Eliminating parking requirements is also starting to gain traction in the US: Seattle did it [0], and it's underway in Los Angeles [1]. Unfortunately it tends to make NIMBY opposition to development even more intense than it already is ("They'll use up all the street spaces!"), but fingers crossed we can keep this trend going.
The problem is that the removal of parking requirements typically doesn't address the parking-lot scenario depicted here. It's often a developer handout that results in a degraded standard of living for existing residents in the neighborhood around a new development.
Let's say a developer builds a bigger, taller building than what was there previously and adds residents. If they're not required to include sufficient parking, the new cars will flood the surrounding neighborhood, and existing residents will now have no place to park. This depends on the type of neighborhood, of course, but it happened in mine in Chicago. Not being able to just come home and go inside, but rather have to drive around and around in ever-larger circles (in the winter) to look for a parking spot because some alderman got paid off by a developer to screw his constituents... that's the reality.
We're seeing this in L.A. too, where local politicians will sell out to developers and publicly excuse it by pretending that parking creates cars and cars = bad. L.A. is a giant county masquerading as a city, and it's never going to be Amsterdam (you hear this asinine comparison all the time). Pretending that people aren't going to bring cars to their residence is absurd and damaging.
But big vacant parking lots growing weeds? Hell yeah, we have those all over the place, around dying malls and boarded-up Macy's. But what did CA politicians do? Pass laws that allow developers to destroy one single-family home and build 10 units there, overriding any local zoning or review and without local ability to prevent it.
So now we're going to pave over even MORE ground and cut down MORE trees, while said malls are still sitting there. As if the place isn't hot, barren, drought-stricken, and depressing enough.
Anyway, that's what I think of when I hear "get rid of parking requirements:" corrupt sellouts.
You're being downvoted a lot (perhaps too much), mostly because I think people disagree with this view because it's very narrow. Parking minimums destroy locality and walkability and cause sprawl. Sprawl is bad in the large; it destroys communities and causes traffic.
There's an even easier way to start: ban regulations requiring a set number of parking spaces in new developments. Removing these minimums returns parking to the market. Already dense areas would likely end up with fewer spaces that'd cost more, driving the desired result.
America suffers from one more blight: too much parking. Large chunks of LA have mandatory parking no-one needs. This spreads the city out further whilst not actually providing parking where it's needed.
I do think removing parking restrictions is hugely beneficial for communities (allowing developers to add more or less as they see appropriate for their situation). I'd recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking for some more background here.
Congestion pricing is another thing that really does overall improve the quality of life.
The problem with offering free public parking or trying to force developers to make free parking is that it is not free for the community at large.
My own parents (who I love) live by the beach in LA, and they have 3 cars for 2 people. The only reason they do this is because parking on the street is free. Parking is crowded, and 1-2 cars can't park at the beach because my parents are taking 1-2 slots they could have. And this is multiplied across the whole community.
I also am against parking maximums, which are starting to pop up. People should be able to decide what is the right amount of parking for their home or business.
I'm curious to see when cities will start changing their zoning for this new reality. The most exciting to me is elimination of parking minimums - these add a lot to the cost of building anything and take up very valuable/well located space.
What neighborhoods, exactly? Parking minimums have been the de facto law for cities, it's only in the past decade that trend has been starting to be reversed in the US.
There's plenty of easy and cheap options that can be taken to shift cities away from car dependence without tearing them down and rebuilding them.
step one would be to abolish mandatory parking minimums. if a developer wants to use their entire lot size for housing and not provide any parking, they should be able to. if the market demands parking, the market can build market-rate parking. it's ridiculous that we have legal requirements for how much housing there is for cars, but not how much housing there is for people.
As a resident of LA, I don't see this actually accomplishing much due to the specific market of downtown LA. Like the article mentions, basically all the new construction in that area comes in at the top of the market. Almost everyone in that socioeconomic class in LA has a car and would want a nearby place to park it. Developers therefore aren't going to build a new luxury high-rise and not provide parking for its residents.
That said, we might as well remove this regulation requiring parking if the market will dictate a similar level of parking anyway. I simply think this type of change would see a greater impact in neighborhoods in which car ownership levels are lower.
Not sure removing parking minimums is all that great an idea if the public transit isn't keeping up though.
I'm also not very familiar with Seattle, but generally when cities just start building nilly willy, traffic become a real problem, which then limits how far from city center you can be while still having an acceptable commute, which drastically raises prices since people are not willing to live further out.
I believe SF is ahead of many cities in not requiring their developers to build excessive parking. Cutting parking requirements in buildings is one of the easiest things a city can do to make building construction cheaper and lower housing costs.
SF is ahead of many cities, but apparently still has "minimum parking requirements" for certain new developments. Good news though, that may be about to change:
[0]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sea...
[1]: https://la.curbed.com/2019/8/6/20698162/parking-minimums-dow...
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