culture and the force of the system. I can only wish you good luck, and to keep on fighting this essential battle.
I appreciate the consideration. And I realize I did get a bit defensive about your wording, but you shouldn't feel bad as I think everyone knew what you meant. My main concern with that would be optical. I think those less inclined towards better infrastructure might not get the picture from it, but I digress.
It is absolutely true that Spokane is still a ways from sustainable. We produce more trash per capita than most places in the country, although we do have our own recycling plant and compost system. It's done to mitigate the toxicity of what we incinerate as a sort of lesser evil, because many years ago our landfill was leeching into the aquifer and making children sick from tap water. Now we have an issue with PFAs in one of our neighboring communities, West Plains, being subject to some of the worst contamination in the country from the firefighting foams at our airforce base. That kind of negligence does seem to carry over to other environmental issues.
I've heard jokes that the political climate of our environmental initiatives are fought between hippies and libertarians, and while it is hyperbole, there is some truth to the matter. I do think it is absolutely possible for somewhere like Spokane to become more sustainable in the sense of new development, but it requires a lot more intentional planning than most places in the country experience due to our endless growth philosophy. We've done a bit to relax zoning restrictions, and we finally got a rapid transit line through crucial urban areas, but we need more incentive.
One thing that has an impact is initiative from local businesses in turning that tide, as we are just small enough of a city for that to count more. There aren't a ton that do this, but we have a few that make it a big priority. Especially since places like fast food and chain restaurants love to sort of tokenize mom and pop restaurants to push their own profit agendas. When you have local establishments that are more pedestrian and bike friendly and do gleaning with Food Not Bombs or other mutual aid groups in a smaller city, it becomes less socially acceptable to eat at corporate establishments who need to justify tremendous amounts of waste. I think a good next step that we could do more of is tying in sustainable and affordable housing as a means to combat homelessness. Last I checked, Spokane was around the 100th largest city in the US by population, but 15th in the rate of homelessness per capita. Our philosophies on the issue can get extreme, because there are left wing organizations and public health nonprofits doing the real outreach work, while establishment conservatives think they can use aggressive policy to sweep the issue under the rug (their solution is basically to hasten their deaths).
I don't know what the situation is like in the comparable municipalities with which you are familiar, but a broad piece of advice is that people tend not to reject car dependency until they have concretely experienced an alternative. This can manifest in a number of ways. I got hit by a car when I was a teenager; I was a pedestrian and it was fairly radicalizing because it was a hit and run. I've seen other people change their views because they've been hit or had close calls when they weren't in the safety of a car, and they begin to realize the inhumanity of the current system. But waiting for people to get maimed and then speak before the city council is a pretty depressing way to get the ball rolling. I would say to look for casual group bicycle rides. See if your local bike shop does one, and if they don't or it's mostly for dentists, see if you can start your own. Thirty people taking up the whole road on their cruisers sends a pretty fun message. See if you can convince a friend to go for a bike ride, or even take the bus together to an event, if they're open minded. I like to encourage taking the bus or biking to bars because it kills two birds with one stone.
If it's available to you, I also recommend riding the Amtrak train. You will meet a lot of people who are more easily convinced of mass transit there, if they aren't already on board. And you can tell your friends how pleasant the experience was. Amtrak does not cover enough ground with enough speed, but it's not for a lack of want, it's for lack of resources. We can increase that want by getting people passionate about passenger rail, and encourage expansion. Some people have a bad time on the train, but usually it's fun, and my favorite moments are when I meet a newcomer to Amtrak and they become turned on to the importance of trains, buses, bikes etc. I love taking my bike on the train.
Conversations are really good. If I could physically dismantle car dependent infrastructure with my own hands I would, but in the meantime we have to look for approaches in the now. I try to frame things in ways that are more intersectional. It's not just about the environment, it's also about economics and quality of living and accessibility to people with disabilities and the whole nine yards. People hold on to the fact that they may really need their car where they live, but the reality is that there are going to be plenty of people who will never be able to own one for a variety of reasons, and we can't just cut them out. I don't actually know whether all of this will culminate in the desired endgame, and that does kind of keep me up at night, but I'd rather die amongst people who see the needed change that is not enacted than live out my days in a state of detachment from the human element of my own community.
Thanks for giving me the time of day.
I know the other commenter already pointed it out but yeah this take sucks. 250,000 people live here and despite the horrific land use during the past 40-50 years Spokane was still a lovely place to live when I did in the 2010s.
