With climate action goals and tens of millions of public dollars in the balance, is saying “please” enough to convince Prosper Portland to avoid building soon-to-be obsolete parking structures?
Take action now! Email cc2035@portlandoregon.gov and let them know what you think about this amendment! Do you think it goes far enough? What methods of encouragement should be used in the implementation of this policy? A few sentences in your own words goes a LONG WAY!
Be sure to use subject: “CC2035 Testimony” and reference Flexible Building Design Policy, Volume 1, Amendment 1.
City Council won’t act on the requests of dozens of Portlanders to remove goals to build more commuter parking in the central city from the CC2035 plan. On December 6th, however, Mayor Wheeler did propose an amendment to “encourage flexible building design and construction” of city funded buildings, including parking structures. (View this, and other amendments, here)
For years, businesses in Old Town, Chinatown, and the Central Eastside have been promised more commuter parking and Prosper Portland has been working to make new garages, and a potential short-term revenue stream, a reality. But these promises were made in a much different time. Services like Lyft, Car2Go, ReachNow, and Biketown didn’t exist yet. Autonomous transit only existed in the minds of science fiction writers, and climate action wasn’t (but certainly should have been) the urgent issue it is today. New car parking garages are a 20th century solution to 21st century problems.
Convertible parking structures are a step in the right direction, but bigger steps are needed if transportation targets for commuters are going to be met. Repurposable designs should be required for any city built structures. City agencies must also prove that new facilities are self-sustaining, are fiscally responsible, and don’t negatively impact progress on climate action goals.
Tell Portland City Council that you support this amendment, but remind them that it doesn’t go far enough. New parking structures will drain city coffers and induce more frustrating traffic. Make sure they understand that more action is needed, and soon, to avoid a costly generational mistake. Prosper Portland can assist the continued development of Old Town, Chinatown, and the Central Eastside by financing affordable housing near these job centers and more innovative alternative transportation options for folks who choose to live elsewhere.
How can you help?
Email cc2035@portlandoregon.gov and let them know what you think about this amendment! Do you think it goes far enough? What methods of encouragement should be used in the implementation of this policy? A few sentences in your own words goes a LONG WAY!
Be sure to use subject: “CC2035 Testimony” and reference Flexible Building Design Policy, Volume 1, Amendment 1.
Attend drop-in hours on Tuesday, January 9, 2018, in the City Hall Atrium from 5 – 7 p.m. Let staff know if you support this step, but make sure to express concerns if you think it doesn’t go far enough.
Testify at the City Council hearing on January 18th, 2017 at City Hall at 2PM in support of this amendment.
Parking Structure photo via https://www.flickr.com/photos/schluesselbein/4445085357
Mark Cathcart says
While there is some sense it not needing more parking garages, you have not thought it through if you think few will be required.
If you have 80, 000 commuters who need car transport, do you really expect there to be 320,000 journeys per day? Even if you assume 2-people per car in driverless cars, that’s still 160,000 journeys if the cars are not all needed in the city center, and where are they going?
Do you just imagine they’ll drive around the streets empty until they are needed for the afternoon commute home?
I’m all for less traffic, less car journeys, but you need to have a realistic understanding of both human nature and automated self driving car limitations.
For a longer discussion https://markcathcart.com/2016/12/15/giant-fleet-of-small-scheduling-nightmares/
Seth Woolley says
Mark’s comment is strangely lacking in imagination. Why wouldn’t every seat of every car be filled on the way in? Cars, like busses, can even do transfers to improve their capacity use. Cars are already often repurposed during mid-day, doing food and package delivery. The cars are also used in the evenings for people who go out after work. Generally cars will follow people, and people aren’t as idle as we may first expect.
Also, there’s a massive overcommit of parking right now. There will be a need for some parking, but that can all be achieved with existing supply, converted to electric charging stalls. And given that there are so many uses of cars during the day and evening that they can continue doing useful work, a large amount of parking supply will come in the form of parking at suburbs, where an unwise investment in garages and parking continues to this day. Parking will only need to be used mid-day when the marginal cost of moving the vehicles minus the amortized costs of the (new and old) capital investment in parking doesn’t have a marketable function to move objects around. At first we’ll have so much “sunk cost” in parking that it may be cheaper to park them mid-day. But over decades that too will shift.
The fleet will be decentrally owned but group managed by competing fleets, often managed by contractors of manufacturers until system management protocols are standardized. The cars will still need ownership, maintenance, charging, parking, etc. while they are not in use. That points to a decentralized ownership or lease model similar to what we find with long haul trucking where there has been no irrational pressure to own a personal tractor for mostly mere social status reasons.
Market force via dynamic pricing will ensure efficiencies such as those I describe above are found and exploited.
Mark Cathcart says
It’s not lacking imagination, far from it. I’ve spent many hours and a lot of personal money lobbying for shared public transportation. Personal transport is a practical reflection of the society that we live in. Look how popular Uber is compared to UberPool. How popular is carpooling in private vehicles today?
Thats why I referred in my blog post to “transport imagineers”, everyone can make that jump from what they want, to what will be, with the magical “and then sh*t happens” step in the middle. Even in decades when Uber has stopped bleeding money and self-driving cars are cheap and plentiful, you still have do deal with the cultural, privilege and convenience aspects of shared transport.
