US cities stopped loving parking

This story was originally appeared in The keeper and is part climate table cooperation.

They are gray and rectangular, and if you add all 2 billion of them together, they cover an area roughly the size of Connecticut, about 5,500 square miles. Parking lots are a monotonous presence in US life, but a growing group of cities and states are now refusing to force more on people, claiming they are harming society and fueling the climate crisis.

For years, local governments have required the construction of parking lots as part of any development. These measures, along with wide highways through minority areas and endless suburban sprawl, cemented the automobile as the primary mode of transportation for most Americans.

However, starting January, California will become the first US state to introduce a minimum parking ban. cessation of their use in areas with public transportation in a move that Gov. Gavin Newsom called a “win-win” move to reduce the planet’s heat emissions from cars, and help alleviate the affordable housing shortage in a state that is lagging behind in new housing development.

Several cities across the country are now rushing to do the same. AnchorageAlaska; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Nashville, Tennessee, recently relaxed or eliminated requirements for developers to build new parking lots. “These minimal parking spaces have helped kill cities,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School, who has accused political leaders of making city centers “look like they’ve been bombed” by filling them with parking lots.

“Getting rid of minimal parking is an amazing step. This is part of the climate policy puzzle,” Wagner said, noting that transportation is the largest source of global warming emissions in the US. “There is a major rethinking going on right now, which is good for cities and for families.”

Climate activists and public transport advocates seized on the previously esoteric issue of minimum parking by posting antenna photos on social media, showcasing vast tracts of prime urban land dedicated to parking and pushing city councils to build denser communities with more opportunities to walk, bike or catch buses and trains rather than just drive.

Cities like Buffalo, New York; and Fayetteville, Arkansas, cut minimum parking fees a few years ago and have informed a surge in activity to convert previously abandoned buildings into shops, apartments and restaurants. Previously, developers considered such work impractical due to the need to build car parking lots, in many cases several times the size of the building itself.

Nashville is among the new wave of cities hoping to do the same. “It’s about climate, walking distance, reducing traffic and the need for everyone to have a car,” said Angie Henderson, a member of the Nashville Metropolitan Council, who proposed changing downtown parking.

Henderson said she was struck by how a dental clinic in her area was forced to build a 45-car parking lot, which required clearing trees on a nearby hillside despite only having room for a few patients.