Electric cars are still cars, and therefore do fuck-all to fix the real problem of excessive use of land for parking lots, low-density zoning, and lack of walkability.
The only way to have communities that are healthy and sustainable (ecologically, financially, or otherwise) is to fix the zoning code so that folks don’t need to drive in the first place.
Oh man when almost everything was remote my commute was so nice. 12 miles in 15 - 17 minutes instead of almost double that everyday.
Unfortunately I operate a forklift so I have to be there in person but damn was it super nice.
Currently I’m trying to encourage and raise support for more bike infrastructure locally so it’s an actually viable option intead of it’s currently not so viable state.
Convert all the empty offices to apartments. Solves housing supply problems, makes a lot of dense units instead of sprawl, puts them right next to any of the offices that have reopened, and would make the owners of the office buildings happy so they’d hopefully get out of the way of WFH (if they’re doing any lobbying or propaganda or whatnot).
I know it’s too expensive to be worth it, but it’s a perfect thing for governments to give grants for since it has so many benefits.
It’s happening a bit in Canada.
Projects are undervway in Calgary and Halifax; others are being planned or debated in Toronto, London, Ont., and Yellowknife.
one issue is that offices tend to have 1 bathroom per floor, and the internal plumbing to match, and apartments need roughly a bathroom every 4 rooms. That really matters when you have 15 floors and you’re adding inlet and outlets filled with water, it drastically affects the weight and design of the building.
it might be easier, cheaper and safer to demolish and rebuild rather than convert.
Maximums aren’t necessarily the problem, since developers are incentivized by market forces not to build more parking than necessary.
The problem is parking minimums, which are based on numbers pulled out of somebody’s ass 80 years ago and (to the extent they correlated with anything at all) tend to be closer to the maximum that could ever conceivably be needed (think “Black Friday at a shopping center”) more than anything else!
We are the lobbyists. For example, my city is currently doing this, so it’s up to people like me to show up at the meetings and demand changes like that. You can do the same in your city or county by talking to your local political rep, even when they aren’t doing a wholesale rewrite like they are here.
Electric cars are still cars, and therefore do fuck-all to fix the real problem of excessive use of land for parking lots, low-density zoning, and lack of walkability.
The only way to have communities that are healthy and sustainable (ecologically, financially, or otherwise) is to fix the zoning code so that folks don’t need to drive in the first place.
Or just reduce the need to drive, for example by encouraging remote work.
Oh man when almost everything was remote my commute was so nice. 12 miles in 15 - 17 minutes instead of almost double that everyday.
Unfortunately I operate a forklift so I have to be there in person but damn was it super nice.
Currently I’m trying to encourage and raise support for more bike infrastructure locally so it’s an actually viable option intead of it’s currently not so viable state.
Convert all the empty offices to apartments. Solves housing supply problems, makes a lot of dense units instead of sprawl, puts them right next to any of the offices that have reopened, and would make the owners of the office buildings happy so they’d hopefully get out of the way of WFH (if they’re doing any lobbying or propaganda or whatnot).
I know it’s too expensive to be worth it, but it’s a perfect thing for governments to give grants for since it has so many benefits.
It’s happening a bit in Canada.
From here
one issue is that offices tend to have 1 bathroom per floor, and the internal plumbing to match, and apartments need roughly a bathroom every 4 rooms. That really matters when you have 15 floors and you’re adding inlet and outlets filled with water, it drastically affects the weight and design of the building.
it might be easier, cheaper and safer to demolish and rebuild rather than convert.
That’s a great idea, I hope other communities follow.
Establishing maximums on parking lot sizes to be drastically less than the building’s capacity would help
Maximums aren’t necessarily the problem, since developers are incentivized by market forces not to build more parking than necessary.
The problem is parking minimums, which are based on numbers pulled out of somebody’s ass 80 years ago and (to the extent they correlated with anything at all) tend to be closer to the maximum that could ever conceivably be needed (think “Black Friday at a shopping center”) more than anything else!
I mean we need lobbiests to switch those mins to maz
We are the lobbyists. For example, my city is currently doing this, so it’s up to people like me to show up at the meetings and demand changes like that. You can do the same in your city or county by talking to your local political rep, even when they aren’t doing a wholesale rewrite like they are here.