It’s is indeed important to make an effort to curtail the construction of dedicated parking garages, I completely agree, that is necessary but not sufficient.
Self-driving car imagineers need to think through the consequences of what they are advocating. Moving more people into a city eliminates the need for commuting from outside/in, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for efficient, effective transport within the city.
Self driving cars are not going to be in the form Seth envisages for possibly 10-15 years. In the interim a great number of US urban centers having tens of thousands of commuters each and every day. Whats the plan to deal with that?
And before you accuse me again of lacking imagination, I already have a Mercedes which has a “seldom-driving” mode and will drive itself of highways and roads when the satellite navigation is set so it knows where to go. It’s an interesting experience and gives insight into the challenges faced by the Buck Rogers and the 21st Century fleet of completely automated vehicles.
Seth Woolley says
Pooling is happening in most Uber trips in some of the larger cities, especially for longer commuting. The next generation has already acclimated to shared transportation in the big cities and it’s still growing. Waymo is already trialling without a safety driver on public roads.
To be honest, I’m not sure what you’re complaining about — that we need more garages for the next ten years until we don’t need them?
What if we go too far? Is that your question?
SF, for example, underprices their onstreet parking making it impossible to find a spot most places due to lots of unused, idle cars. That has pushed ride share adoption heavily, including pool. Lack of parking can act as a forcer to properly place incentives.
Mark Cathcart says
Seth, I’m not complaining. I have taken part in discussions, and been part of an extensive lobbying group for shared transport. The one person I have not met yet is anyone who has actually studied and can give even a prediction about traffic patterns of self-driving cars, no one, not one.
At the sametime I’ve met hundreds of people, many in power and important positions, but most people who just want change from car owning, car dependent future. Almost all of them can imagine what it will be like, low cost, low emission, less street parking where they are, few parking garages, better fossil fuel utilization and reduction… and on, and on…
What few, if any can describe is any coherent description of how these cars will work, what their traffic patterns will be, and what there needs are.
If I take your prior response, do you have any data for the Uber sharing? We know 20% worldwide was a number from 2016, but we do not, as far as I know, know how much of that was in the US. My personal experience from Europe, China and India, where I’ve travelled and worked extensively, is that shared transport is often the norm.
So, my guess would be way less than 10% is the norm here in the US. We also don’t know, of those US Uber/Lift shared riders abandoned a bus or train to take a shared ride, in which case it’s a zero-sum gain. Uber/Lyft et al like to talk up their shared transport, as it hides their less-environmental side.
I’m lucky, I don’t have to commute anymore, in fact, apart from some consulting gigs and public service, I don’t work anymore. So I’m rarely in a rush. When I head up the 4-lane road near my house, and engage the Mercedes self-driving mode, what I witness are people getting mad. They hate the car won’t go faster than the speed limit, people drive by me doing 45MPh with phone in had reading stuff, they honk, they gesture et al. When the car starts to slow 150ft from the next traffic light because the car in front has stopped, the over/undertake and cut back in, creating the exact conditions that causes traffic accidents, my car slows further and the cars behind brake harder and you get the concertina effect causing traffic to backup and more.
Do you have any data on the next generation acclimating to shared transport?
America has always been the exception, kids able to drive to school at 15; parents buying teens beater cars; and then owning cars for most of their lives. It’s been an accepted norm for too long and will take a couple of generations to change at best. Many Teens and twenties up through their mid-30’s have always done pretty similar. They migrate to bigger cities for college, they live as close to a big city as they can, they commute in the most economical way they can because they choose not to afford a car. So claiming “the next generation” have already acclimated is a stretch.
I commuted into London on buses(1970’s) and trains; I commuted in NYC by subway and then train from Long Island(1980s); I commuted in Beijing(2000’s) by bus(admittedly and executive style motor-bus) for most of that time, once I had a family we only had one car, i only used it weekends. Uber/Lyft and Self-driving cars added an important additional option, but not if those car journeys replace traditional shared transport.
So I’m yes on self driving cars; I’m yes on shared transport and I’m a yes on more practical use of parking garages. For the next 10-years, my opinion is, they should be mandated and slowly switched over to shared cars only, even if driven, and then whatever is needed for self-driving cars to be docked, recharged, refueled etc. Don’t want to pay for that? Don’t build a parking garage. Over time 5-20 years, we can slowly mandate that all existing parking garages are converted and in tandem, based on data, start banning new parking garages
We have much to do in challenging people’s thinking about future transport options, leaving a big gap in the middle labelled “shit-happens” doesn’t help because people will be disappointed and push back when change doesn’t happen fast enough.
good luck with the ” Flexible Building Design Policy” changes and council meeting next week.
Lindsay Banks Bayley (@lindsaybanks) says
Yesterday, I attended a presentation given by the Director of Global Investment Research at Heitman (a Chicago based firm), and while she said a lot of fascinating things, one that jumped out at me (as someone who is always thinking about parking), was that she told a room of CEOs, major developers, and real estate tycoons that she would advise against building any slant-level parking garages as they have likelihood of 0% future gain. If parking garage demand changes (and I believe that it will fall significantly, despite people’s preference for private transport because we can’t subsidize auto travel indefinitely), you need to be able to convert those buildings to other uses and flat level garages with high floor-to-ceiling heights is a potential solution. I have been saying this for a long time and was happy to hear it spoken by someone with much more influence than me!