I know this will be a controversial take, but I live rural town where most houses are hundreds of years old, and like many European towns, car parking was obviously never considered during its construction. Not having a car is, unfortunately, not an option here for most, due to the town’s geographic location, rurality and public transport availability. If I want to take a train to a city here which is a 2 hour drive away, it’s a 5 hour journey during which I have to change trains in literally another country to get there.
That aside, because cars are - for the foreseeable future at least - essential here, everyone has one. And since the houses and roads weren’t constructed to accommodate parking, there are cars parked on roads and pavements everywhere. Some parking restrictions have come into place over the years to prevent obstructions, which has meant cars are often left wherever people can find a space. In my immediate area, most people have at least a 5 minute walk to their vehicle. This sounds acceptable, but there are a large number of elderly drivers that live in the town, which itself is extremely hilly, and is unhelpful for them.
New build estates are cropping up all around the town, and while not all of them have drives or parking spaces, most do, and it makes those areas considerably more accessible.
Yes, this will likely increase house prices, but locally that’s not the major factor. Around here it’s second-home owners that use them as holiday lets, or summer homes to escape from the city. A crackdown on that would have a far greater impact on local house prices without affecting accessibility for locals.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Build parking for car > car ownership went up > town become easily congested because of increased car ownership > politician bitch about non-private car infrastructure taking away from honest car driver > widening the lane > business gone down > road is congested few years later on anyway > speed is increased to make flow better > pedestrian dying left and right > town revenue decline because businesses left or shut > next generation of politician came in and fight for better town > town got a bit better > today.
What, you thought i’m narrating the future of this town?
azimir@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
The city I just left is almost through that entire arc. How did you guess the history of a city you’ve probably never looked at!?!
The latest wave of city council leadership is actively trying to build out more public transit and it’s amazing just how horrible people can be when you ask them to make a tiny percentage of the roads (often 3+ lanes wide in the city core) have a bike lane or even a few blocks of bus priority lane so the busses can arrive on time during rush hour.
At the same time it’s in the top 5 most dangerous cities for pedestrians in our state, but the mutilation of fellow city dwellers is okay as long as people can drive fast through downtown to get to the big box store 20+ miles away. Strangely, the City Council’s old members keep yelling about how the city downtown is dying because we added a few bike lanes and therefore people don’t want to be there since it’s harder to drive (but only during major rush hours).