Parking garages?
One of the things i'm learning as the co-host of a live half hour talk show is just how little time that actually is. Talking with Gary Kueber on Sunday night, for example. We never got around to discussing the Durham County Public Library's public input session Tuesday night. And though we spent a fair bit of time talking about the new county "Justice Center," i didn't feel like we really had time to get to the nub of problem with that building. Much of the discussion at Kevin's place centers around the parking garage which, as Gary so aptly described it Sunday night, basically amounts to sticking the rear end of the building out onto Roxboro Street. It creates a dead zone on what could and should be a thriving corridor with lots of street level pedestrian activity. It sits between an art gallery and a huge new performing arts center. It should be bustling on a Saturday night. But if the hulk of a parking garage dominates, that, of course, won't happen.
But that's not the biggest problem, as i see it.
View Larger Map
We're not taking advantage of opportunities to create new urban spaces; we're stuck in this mentality of using vast sections of our urban landscape for parking. Look at how many surface parking lots there are in that aerial shot of downtown. Savvy readers will also recognize the numerous multi-story parking decks that are sprinkled throughout. (I count 7. Maybe if i have time, i'll highlight them.) Today's news showed a drop of 3.7% for the month of May, year over year, in total miles driven by Americans. That translated to a drop of 2.7% for the first 5 months of the year. June's numbers will probably continue that trend. While it's far too early to declare the demise of the automobile, the writing should be on the wall. It's clear that the behavioral tipping point for Americans is gas at around 4 bucks a gallon. We may see gas fall to 3 bucks over the winter (i doubt it, but it's possible), but it's likely that we'll see prices this high or higher next summer. So where's the vision for Durham's future from our civic leaders? Where's the walkable community that the city spent a few hundred thousand dollars planning for a few years ago? Where's the next generation of public transportation?
More parking garages? That's the answer? For buildings that are going to define our urban environment for the next 50 or 60 years?
Let's hope there's more opportunity for input into the new library.
But that's not the biggest problem, as i see it.
View Larger Map
We're not taking advantage of opportunities to create new urban spaces; we're stuck in this mentality of using vast sections of our urban landscape for parking. Look at how many surface parking lots there are in that aerial shot of downtown. Savvy readers will also recognize the numerous multi-story parking decks that are sprinkled throughout. (I count 7. Maybe if i have time, i'll highlight them.) Today's news showed a drop of 3.7% for the month of May, year over year, in total miles driven by Americans. That translated to a drop of 2.7% for the first 5 months of the year. June's numbers will probably continue that trend. While it's far too early to declare the demise of the automobile, the writing should be on the wall. It's clear that the behavioral tipping point for Americans is gas at around 4 bucks a gallon. We may see gas fall to 3 bucks over the winter (i doubt it, but it's possible), but it's likely that we'll see prices this high or higher next summer. So where's the vision for Durham's future from our civic leaders? Where's the walkable community that the city spent a few hundred thousand dollars planning for a few years ago? Where's the next generation of public transportation?
More parking garages? That's the answer? For buildings that are going to define our urban environment for the next 50 or 60 years?
Let's hope there's more opportunity for input into the new library.
Labels: Durham
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3 Comments:
I'm all for less parking and more public transit and pedestrian activity, but, well, until a few more people start screaming for better public transit, parking is a pretty necessary evil. And decks are infinitely better than surface parking in an urban setting.
Yes, I'd rather see them wrapped, but I see the construction of decks as a very good thing in the short-to-medium term.
By
Unknown, at 1:20 PM
The problem as i see it, Michael, is that the decks will outlive the short-medium term. By decades.
Considering how long it takes buildings to go from idea to bricks and steel, and how long they're going to define the city-scape, the time frame within which decisions affecting the short-medium term nature of the cityscape can be made is essentially already passed.
By
Barry, at 1:26 PM
Well, true enough, but I look at it this way -- we have a given amount of development density in downtown Durham right now. It's pretty low, actually, because of the amount of empty space downtown. I hope to see that density increase, both with new construction on vacant land or surface lots, and with old spaces being put back into use.
Right now, with no decent public transportation options and few residents living near downtown, the only way to get people there is to put in parking spaces.
Now at some point, hopefully, the leaders of this city actually decide to back the radical improvements to public transit we need. At that point, you hopefully already have some degree of commercial density downtown to help support transit, and if you build parking decks, the development will have that much greater chance of being pedestrian friendly. (Parking decks, unlike surface lots, essentially turn drivers into pedestrians for their final approach to their destination.)
Sure, there's lots of places this can go horribly wrong, and yes, this deck could have been better. But I still say -- parking decks are simply infinitely preferable to surface parking, and are a better stepping stone to getting to that pedestrian- and transit-friendly downtown that we want.
By
Unknown, at 10:08 PM
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