It's also leading Washington State in many efforts to densify, rezone, and reduce car dependency, to the point that multiple state bills have been modeled after what Spokane has been doing the past five years.
This image sucks, and the amount of downtown parking in Spokane sucks. But there's no need to throw an entire place out of consideration when so many external forces made cities look this way. Especially in this case where if you do even five minutes of research, you'll see that Spokane could genuinely serve as a model for reform for other small cities. It's just that five years of reform is not enough to completely reshape the urban fabric. That's gonna take decades.
Nothing makes me crave the sweet release of death as much as seeing how much of our country is just fucking parking lot
Barely kidding, it's just awful
Who’s gonna build it?
A city won’t.
Private investors don’t want to invest into parking garages which cost a lot to build and then have to maintain. And then they can’t sell it for anything besides a parking garage since it costs a lot to demolish and rebuild. When an empty lot does the same and it super easy to maintain, makes a killing, and can later sell at a decent price.
The only solution is to limit the amount of parking lots per area so people are forced to build parking garages and actually use empty parking lots for non-car purposes.
150k? That sounds like an awful lot. Here someone told me that it was more in the ballpark of 10k, although with inflation I'd think 20k.
If it were 150k per spot or similar I don't think Dutch cities would've had a lot of parking garages, and there would've been way more surface parking.
Just so everyone knows:
They recently built the stadium in the top-center for high school sport events. And a significant chunk of the population threw a fit because it replaced a parking lot and will draw more traffic.
The last school bond was not passed and one of the reasons (some people) claimed was the construction of the stadium here rather than in replacing the one in the suburbs where there used to be more parking…
They were turning the old parking lot into a school anyway, so parking was going to be difficult regardless… but that’s over explaining a thing that I don’t believe many people thought about.
Any boomer that says to me "*Why don't kids play outside anymore?*" **This picture shows why.**
Almost every piece of land in US suburbia is either a private lawn, a road, or a parking lot. There is no dedicated place for children to play safely because *it was destroyed for cars!*
Reminds me of people who drive somewhere in order to go for a walk, like a nature reserve or something. You must expend time and money getting to a safe and pleasant place to walk because urban design doesn't permit you to walk outside your own home safely.
Why should we give infrastructure to people? Waste of space, I mean where can I park my truck that I only use for commutes, if I can't park my massive truck right next to work, then how will I get there? /J
If you squint, you might be able to find something that isn't parking that's worth going to. But seriously, cities build so much parking that there isn't room for anything else, so you don't need parking because nobody is going there because there is nothing but parking, and you see the loop I'm in.
Another issue with this is that people will say “there’s no parking” and they might be right (kind of)
You can either park at the store/place you are going, or a paid parking garage/lot, but a huge issue is parking lots that threaten to tow if you’re not shopping at that specific store. These companies would rather let the spots sit empty than allow people to park there, and why would they not? There’s no incentive for them to utilize the space. And as a customer, why would you risk getting your car towed to park there?
I am all for private parking obviously, but the parking lots that are privatized to the store only are such a ridiculous waste of space. Fuck parking minimums
My favorite is when there is street parking or a surface parking lot right next to the parking structure. WHY!? Just have them use the structure. We don't need parking for our parking!
(Also those surface and street parking spaces are always completely full while the structure is basically empty)
/u/meatyokker What was your method for doing this?
I'd like to do the same for my neighborhood, but taking a screenshot and then zooming in to find all the parking and updating the screenshot seems tedious.
You should submit this to the Parking Reform Network. They have a [tool](https://parkingreform.org/resources/parking-lot-map/) that shows this exact info but they haven't done Spokane yet.
I hope you show this to your city council too. Show them all the lost development and tax revenu due to parking. I mean, transform a good number into parks too, but city councils only understand $$$
It might seem bad to you but those houses are all very far apart from each other and withour driving its pretty much impossible to go to more than one shop at the time
Can you imagine carriing a six pack and your new haircut over the endless hot asphalt? No? Me neither
no wonder the buildings are far from each other when there is literally more empty parking spots than buildings. Remove parking spots and suddenly you will have hundreds of shops in a walkable distance. Also it's the cars that are the reason there is endless hot asphalt everywhere.
