Beginning my entry into this book on an 'L' platform this summer made me feel so self-conscious about owning a car that I thought I might explode. Grabar introduces early on the idea that people think parking should be free, convenient, and available, but that only two of these three features are usually present for any given parking spot. I had parked my car a few blocks from the end of the line because I didn’t want to pay the cost of parking in the provided lot. So, my parking choice that day was free and available, but moderately inconvenient. Had I parked in the lot itself, it would have been convenient and available, but not free. If I lived in that neighborhood, I could have left my car in my driveway for a spot that is free and convenient, but unavailable to anyone else.
Just as I methodically walked you through that simple idea Grabar presented, he carefully explains the kind of truths that seem screamingly self-evident as soon as he reveals them. You think, “how was I not already aware of this issue?” each time he delivers a new consequence of the car-centric U.S. One of the most galling ones begins the book. A woman named Ginger Hitzke wished to convert a city-owned parking lot into an affordable-housing apartment near the ocean in San Diego, but was stymied for years because of locals’ objections to the building due to its lack of parking spaces. That dispute was a proxy for wanting the people who’d live in the building, low-income residents, to not be in the neighborhood. Even though she demonstrated that many of the people who intended to live in the units did not even own cars to begin with, it was not enough for the NIMBYs and she eventually gave up out of years of frustration. It sounds exhausting because it is.
Another one of those simple ideas that seems so intuitive that you feel silly needing a book to understand it is that parking garages should be cheaper than on-street parking in high-demand areas. The reason I was riding the 'L' is because I had an appointment in Streeterville and needed to get there from the suburbs. It was cheaper to ride the 'L' both ways than to pay at least $15 an hour for a parking spot near my appointment, and that’s without considering the cost of gas. (There is also an entire chapter on the city of Chicago getting fleeced by investment bankers who now have a 75-year contract to service these meters.) The idea is that no one wants to leave their car in a space that charges $15 / hr when meters are closer to $4.75 / hr. What does that mean? It means people will circle the block for 45 minutes because it is literally going to save them about $10 / hr to do so. Stated another way, drivers are incentivized to create more traffic and gridlock in an already popular area by circling the block because if they are lucky enough to get a metered spot, they will save more money even if they lose a little time. So, Grabar presents proposals that would turn that idea on its head. Make the on-street parking spots $15 / hr and the garage $4 / hr. That way people will more frequently leave the on-street spots because they are so pricey, which will reduce traffic because people who would have circled the block will instead go straight to the garage and keep their car there longer. It seems so simple but getting cities and private parking lot owners to agree to this change is also difficult.
Later on, Grabar discusses parkitecture, the idea that buildings have to be constructed to code based on the number of spots per each unit or per a certain amount of square footage. Buildings that people know and love could not be built now because of laws written based on past ideas of car ownership and parking usage. As you can imagine, there is not a lot of science or history informing the laws about parking minimums that currently exist. Grabar tells of a lawyer in L.A. who leads tours of the “forbidden city,” where such buildings stand, but could not be built today because their lack of parking spaces would violate the city code.
As an aside, Grabar mentions that the JONI MITCHELL song with the refrain that gives this book its name is the only song about parking itself. I can think at least two songs besides that one that I know are about parking: “Take ‘em Up” by Maumee, Ohio’s NECROS (be advised this song’s conceit is spitefully tasteless) and “Pay” by Bloomington, Indiana’s GIZMOS. I am under no delusions that these songs are anywhere near as known as JONI MITCHELL’s ubiquitous tune but they still exist. Can you think of any others? There are so many songs about loving or hating the act of driving, but none about arriving at the destination. Or even if they are at the destination, it’s about reaching home, not where you leave your vehicle. Sure, the boys are back in town, but where will they park? Surely they don’t want to have to stage another jailbreak if they get arrested for excessive unpaid parking tickets…
There is some hope, but the feeling I get from finishing this book is that cars are not the way forward (electronic or not). The congestion itself is still there, no matter how the cars run. Similarly, appified solutions such as SpotHero, which Grabar also addresses, will not solve the problem. The idea that there is a massive game of musical chairs happening every day in big cities and small towns means that there are always parking spaces available; you are leaving your spot free every time you leave your house. Consider that malls are built with massive parking lots that may only ever be full during the 10 days before Christmas and you can begin to see how wasteful it is to allocate land in this way. That these lots are taking up space that could be used for housing people is the bigger issue. More public transportation and more public housing will help to right this wrong, but man, there are a lot of obstacles in the way.
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