Comments on: Recapturing valuable pavement on the Path to Prosperity: Remove Rush-Hour Parking Restrictions

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:33:30 +0000

hmm… Traffic does not move only through retail areas, it moves through residential, industrial, blighted, etc. Retail considerations should not dominate the decision making. And what percentage of “storefront businesses” are seeing volume at 7-9 a.m. anyway? Must we accept increased congestion so bakeries and coffeeshops can provide convenient parking to their patrons? Why? As to your other points: 1. Define “remote distance.” Do commuters lose status when they travel 10 blocks from home? 20? 2. Pedestrians, perhaps. But surely mass transit is a beneficiary of extra lanes. I miss rush hour parking in Chicago. It seemed a reasonable way of dealing with temporary and predictable volume increases. (It also provided a window for more reliable street cleaning.)

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:58:42 +0000

Hi Casey-
I first heard the number in a presentation from Bob Gibbs of Gibbs Planning Group in Birmingham, MI. Bob is a retail design specialist. Not sure his original source – might have been a ULI deal.

Thanks,

Kevin

By: Casey Frank

Casey Frank — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:12:34 +0000

It almost goes without saying that the faster the auto traffic goes, the less safe it is for pedestrians. It’s possible that the curbside parking space is directly only partially responsible for the $300k in annual sales that you referred to. The rest of it may come from the safer pedestrian environment created by slowing down auto traffic. This is speculation on my part. I’d like to dig into the research if you’d care to post a link.