Question from someone on the east coast: what impacts are you seeing from the abolition of parking minimums in Portland?
Our apartment building must have like 100 units, there are only ~10 parking spots and they charge $200/month for them. Everyone else parks in the streets. There’s like a 2 block radius with cars for our building. And now there are 3 new apartment buildings going up 1-2 blocks away, with similar or less parking. Parking is going to be a shitshow, and navigating the roads is tedious as the parking makes these single lane roads. And I imagine it’s especially annoying to the houses that predate all of these buildings.
But hopefully over time people will use the Max and bus more since they’re only a block away, or ride bikes. I think not having the minimums could slowly nudge people away from car use. And as less cars are on the road, other services are used more, more can be invested in the other services and infrastructure.
But it’s a difficult balance to maintain after a city is already so developed.
Who would own a car, then move into a building with no place to put it? The whole point of a big ‘ol complex with no parking is, here’s a place that’s cheaper because you don’t implicitly pay to store a vehicle, so come live here if you don’t have one ‘cus the transit is good. People are silly.
It’s hard to say. I’m moving into a building that has parking available but at maybe 1/10th of the available units. The building is only partially complete but street parking is already difficult. That combined with the expense of paying for a parking spot is making us reconsider having a car at all. If the desire of removing the minimums is to encourage people to use public transit more and rely on cars less then in my case it’s working.
