Regional and Urban Design Committee

I don't think a data resource, i.e., parking stats for urban concentrations, is necessarily a design parameter.  If it were that easy, we could all simply follow a formulaic approach - as civil engineers historically have with at best mixed results.  For me, design of cities is about values first, physical statistics last.  With respect to the private auto, the species we are attempting to efficiently park, my "value" is that it is, as commonly understood, anathema to urban design when considered primarily as other than a decent long range, exurban transit system to be banned from the common pedestrian, residential, and commercial plane of city development (not necessarily at grade).  The "value" thus presented is a design parameter, based on assumption, experience, and a body of data and research condemning the auto as an urban transit system.  It is contestable only by apologists (i.e., Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox) for the suburban development pattern that has, with respect to sustainability and nurturing habitat, tended to kill the modern American city aborning. 

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Gary Collins AIA
Principal
Gary R. Collins, AIA
Jacksonville OR
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Gary,
What you're talking about is a policy decision. Until you succeed, the best we can do is improve strategy and tactics. Please also see my note to David Solomon. Parking is not a given in the forecast models I mention.
-----Walter

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Walter Hosack
Author
Walter M. Hosack
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-05-2011 03:03
From: Gary Collins
Subject: Parking

I don't think a data resource, i.e., parking stats for urban concentrations, is necessarily a design parameter.  If it were that easy, we could all simply follow a formulaic approach - as civil engineers historically have with at best mixed results.  For me, design of cities is about values first, physical statistics last.  With respect to the private auto, the species we are attempting to efficiently park, my "value" is that it is, as commonly understood, anathema to urban design when considered primarily as other than a decent long range, exurban transit system to be banned from the common pedestrian, residential, and commercial plane of city development (not necessarily at grade).  The "value" thus presented is a design parameter, based on assumption, experience, and a body of data and research condemning the auto as an urban transit system.  It is contestable only by apologists (i.e., Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox) for the suburban development pattern that has, with respect to sustainability and nurturing habitat, tended to kill the modern American city aborning. 

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Gary Collins AIA
Principal
Gary R. Collins, AIA
Jacksonville OR
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Walter,

A value is a value; it can be part of a matrix of variables, but remains a value, not a policy.  It only becomes policy, or an element of policy, when it is adopted, and real when implemented.  You can, as you propose, selectively break values down into  subsets, i.e., reciprocals of more or less parking, but values must be defended as such, and not left for their relevance to the vagaries of political winds.  Hence, designers, while they need to make a living, should not surrender themselves uncritically either to interests counter to the long-term sustainablity, livability, and vitality of cities, nor a mathematical scheme proposed independently as a reliable compass. 

In the final analysis, the needle will be locked in the direction of values expressed as policy, and the ratios fixed.  It may not be the case that less parking means more room for development if 1) the limits on development are geographically delimited, and 2) viable design solutions allow concentration of parking segregated from the "ground" plane(s) of civic activity, i.e., as in a regional shopping center (taken as a microcosmic model for a city) not served by an alternative mass transit network: parking will (must) increase proportionally with expansion, not be decreased inversely to it.
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Gary Collins AIA
Principal
Gary R. Collins, AIA
Jacksonville OR
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-06-2011 08:38
From: Walter Hosack
Subject: Parking

Gary,
What you're talking about is a policy decision. Until you succeed, the best we can do is improve strategy and tactics. Please also see my note to David Solomon. Parking is not a given in the forecast models I mention.
-----Walter

-------------------------------------------
Walter Hosack
Author
Walter M. Hosack
-------------------------------------------






Original Message:
Sent: 09-05-2011 03:03
From: Gary Collins
Subject: Parking

I don't think a data resource, i.e., parking stats for urban concentrations, is necessarily a design parameter.  If it were that easy, we could all simply follow a formulaic approach - as civil engineers historically have with at best mixed results.  For me, design of cities is about values first, physical statistics last.  With respect to the private auto, the species we are attempting to efficiently park, my "value" is that it is, as commonly understood, anathema to urban design when considered primarily as other than a decent long range, exurban transit system to be banned from the common pedestrian, residential, and commercial plane of city development (not necessarily at grade).  The "value" thus presented is a design parameter, based on assumption, experience, and a body of data and research condemning the auto as an urban transit system.  It is contestable only by apologists (i.e., Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox) for the suburban development pattern that has, with respect to sustainability and nurturing habitat, tended to kill the modern American city aborning. 