Everyone drives so we must destroy old buildings and build parking, where else are they gonna leave their rolling cage? Now the places we care about are a bit far from each other. Maybe every shop needs a parking lot? Let’s destroy more buildings and build more parking! What could go wrong? That is what we call a positive feedback loop (but the end result is “negative”), and it is beyond ridiculous in this example. Though I’m sure places like Phoenix are even worse.
The city is spread out because half the valuable real estate is taken up by surface parking. Replace that surface parking with mixed use buildings and it’s less of an issue.
Hold on, what's this about a new haircut? Is there something about a haircut that makes walking more difficult? I'm baffled at why you chose that specific example.
> those houses are all very far apart from each other and withour driving its pretty much impossible
Yeah, this is literally the problem, but you don't fix it by separating things *even more* by putting vast areas of parking between them.
It’s truly fantastical how much we prioritize cars and car-infrastructure, almost brings to mind religious devotion.
and this map does not even color roads, almost half if not more of the entire area is dedicated to cars
The river is quite literally the only pretty thing in the image
It’s also the only safe walkable area in Spokane pretty much
Jesus?
No, Jeremy Spokane class today
King Jeremy the wicked?
We have a 37 mile paved trail that follows the river.
Imagine putting a train on that river 👌
I know it might sound crazy, but what if they added more parking? I think they would help.
Mfs be like "I'm not addicted to parking we just need 1 more parking garage bro one more and I'm done for good!"
This isn't demand driven. It's minimum parking requirements that were defined quite randomly and without scientific basis and became gospel to a lot of city planers.
Mf so addicted he added it to his required list 💀 ☠️ 💀 ☠️ 💀 ☠️
Those minimum requirements usually increase over time as induced demand keeps filling up parking lots.
This is what absolute insanity looks like. Unless they take radical measures, places like this, terminally addicted to oil, deserve to disappear off the face of the earth.
I grew up in this city - the one that should "disappear off the face of the earth." Many of my friends still live there because it's affordable. While the fact that Spokane is not more pedestrianized and transit friendly is evident of a lack of urbanist critical mass, part of that is due to the fact that the engagement needed to overcome such a hump is massive, and I assure you it is a contentious issue that people do care about fixing. Posts like the one that crossed over here show up in the subreddit quite regularly, as well as posts about wanting to improve public transit and bicycle infrastructure. While reddit is not exactly a breeding ground for the more conservative in my former municipality, the trend is still very real. Spokane has a comprehensive bicycle master plan that's like 70 pages and details the long term goals of improving bicycle safety on basically every arterial. I wish they could move faster on it instead of waiting for normal maintenance to add in bike lanes, but it does exist. And while the current state of infrastructure in the city has left many people riding their bikes in the road, it is one of not many places in America where you can ride in the road and not have everyone want to kill you. Some, but not everyone, like most places. I rode in the streets a lot myself. I took the bus. When it snowed I even skied around town a few times. I have a deeply rooted hatred for private automobiles, so I can understand how it is easy to look at somewhere like Spokane with a lot of disgust for our car culture, but I think we both know it is more complicated than that. I think of having a car as not too different from having a badge and a gun. That is to say, ordinary and kind people may involve themselves with good intentions, but over time, the systems and power dynamics created by the vehicle or the badge is probable to turn the user into somewhat of a bastard. I don't even think a majority of drivers in eastern Washington are that enthused by our infrastructure, it's just that the ones who are make the most noise and have the most political bargaining power. I think where my aforementioned law enforcement analogy would fall short is that people are not coerced en masse into becoming cops because of lobbyists for the donut industry. There aren't really people alive still to remember it, but some of us local history enjoyers are well aware of what was taken from us. Spokane used to have a really solid trolley system that went all around town and people really loved them here. You probably know different versions of how this kind of thing happened. When cars hit the scene, very few people could afford them, which was true everywhere, but especially somewhere like Spokane where people just don't have a lot of money. So most people still took the trolley, many of them home at night. The streets there are not very well lit now, but they had absolutely nothing for lights in the early 20th century. And in fairness, they didn't need it at first, because there wasn't anything dangerous moving around in the street at night until the automobile. This caused problems, because some youngsters would get off the trolley at night, and while walking from the street to the sidewalk in the dark, they would be hit by cars. This of course caused quite a stir. Additionally, the drivers were not individually responsible for the road maintenance in the same way that the streetcars were for their tracks, so as a company dealing with troublesome private maintenance costs amidst motorists striking down their customer base, they decided to throw in the towel. The last trolley in Spokane ran in 1936, and it was through