TheRifleman
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
Garage parking $$...........heading North like everything else.
Garage parking $$...........heading North like everything else.
Bulfinch Crossing | Congress Street Garage | West End
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
People spend hours looking for parking? Or, they spend hours looking for (free) parking? More entitlement from automobile owners who think their gas taxes should evaporate, tolls disappear and parking be free.
People spend hours looking for parking? Or, they spend hours looking for (free) parking? More entitlement from automobile owners who think their gas taxes should evaporate, tolls disappear and parking be free.
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
In another thread we addressed the "neighborhood payoffs" solution: cut every landowner or resident on a block in on the parking fees--they're entitled to the benefits of their curb space, but not not necessarily entitled to park there.
I wouldn't quite say "entitlement", but I would say that if you don't give people price cues messes up people's sense of supply and demand--especially around scarce resources, like city streets and freeways at rush hour.
In another thread we addressed the "neighborhood payoffs" solution: cut every landowner or resident on a block in on the parking fees--they're entitled to the benefits of their curb space, but not not necessarily entitled to park there.
Re: Congress Street Garage Development
While that cited census data might say that 1 in 3 residents is 20-35 and does not have a car, that means that the other 2/3rds of the residents are outside that demograph and most of them (especially those 36+) probably do.
That demograph is also more likely to be married and have kids, I would think. As an old fart with a wife and kids, I can also say that I do a lot more consuming now than I ever did as a bachelor--simple math, I now have 4 mouths (and counting) to feed/house/entertain vice only one.
Families of any configuration, I would guess, are good for a city (or town, or neighborhood) as they ostensibly provide some long-term stability (trust me, moving a family is a pain in the ass on a number of levels) and lifeblood into their community.
Most parents, again, I would guess, would rather a good environment (whatever your working definition of that is) than a poor one for their kids, so there'd likely be more intrest on the part of said adults to take a more active role in their community. Of course there are some folks that don't give a shit but there are always exceptions to any rule.
I say all this because not having a car works well for some. But if you have ever tried lugging more than a couple bags worth of groceries around more than 50 yards under Sunny, dry 68 degree skies, it's a chore. Try doing that earlier this afternoon when it was 95 and humid, or in February with 3 feet of snow and the sidewalks not plowed for 5 days.
Or if you have to commute beyond your den and show up resembling a semi-professional appearance (particularly if your place of business has no locker/shower facilities), it can be tough relying on bike/public transit. Shoot, my office is in Wilmington and I live in Dedham. If I leave early enough, it is a 40 minute ride in to work. If I take the commuter rails (yes, one into Back Bay/South Station, one out of North Station to Wilmington) and get a friend from work to pick me up 2-4 miles from my office (depending on which train I catch), the whole event can last upwards of 2.5 hours EACH WAY.
My point is that a car can be a lot faster, and I have found that as time passes, the more important it becomes. Yes, with traffic, there are definitely times where public transit is a quicker option; however, I'd still take a car if I had a couple of young kids and/or a bunch of groceries to lug around.
So not everyone that has a car is an entitled nuke the whales antichrist . . . many are just busy raising a family
.
P.S. Yes, I live in Dedham, not Boston. Wife wouldn't go for living in the city and it wasn't a hill worth dying on. Perhaps that DQs me from having a valid opinion, but 15 years after the fact, I see her wisdom and am actually more inclined to live further away from the city than closer to it.
While that cited census data might say that 1 in 3 residents is 20-35 and does not have a car, that means that the other 2/3rds of the residents are outside that demograph and most of them (especially those 36+) probably do.
That demograph is also more likely to be married and have kids, I would think. As an old fart with a wife and kids, I can also say that I do a lot more consuming now than I ever did as a bachelor--simple math, I now have 4 mouths (and counting) to feed/house/entertain vice only one.
Families of any configuration, I would guess, are good for a city (or town, or neighborhood) as they ostensibly provide some long-term stability (trust me, moving a family is a pain in the ass on a number of levels) and lifeblood into their community.
Most parents, again, I would guess, would rather a good environment (whatever your working definition of that is) than a poor one for their kids, so there'd likely be more intrest on the part of said adults to take a more active role in their community. Of course there are some folks that don't give a shit but there are always exceptions to any rule.