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Gary Collins AIA
Principal
Gary R. Collins, AIA
Jacksonville OR
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I am just beginning  a new studio on eco-districts at Bloustein and have several transportation planners in the class. One is very obssessed with this issue. I think Shoup's suggestion of pricing probably still holds my support. The Wall Street Journal just ran an article on parking in the city. Several couples, who paid $1M plus for their condos and over $100,000 for their parking spaces, have seen their condo values drop significantly and their parking space values rise to over $125,000 in NYC and Philadelphia. In Jersey City the condos are full of people who take transit every day of the work week and weekends but they still want a car for special trips and vanity. If they are willing to pay a market price for the space then they should be allowed to have one. Most people will either opt out of the space or sell it back to the building and use the money for other expenses. Check out Dockside Green in Victoria BC for a really comprehensive approach to tranist/auto/bike/ped planning. 
   
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Robin Murray FAIA
RLM Architect
Trenton NJ
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-06-2011 08:38
From: Walter Hosack
Subject: Parking

Gary,
What you're talking about is a policy decision. Until you succeed, the best we can do is improve strategy and tactics. Please also see my note to David Solomon. Parking is not a given in the forecast models I mention.
-----Walter

-------------------------------------------
Walter Hosack
Author
Walter M. Hosack
-------------------------------------------






Original Message:
Sent: 09-05-2011 03:03
From: Gary Collins
Subject: Parking

I don't think a data resource, i.e., parking stats for urban concentrations, is necessarily a design parameter.  If it were that easy, we could all simply follow a formulaic approach - as civil engineers historically have with at best mixed results.  For me, design of cities is about values first, physical statistics last.  With respect to the private auto, the species we are attempting to efficiently park, my "value" is that it is, as commonly understood, anathema to urban design when considered primarily as other than a decent long range, exurban transit system to be banned from the common pedestrian, residential, and commercial plane of city development (not necessarily at grade).  The "value" thus presented is a design parameter, based on assumption, experience, and a body of data and research condemning the auto as an urban transit system.  It is contestable only by apologists (i.e., Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox) for the suburban development pattern that has, with respect to sustainability and nurturing habitat, tended to kill the modern American city aborning. 

-------------------------------------------
Gary Collins AIA
Principal
Gary R. Collins, AIA
Jacksonville OR
-------------------------------------------

Gary,
I wasn't precise enough with my earlier comment. Parking is a given design specification template topic in the forecast models I mention, but its value can be entered as zero. This increases the development capacity (intensity) predicted.
-----Walter

-------------------------------------------
Walter Hosack
Author
Walter M. Hosack
-------------------------------------------






Original Message:
Sent: 09-05-2011 03:03
From: Gary Collins
Subject: Parking

I don't think a data resource, i.e., parking stats for urban concentrations, is necessarily a design parameter.  If it were that easy, we could all simply follow a formulaic approach - as civil engineers historically have with at best mixed results.  For me, design of cities is about values first, physical statistics last.  With respect to the private auto, the species we are attempting to efficiently park, my "value" is that it is, as commonly understood, anathema to urban design when considered primarily as other than a decent long range, exurban transit system to be banned from the common pedestrian, residential, and commercial plane of city development (not necessarily at grade).  The "value" thus presented is a design parameter, based on assumption, experience, and a body of data and research condemning the auto as an urban transit system.  It is contestable only by apologists (i.e., Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox) for the suburban development pattern that has, with respect to sustainability and nurturing habitat, tended to kill the modern American city aborning. 

-------------------------------------------
Gary Collins AIA
Principal
Gary R. Collins, AIA
Jacksonville OR
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