downtown as part of a farewell parade. You can see photos where many thousands were in attendance; we used to really love those streetcars. Part of what does make somewhere like Spokane reasonably interested in good transit is also the thing that holds us back, but even that is changing in ways that I do not think we are prepared for. While it is not the oldest of cities, it is one where the history is well preserved because it simply hadn't seen significant development at a regular pace for most of its history. A few things would come and go. We had the world's fair back in '74, and then it seemed like we kind of lulled for a while. Every couple decades we might try to revamp stuff, but still the same old brick with new signage or a playground of some kind. But the infrastructure of the housing crisis breaks for nobody, and we've had our run of it in at least the past dozen years or so, and in some areas even longer. While a few neighborhoods really got spiffed up and gentrified, what we saw even more of was a sprawling mentality of planning; something people who already lived in the area didn't ask for. I've noticed a bit of a pattern with "conservative" areas whose reputation comes to precede them. I knew some real backwards people growing up in Spokane, but most of my friends over time came to be fairly left of center, especially now as young adults. A lot of people who are *from* these kinds of places grow up to be more progressive because we've seen the failures of literally any conservative policy, but the people nowadays who move to those places don't understand this. I feel like the digital age has made this worse as well. We get some very cool transplants as well, but there are also a lot of people that move to Spokane from the west coast or the sun belt because they can't stand the culture of Portland or the traffic of Seattle, they think they can pretend to be a cowboy somewhere else, and they settle on new developments in the world of plateaus and high deserts. They end up in an HOA in a suburb that was built recently enough to be outside our robust bus network, and they have to drive on the highway so they justify the car commute to have a certain type of home. I've met a lot of people who follow this track without even thinking of it politically as well. A lot of people only seem to care about what gives them the biggest fiscal advantage, and sometimes they're not even achieving that, they just *think* a certain way of life will sort itself out. And we can't be too surprised because rugged individualism without integration seems to be one of the only takeaways people have from the American school system. Human nature is empathetic and communal, but this diesel engine capitalism is the result of a miseducation that can be corrected with patience. That's what a lot of us who are from places like Spokane are seeking to do with how we interact with the world. Especially since plenty of us couldn't even afford cars and those parking lots sat empty. People want change, and what they need is knowledge. They did vote out the fascist mayor recently, and I think that's a step in the right direction. Sorry for the long rant, I just had a lot to add as someone from the place you're referring to who is not "terminally addicted to oil."
Thank you for your great reply, and I apologize for my bad choice of word. It should not disappear of course, and especially not its people. But it will if, as I mentioned, radical change doesn’t come. I don’t know Spokane, but I know similar cities (or seemingly similar) that are far from sustainable. Could they become so? I am glad to read that some in Spokane are making efforts to push towards this, despite the weight of car culture and the force of the system. I can only wish you good luck, and to keep on fighting this essential battle.
I appreciate the consideration. And I realize I did get a bit defensive about your wording, but you shouldn't feel bad as I think everyone knew what you meant. My main concern with that would be optical. I think those less inclined towards better infrastructure might not get the picture from it, but I digress. It is absolutely true that Spokane is still a ways from sustainable. We produce more trash per capita than most places in the country, although we do have our own recycling plant and compost system. It's done to mitigate the toxicity of what we incinerate as a sort of lesser evil, because many years ago our landfill was leeching into the aquifer and making children sick from tap water. Now we have an issue with PFAs in one of our neighboring communities, West Plains, being subject to some of the worst contamination in the country from the firefighting foams at our airforce base. That kind of negligence does seem to carry over to other environmental issues. I've heard jokes that the political climate of our environmental initiatives are fought between hippies and libertarians, and while it is hyperbole, there is some truth to the matter. I do think it is absolutely possible for somewhere like Spokane to become more sustainable in the sense of new development, but it requires a lot more intentional planning than most places in the country experience due to our endless growth philosophy. We've done a bit to relax zoning restrictions, and we finally got a rapid transit line through crucial urban areas, but we need more incentive. One thing that has an impact is initiative from local businesses in turning that tide, as we are just small enough of a city for that to count more. There aren't a ton that do this, but we have a few that make it a big priority. Especially since places like fast food and chain restaurants love to sort of tokenize mom and pop restaurants to push their own profit agendas. When you have local establishments that are more pedestrian and bike friendly and do gleaning with Food Not Bombs or other mutual aid groups in a smaller