I say all this because not having a car works well for some. But if you have ever tried lugging more than a couple bags worth of groceries around more than 50 yards under Sunny, dry 68 degree skies, it's a chore. Try doing that earlier this afternoon when it was 95 and humid, or in February with 3 feet of snow and the sidewalks not plowed for 5 days.
Or if you have to commute beyond your den and show up resembling a semi-professional appearance (particularly if your place of business has no locker/shower facilities), it can be tough relying on bike/public transit. Shoot, my office is in Wilmington and I live in Dedham. If I leave early enough, it is a 40 minute ride in to work. If I take the commuter rails (yes, one into Back Bay/South Station, one out of North Station to Wilmington) and get a friend from work to pick me up 2-4 miles from my office (depending on which train I catch), the whole event can last upwards of 2.5 hours EACH WAY.
My point is that a car can be a lot faster, and I have found that as time passes, the more important it becomes. Yes, with traffic, there are definitely times where public transit is a quicker option; however, I'd still take a car if I had a couple of young kids and/or a bunch of groceries to lug around.
So not everyone that has a car is an entitled nuke the whales antichrist . . . many are just busy raising a family
. P.S. Yes, I live in Dedham, not Boston. Wife wouldn't go for living in the city and it wasn't a hill worth dying on. Perhaps that DQs me from having a valid opinion, but 15 years after the fact, I see her wisdom and am actually more inclined to live further away from the city than closer to it.
dshoost88
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
A - with regards to families being good for a city, I think the case could be made that too many kids in a big city could become a drain on public resources compared to the number of tax-paying, working adults that make up a bigger share of the population (that's why the oft-quoted 20-34 year old demographic is so frequently shared as a good thing). That's not to say that I personally am anti-family (I can't wait to have kids); I just think there are examples of gentrification working in places where families weren't instrumental to their stability.
B - I hate it when people say that it must be a real pain in the ass taking home groceries without a car. Living in the city for the last 6 years has taught me this isn't true. 11 months of the year I ride my bike to the grocery store with an empty backpack. Here's a photo I took of my bike last March when it was 30's and rainy out:
Pedestrians can use granny carts, too, if they're getting a car trunk's worth of groceries. The trick is to just make more frequent trips. And for the 5 or 10 days a year when your grocery shopping trip coincides with 3 feet of snow, 95 degrees + humidity, or a deluge of rain storms, just rent a zip car for a couple hours... $20. Problem solved.
C - When you live in the city without a car, you learn to revolve your day-to-day world within that city as well. As Boston continues to fill in and develop more densely, the day-to-day services and destinations we all depend on will get closer to the places people live and work. Walk scores will only continue to climb city-wide, and Generations Y & Z will continue to choose smartphones over sedans in this city.
A - with regards to families being good for a city, I think the case could be made that too many kids in a big city could become a drain on public resources compared to the number of tax-paying, working adults that make up a bigger share of the population (that's why the oft-quoted 20-34 year old demographic is so frequently shared as a good thing). That's not to say that I personally am anti-family (I can't wait to have kids); I just think there are examples of gentrification working in places where families weren't instrumental to their stability.
B - I hate it when people say that it must be a real pain in the ass taking home groceries without a car. Living in the city for the last 6 years has taught me this isn't true. 11 months of the year I ride my bike to the grocery store with an empty backpack. Here's a photo I took of my bike last March when it was 30's and rainy out:
Pedestrians can use granny carts, too, if they're getting a car trunk's worth of groceries. The trick is to just make more frequent trips. And for the 5 or 10 days a year when your grocery shopping trip coincides with 3 feet of snow, 95 degrees + humidity, or a deluge of rain storms, just rent a zip car for a couple hours... $20. Problem solved.
C - When you live in the city without a car, you learn to revolve your day-to-day world within that city as well. As Boston continues to fill in and develop more densely, the day-to-day services and destinations we all depend on will get closer to the places people live and work. Walk scores will only continue to climb city-wide, and Generations Y & Z will continue to choose smartphones over sedans in this city.
metasyntactic
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
Good points. Another aspect of this: if you live in the right parts of the city, it's really easy to just walk to get groceries. I specifically chose an apartment that's pretty much across the street from a Trader Joes. My grocery trip often consists of walking less than a block. The convenience/inconvenience of walking is really a consequence of the choices you make.
