Comments on: That Parking Spot In Front of Your House Doesn’t Belong to You

By: Antique Program

Antique Program — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 02:11:00 +0000

I think that you were right on with this article. You put a nice twist to it. Great job A-P.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:25:13 +0000

My neighborhood has streets as described here as well as alleys. Having both seems quite wasteful.

What if we could remove one lane of parking and convert those streets to one-way? would also reduce cut-through traffic near busy intersections

By: dg

dg — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:39:31 +0000

on my street in Portland, the parked cars do a good job of making our street effectively one-way, forcing cars to drive slowly and wait for on-coming cars. That lane is pretty well used for hockey, basketball, throwing balls for dogs, trike path, bike jumping, beer drinking, and hula hooping. I believe that neighborhoods should immediately start using their entire streets in ways that serve the neighborhoods. These are public spaces intended to serve as local connectors, and should be modulated block by block. I would like to see some mechanisms for people to legally close or partially close streets on per block, temporary and short-term basis with neighbor buy-in. However, I do think that semi- privatizing this space is a mistake. Look at community gardens: when these are installed in park, they effectively eclude any other uses, and they are hard to get rid of! The same could be said for basketball or tennis courts, but when a game is not being played, they are flexible and public enough for other uses (trike riding, bike polo, etc). Little cottages and private gardens would not be an improvement over the way our street is used as an informal, temporary park, with neighbors working together to organize or remove parked cars and control through traffic.

By: Joel Banslaben

Joel Banslaben — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:01:56 +0000

Very insightful article AP, I have often wondered this myself. For starters you are right that their is no need for three lanes with two dedicated to parking in SF residential. You can build a much better street with one lane of each, which leaves you a whole other lane to use for walk/bike/food/etc. In addition to the benefits of added open space you also will get a significant reduction in polluted stormwater, one of our cities biggest challenges today. But the thing that I might flip is the assertion that more people should park on their property (if I am reading you right) and would actually say the opposite. Seattle needs to stop wasting space that could go to adding residential density to the car! This mainly comes in the form of driveways and garages. Townhomes especially make zero sense to me in Seattle. Imagine if the cars were parked on the street and townhomes were replaced with rowhouses and backyard cottages? I am definitely biased coming from a bigger city but I don’t see the future of SF/small MF including the car taking up so much space on private property…

By: Alan Tanner

Alan Tanner — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 03:48:17 +0000

Hmm… you’re inviting trouble. When a homeowner is given a say over how the street in front of the house is to be used, they’ll lean to exclusion… to push the traffic somewhere else. Streets are public rights of way for good reason. And the spaces on the street are often heatedly contested among neighbors. It’s a hornets nest…

By: david moser

david moser — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 01:06:17 +0000

Great idea, A-P. Another positive effect of this would be that not only might the parking lane space itself be activated and enlivened, but also the adjacent “parking strip”. One of the great detriments of cars as physical objects is that they not only tend to wreck the spaces they occupy and pass through, but also all the space that is just next to them. Parking strips, medians, all that “surplus” space that is deemed largely expendable because of the cult of the car. Making better use of the on-street parking lane would enable better use of the sad, grassy parking strip stuck between the sidewalk and street, freeing that space from the necessity of accommodating swinging car-doors.

By: christine

christine — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 18:57:47 +0000

Great post!

By: Matt the Engineer

Matt the Engineer — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:19:57 +0000

I believe it would. Except you have to move it every three days. Which wouldn’t be that tough.

By: Hans Gerwitz

Hans Gerwitz — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 05:35:43 +0000

Is there any legal support at all for the relationship we have with “our” spaces near our homes?

I have a garage, no street frontage, and no car to park. But I must admit being tempted to find ways to hack the system.

I presume it’d be illegal to just put up planters and a bench. But wouldn’t it be legal to buy one of the billboard trucks that sometimes drive around downtown and park it like any other vehicle?