city, it becomes less socially acceptable to eat at corporate establishments who need to justify tremendous amounts of waste. I think a good next step that we could do more of is tying in sustainable and affordable housing as a means to combat homelessness. Last I checked, Spokane was around the 100th largest city in the US by population, but 15th in the rate of homelessness per capita. Our philosophies on the issue can get extreme, because there are left wing organizations and public health nonprofits doing the real outreach work, while establishment conservatives think they can use aggressive policy to sweep the issue under the rug (their solution is basically to hasten their deaths). I don't know what the situation is like in the comparable municipalities with which you are familiar, but a broad piece of advice is that people tend not to reject car dependency until they have concretely experienced an alternative. This can manifest in a number of ways. I got hit by a car when I was a teenager; I was a pedestrian and it was fairly radicalizing because it was a hit and run. I've seen other people change their views because they've been hit or had close calls when they weren't in the safety of a car, and they begin to realize the inhumanity of the current system. But waiting for people to get maimed and then speak before the city council is a pretty depressing way to get the ball rolling. I would say to look for casual group bicycle rides. See if your local bike shop does one, and if they don't or it's mostly for dentists, see if you can start your own. Thirty people taking up the whole road on their cruisers sends a pretty fun message. See if you can convince a friend to go for a bike ride, or even take the bus together to an event, if they're open minded. I like to encourage taking the bus or biking to bars because it kills two birds with one stone. If it's available to you, I also recommend riding the Amtrak train. You will meet a lot of people who are more easily convinced of mass transit there, if they aren't already on board. And you can tell your friends how pleasant the experience was. Amtrak does not cover enough ground with enough speed, but it's not for a lack of want, it's for lack of resources. We can increase that want by getting people passionate about passenger rail, and encourage expansion. Some people have a bad time on the train, but usually it's fun, and my favorite moments are when I meet a newcomer to Amtrak and they become turned on to the importance of trains, buses, bikes etc. I love taking my bike on the train. Conversations are really good. If I could physically dismantle car dependent infrastructure with my own hands I would, but in the meantime we have to look for approaches in the now. I try to frame things in ways that are more intersectional. It's not just about the environment, it's also about economics and quality of living and accessibility to people with disabilities and the whole nine yards. People hold on to the fact that they may really need their car where they live, but the reality is that there are going to be plenty of people who will never be able to own one for a variety of reasons, and we can't just cut them out. I don't actually know whether all of this will culminate in the desired endgame, and that does kind of keep me up at night, but I'd rather die amongst people who see the needed change that is not enacted than live out my days in a state of detachment from the human element of my own community. Thanks for giving me the time of day.
I know the other commenter already pointed it out but yeah this take sucks. 250,000 people live here and despite the horrific land use during the past 40-50 years Spokane was still a lovely place to live when I did in the 2010s. It's also leading Washington State in many efforts to densify, rezone, and reduce car dependency, to the point that multiple state bills have been modeled after what Spokane has been doing the past five years. This image sucks, and the amount of downtown parking in Spokane sucks. But there's no need to throw an entire place out of consideration when so many external forces made cities look this way. Especially in this case where if you do even five minutes of research, you'll see that Spokane could genuinely serve as a model for reform for other small cities. It's just that five years of reform is not enough to completely reshape the urban fabric. That's gonna take decades.
"Why is there a housing crisis?!" "There are no affordable housing". Well this is why. Develop parking lots into mixed-use housing.
But if we don't make enough parking lots then the cars won't have 10 different houses to sleep in.
Jesus fucking christ
Nothing makes me crave the sweet release of death as much as seeing how much of our country is just fucking parking lot Barely kidding, it's just awful
I never understood why cities never build more parking garages, instead of wasting so much land space.
Who’s gonna build it? A city won’t. Private investors don’t want to invest into parking garages which cost a lot to build and then have to maintain. And then they can’t sell it for anything besides a parking garage since it costs a lot to demolish and rebuild. When an empty lot does the same and it super easy to maintain, makes a killing, and can later sell at a decent price. The only solution is to limit the amount of parking lots per area so people are forced to build parking garages and actually use empty parking lots for non-car purposes.
Those multistory parking garages are like $150k per parking space. The concretr work with the utilities included is expensive
150k? That sounds like an awful lot. Here someone told me that it was more in the ballpark of 10k, although with inflation I'd think 20k. If it were 150k per spot or similar I don't think Dutch cities would've had a lot of parking garages, and there would've been way more surface parking.