Very true. I just buy my groceries for dinner on my walking/biking/train commute back from work. If you're not buying groceries for a week, it's not a huge burden.
Good points. Another aspect of this: if you live in the right parts of the city, it's really easy to just walk to get groceries. I specifically chose an apartment that's pretty much across the street from a Trader Joes. My grocery trip often consists of walking less than a block. The convenience/inconvenience of walking is really a consequence of the choices you make.
Very true. I just buy my groceries for dinner on my walking/biking/train commute back from work. If you're not buying groceries for a week, it's not a huge burden.
Re: Congress Street Garage Development
Yes. Shifting from car lifestyle to walking lifestyle doesn't mean you make the same trips you used to make by car on foot instead.
You go all those places where you "couldn't find parking" before, and you live near useful stuff where you were afraid to live before because you "couldn't find parking" when you got home. Because that's not a problem anymore
Yes. Shifting from car lifestyle to walking lifestyle doesn't mean you make the same trips you used to make by car on foot instead.
You go all those places where you "couldn't find parking" before, and you live near useful stuff where you were afraid to live before because you "couldn't find parking" when you got home. Because that's not a problem anymore
Re: Congress Street Garage Development
If only there was some option to get around without owning a car, for those times a car really does help.
Some type of service where you rent a car by distance...maybe you would find it at some kind of stand, and a driver could take you to your destination, with all your bags?
Or perhaps a shared vehicle system? Where you pay by the hour?
I wish the bright minds of Boston would invent these things.
If only there was some option to get around without owning a car, for those times a car really does help.
Some type of service where you rent a car by distance...maybe you would find it at some kind of stand, and a driver could take you to your destination, with all your bags?
Or perhaps a shared vehicle system? Where you pay by the hour?
I wish the bright minds of Boston would invent these things.
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
Edited.
Edited.
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
I have a family and a minivan too and note that minivans get nearly 100 passenger-miles per gallon with just 4 passengers or 150 p-mpg with 6. They tie or beat even an SOV Prius in every use configuration except when they are both single-occupant.
The shopping and leisure trips that are a breeze by minivan mostly escape the force of reducing parking supply in the City--so long as they occur during non-work hours. Reducing parking in the transit-accessible core should leave most family trips unaffected.
You'll still have some benefits of travel en famille at a peak time, you can use the HOV lanes and parking, even at $30 is split 4-ways (though only 1 or 2 earners) is $7.50 a person.
Fewer parking spots in the city does put a squeeze on suburb-to-city commutes by car, and will further "squeeze out" suburbanites from things like weekday visits to the New England Aquarium or the Children's Museum (at some point, they're going to have to lower their admission fees because a total visit is getting crazy expensive on all but weekends...when it is crazy crowded)
At the same time, there's still *lots* (arguably too much) parking capacity at off times that's great for leisure trips with the family. My own ideal is 2 hours (9am to 11am) exactly, at a street Meter, to visit the Aquarium
So it isn't the minivan that's really the problem, it isn't living in the burbs and it isn't having a family--none of these are problems.
Rather it is the limited (but widespread) 3-part practice:
1) Chosing to live in the 'burbs
2) Chosing to work in the CBD
3) Chosing to make your work trip in a SOV.
Stop any 1 of these 3 and the problem goes away.
While that cited census data might say that 1 in 3 residents is 20-35 and does not have a car, that means that the other 2/3rds of the residents are outside that demograph and most of them (especially those 36+) probably do.
That demograph is also more likely to be married and have kids, I would think. As an old fart with a wife and kids, I can also say that I do a lot more consuming now than I ever did as a bachelor--simple math, I now have 4 mouths (and counting) to feed/house/entertain vice only one.
...
I say all this because not having a car works well for some. But if you have ever tried lugging more than a couple bags worth of groceries around more than 50 yards under Sunny, dry 68 degree skies, it's a chore. Try doing that earlier this afternoon when it was 95 and humid, or in February with 3 feet of snow and the sidewalks not plowed for 5 days.
