I personally think that if you do it right, you can argue for parking under restricted circumstances without endorsing the idea that parking is always the best use for a piece of land. In that spirit, I've thrown together this hierarchy of land use.
Imagine a 10' by 30' rectangle, roughly the size of your average American parking space. Such a rectangle could be used for various purposes, all with different impacts on people's decisions to drive for a single trip, to make a habit of driving, to buy a car, or to lobby for more car improvements. I've given them a rough ranking, with the least desirable uses at the top of the list.
There are some rankings that will depend on the circumstances of the area. Places with lots of pedestrians would probably have a greater need for sidewalks, while places with more bus riders would need more bus stops and lanes. In general, though, I think this is pretty accurate. Your suggestions are welcome.
- Electric vehicle charging station (Added June 22)
- Shark pit
- Curb cut used as queue for garage, gas station or car wash (Added June 22)
- Curb cut for off-street parking
- General purpose driving
- Shared bike lane
- Parking reserved for individuals
- Parking reserved for classes of people
- Unmetered, unlimited parking
- Limited-time unmetered parking
- Limited-time parking with long-term permits
- Limited-time parking with parking meters
- Limited-time parking with muni-meters
- Limited-time parking with dynamic pricing
- Limited-time parking with market-rate pricing adjusted quarterly
- Limited-time parking with market-rate pricing adjusted hourly or in real time
- High-energy use retail (truck with compressor, air conditioner) (Added June 22)
- Loading zone
- Taxi stand
- Parking for motorized two-wheeled vehicles (motorcycles, mopeds, scooters)
- Painted bike lane
- Part-time bus lane
- Sidewalk
- Sidewalk with bench
- Sidewalk with chairs and tables
- Bike parking
- Low-energy-use retail (hot dog, ice cream or tamale cart) (added June 22)
- Pop-up cafe
- Physically separated bike lane
- Bus stop
- Full-time bus lane
- Full-time trolley lane
9 comments:
You shouldn't have sidewalk-adjacent transit lanes, unless the street is narrow enough to be a transit mall.
You should add retail to your list of uses of the street space - for example, a lunch cart, or a street fair booth.
Thanks, Alon! I've added your suggested use, and a couple more. But now that you've got your own blog, I'd like to see you expand on why you shouldn't have sidewalk-adjacent transit lanes. Are they really worse than sidewalk-adjacent general-purpose driving lanes?
Short version: on multi-lane streets, LRT and BRT space should preferably be in the median. I'll expand on this more on my blog soon, I promise.
There are lots of places where sidewalk adjacent transit lanes work very well, such as Paris. Putting buses in the center of multi-lane traffic, means that people have to cross that traffic every time that they want to take the bus.
If you did the shark pit properly, it could be a neat little attraction for the pedestrians.
I can imagine families stopping and a local vendor starting to sell bits of raw meat to kids who want to feed the sharks. It would need to be properly fenced in of course. A section of glass floor would be great! :)
Curb cut for used as queue for gas station or car wash is worse than curb cut for off street parking as these areas are really dangerous for pedestrians. You can safely put a bus stop near an entrance to off-street parking; you can't put one next to an entrance to a gas station.
See The Bus Bench (www.busbench.com) for examples of dangerous bus stops in Los Angeles.
@Nate, shark pits can be better than parking.
@Alon, yes let's draw people into the street.
Why is "Electric Vehicle Charging Station" the very worse use, from a transit advocacy perspective? Are you being silly, seeing that is placed as worse than "shark pit"?
Putting buses at the curb means they have to cross traffic every time they want to use the bus. Unless it's a very short ciruclator type of thing where you get on the bus at the same stop you use when you come back.
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