Search Results
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Believe It or Not, Trump Put a Huge Tax on Parking Lots, Maybe by Mistake
Deep in the bowels of the Republican tax reform that took effect in the United States last year, its late-night authors buried a secret. The bill, as written, made one of the nation’s most economically and environmentally destructive fringe benefits—a free parking space for anyone who drives to work—21 percent more expensive for any private employer to provide. Did the authors of the bill, which skipped the scrutiny of Congress’s...Read more » -
ADU Parking Quotas Are Climate Killers
On a planet facing a climate crisis, in a country where cars are the single largest source of climate pollution, mandating more parking spaces is foolish, at best, and may constitute climate malpractice. For accessory dwelling units (ADUs)—backyard cottages, basement apartments, and mother-in-law suites—parking quotas make even less sense. As more jurisdictions throughout Cascadia and beyond consider liberalizing rules to make it easier for homeowners to build ADUs, they will...Read more » -
2018 Was the Year Parking Reform Went from Minor to Major League
Almost every good idea, from sandwiches to light bulbs to bike lanes, follows a similar upward-twisting curve of rising popularity. First, in a trickle, comes its introduction by a few radicals. Then come the early adopters, the ones who know a good idea when they see it even though it’s off-the-wall. They’re a little more numerous. After that, a deluge of change: those in the “early majority” get exposed to...Read more » -
Portland Might Spend Twice as Much on Free Parking Lots as Affordable Housing along Its Next Rail Line
The big, hard-fought housing ballot issue that Portland-area voters approved this month set aside 10 percent of its revenue—$65 million—specifically for low-income-affordable housing near transit lines. But as the same regional government draws up plans for the region’s next light-rail line, it’s also been quietly preparing to give the rest of the Pacific Northwest an object lesson in what not to do. It’s weighing whether to dedicate $168 million or...Read more » -
Portland Now Has the Smartest Parking Policies in the Northwest
We’re going to call it: No city in the Northwest, and few cities in North America, are doing parking policy better than Portland. With a unanimous vote last week, its city council dropped two crucial pieces into place. First, they agreed to adjust parking-meter prices up or down each year based on the number of people using them, aiming for an average occupancy rate between 65 and 85 percent—one to...Read more » -
Portland’s Latest Smart Idea: Meters That Charge What Parking Is Worth
Every time someone parks a car on the street outside Steven Lien’s downtown Portland shop, an invisible clock inside his business plan starts to tick. If they’re stopping by his men’s underwear store, of course, he’s happy. If they’re not, he’s eager for the minute they’ll finish their errand, get back in their car and move along. “I can definitely say that when we get more turns on the parking...Read more » -
Parking Eats Up $117,677 of Local Wealth for Every Household in Seattle
When we at Sightline talk about the opportunity to end hidden subsidies for parking that drive up the cost of everything else in our economy, it can be hard to know how much it all matters. It’s a parking space, Michael. What could it cost? A new report published last week by the Research Institute for Housing America offers a new way to think about the answer—In Seattle, parking accounts...Read more » -
Build Less, Share More: An Urban Mantra for Taming Parking
If I were Emperor of Cascadia, I would ban all rules that require new buildings to provide off-street parking spaces. The case against mandating parking couldn’t be stronger: parking makes housing more expensive; it reinforces reliance on carbon-spewing cars; it hinders travel by walking, biking, and transit; and it makes cities ugly. Not being the emperor, though, I’ll take what I can get, and the set of parking reforms Seattle...Read more » -
How Shared Parking Can Reduce Housing Costs and Cut Traffic
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Seattle Builds Lots of New Apartments, but Not So Many Parking Spots