Or if you have to commute beyond your den and show up resembling a semi-professional appearance (particularly if your place of business has no locker/shower facilities), it can be tough relying on bike/public transit. Shoot, my office is in Wilmington and I live in Dedham. If I leave early enough, it is a 40 minute ride in to work. If I take the commuter rails (yes, one into Back Bay/South Station, one out of North Station to Wilmington) and get a friend from work to pick me up 2-4 miles from my office (depending on which train I catch), the whole event can last upwards of 2.5 hours EACH WAY.
My point is that a car can be a lot faster, and I have found that as time passes, the more important it becomes. Yes, with traffic, there are definitely times where public transit is a quicker option; however, I'd still take a car if I had a couple of young kids and/or a bunch of groceries to lug around.
So not everyone that has a car is an entitled nuke the whales antichrist . . . many are just busy raising a family
P.S. Yes, I live in Dedham, not Boston. Wife wouldn't go for living in the city and it wasn't a hill worth dying on. Perhaps that DQs me from having a valid opinion, but 15 years after the fact, I see her wisdom and am actually more inclined to live further away from the city than closer to it.
I have a family and a minivan too and note that minivans get nearly 100 passenger-miles per gallon with just 4 passengers or 150 p-mpg with 6. They tie or beat even an SOV Prius in every use configuration except when they are both single-occupant.
The shopping and leisure trips that are a breeze by minivan mostly escape the force of reducing parking supply in the City--so long as they occur during non-work hours. Reducing parking in the transit-accessible core should leave most family trips unaffected.
You'll still have some benefits of travel en famille at a peak time, you can use the HOV lanes and parking, even at $30 is split 4-ways (though only 1 or 2 earners) is $7.50 a person.
Fewer parking spots in the city does put a squeeze on suburb-to-city commutes by car, and will further "squeeze out" suburbanites from things like weekday visits to the New England Aquarium or the Children's Museum (at some point, they're going to have to lower their admission fees because a total visit is getting crazy expensive on all but weekends...when it is crazy crowded)
At the same time, there's still *lots* (arguably too much) parking capacity at off times that's great for leisure trips with the family. My own ideal is 2 hours (9am to 11am) exactly, at a street Meter, to visit the Aquarium
So it isn't the minivan that's really the problem, it isn't living in the burbs and it isn't having a family--none of these are problems.
Rather it is the limited (but widespread) 3-part practice:
1) Chosing to live in the 'burbs
2) Chosing to work in the CBD
3) Chosing to make your work trip in a SOV.
Stop any 1 of these 3 and the problem goes away.
underground
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
State Rep Aaron Michlewitz wants dorms included. Don't blame me, I voted Keith.
State Rep Aaron Michlewitz wants dorms included. Don't blame me, I voted Keith.
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
Suffolk housing? I guess it's closer than it seems, but what a stupid idea...
Suffolk housing? I guess it's closer than it seems, but what a stupid idea...
Czervik.Construction
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
+1 dshoot. I do the same on my bike in NYC. Between public transport, our communter bikes, the new Citibikes bikeshare and our own two feet, I realized I was never using my car and subsequently sold it. When I need a car, I use ZipCar. I don't miss car ownership living in the city for a second. It is more a behavioral change than anything else for a lot of people.
+1 dshoot. I do the same on my bike in NYC. Between public transport, our communter bikes, the new Citibikes bikeshare and our own two feet, I realized I was never using my car and subsequently sold it. When I need a car, I use ZipCar. I don't miss car ownership living in the city for a second. It is more a behavioral change than anything else for a lot of people.
Boston02124
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
yesterday from 60 state st
yesterday from 60 state st
statler
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development
From an urban design standpoint (the only thing that really matters) the garage is a shitshow of the highest order. As a grand scale sculpture it's actually kind of cool. Though I suppose that could be said of a lot of Modernist architecture.
From an urban design standpoint (the only thing that really matters) the garage is a shitshow of the highest order. As a grand scale sculpture it's actually kind of cool. Though I suppose that could be said of a lot of Modernist architecture.