Matt Smith of the SF Weekly writes about a rather nasty ballot initiative to increase the amount of parking in San Francisco:
On its face, The Fisher Initiative would seem benign: “What’s wrong with more parking?” Fisher’s political consultant asked, rhetorically, when I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago. But this measure’s awfulness is in its details. It’s being promoted as a way to make driving around the city a more attractive transport option. But its most notable effect will be to make housing more expensive so parking can be cheaper — that’s backwards. And just as it will help drive more low- and middle-income people from San Francisco, the Fisher Initiative will make life less pleasant for people of all incomes who already live here.
What makes this story interesting is not just its content but its treatment. You can find the traditional text-based column here. But SF Weekly has also done an illustrated version in slideshow format for the web which is really quite extraordinary.
And look at what’s happening in Manhattan — see http://tinyurl.com/35w5jq for the story: “In Houston, $225,000 will buy a three-bedroom house with a game room, den, in-ground pool and hot tub. In Manhattan, it will buy a parking space. No windows, no view. No walls.” I can’t figure out from the article whether the Manhattan approach (charging full price for what parking costs) results in developers adding more parking (b/c there’s great profit in building parking) — and therefore subtracting from the housing stock — or whether this market strategy of real fiscal pain for parking (I mean: $225K for a parking space? OUCH!) makes people get serious about whether they expect a space for their car to come with their condo, or whether they’ll start cutting back on automobiles…
Maybe it’s time to make the automated parking garage more common-place? (see: http://tinyurl.com/3cokvw)