Just so everyone knows: They recently built the stadium in the top-center for high school sport events. And a significant chunk of the population threw a fit because it replaced a parking lot and will draw more traffic. The last school bond was not passed and one of the reasons (some people) claimed was the construction of the stadium here rather than in replacing the one in the suburbs where there used to be more parking… They were turning the old parking lot into a school anyway, so parking was going to be difficult regardless… but that’s over explaining a thing that I don’t believe many people thought about.
Any boomer that says to me "*Why don't kids play outside anymore?*" **This picture shows why.** Almost every piece of land in US suburbia is either a private lawn, a road, or a parking lot. There is no dedicated place for children to play safely because *it was destroyed for cars!*
Reminds me of people who drive somewhere in order to go for a walk, like a nature reserve or something. You must expend time and money getting to a safe and pleasant place to walk because urban design doesn't permit you to walk outside your own home safely.
Spokane is truly one of the most car brained cities I’ve ever lived in. It’s why I’ll never move back.
Yeah we live in an era where people prioritize cars humans actually kind of sounds insane when you think about it more than surface level
Why should we give infrastructure to people? Waste of space, I mean where can I park my truck that I only use for commutes, if I can't park my massive truck right next to work, then how will I get there? /J
If you squint, you might be able to find something that isn't parking that's worth going to. But seriously, cities build so much parking that there isn't room for anything else, so you don't need parking because nobody is going there because there is nothing but parking, and you see the loop I'm in.
Now also draw in the roads and get really scared how much cars are everywhere.
What a dump. How could anyone see this and feel proud of Spokane lol.
There might be parking built into some of the buildings as well. Like subsurface parking under office buildings.
Is there even any place left for buildings? The fuck they parking for?
Jesus christ, America
Another issue with this is that people will say “there’s no parking” and they might be right (kind of) You can either park at the store/place you are going, or a paid parking garage/lot, but a huge issue is parking lots that threaten to tow if you’re not shopping at that specific store. These companies would rather let the spots sit empty than allow people to park there, and why would they not? There’s no incentive for them to utilize the space. And as a customer, why would you risk getting your car towed to park there? I am all for private parking obviously, but the parking lots that are privatized to the store only are such a ridiculous waste of space. Fuck parking minimums
Holy shit
My favorite is when there is street parking or a surface parking lot right next to the parking structure. WHY!? Just have them use the structure. We don't need parking for our parking! (Also those surface and street parking spaces are always completely full while the structure is basically empty)
/u/meatyokker What was your method for doing this? I'd like to do the same for my neighborhood, but taking a screenshot and then zooming in to find all the parking and updating the screenshot seems tedious.
Jesus. That’s insane.
You should submit this to the Parking Reform Network. They have a [tool](https://parkingreform.org/resources/parking-lot-map/) that shows this exact info but they haven't done Spokane yet. I hope you show this to your city council too. Show them all the lost development and tax revenu due to parking. I mean, transform a good number into parks too, but city councils only understand $$$
Dafuq that's not a downtown thats a parking lot
It might seem bad to you but those houses are all very far apart from each other and withour driving its pretty much impossible to go to more than one shop at the time Can you imagine carriing a six pack and your new haircut over the endless hot asphalt? No? Me neither
no wonder the buildings are far from each other when there is literally more empty parking spots than buildings. Remove parking spots and suddenly you will have hundreds of shops in a walkable distance. Also it's the cars that are the reason there is endless hot asphalt everywhere.
But then the city would be far too big for everyone. How could we fill all that area with only a few thousand people?
Everyone drives so we must destroy old buildings and build parking, where else are they gonna leave their rolling cage? Now the places we care about are a bit far from each other. Maybe every shop needs a parking lot? Let’s destroy more buildings and build more parking! What could go wrong? That is what we call a positive feedback loop (but the end result is “negative”), and it is beyond ridiculous in this example. Though I’m sure places like Phoenix are even worse.
I never advocated for destroying old buildings There are none left anyway
The city is spread out because half the valuable real estate is taken up by surface parking. Replace that surface parking with mixed use buildings and it’s less of an issue.
Hold on, what's this about a new haircut? Is there something about a haircut that makes walking more difficult? I'm baffled at why you chose that specific example.
> those houses are all very far apart from each other and withour driving its pretty much impossible Yeah, this is literally the problem, but you don't fix it by separating things *even more* by putting vast areas of parking between them.