Is parking too cheap?

Even without tackling the mistaken sentiment that lack of easily available parking = bad for downtown, this article suffers a really brazen leap of logic in an effort to appear alarmist.

If I follow correctly... The Boston Common garage is adding more spaces, which will reach the cap (horror!). But then, at the same time, parking spaces in the seaport are getting filled in (oh no!). But Scotty, don't you see how the second point makes the first point a non-issue? That as spaces get eliminated, new spots can be accomodated under the cap? It sometimes helps to follow through the logic of one's argument before hitting "send".
 
Downtown Boston has been able to survive all these years under the parking freeze because it sits next door to acres upon acres of surface parking lots along the South Boston waterfront.

Those lots, which don?t fall under the downtown cap, have acted as a safety valve over the years for the Financial District, providing ample and fairly cheap spaces to commuters.
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I'm not a fan of Scotty either, but he is pointing out a potential problem that could stifle development even further. I don't have enough info about this cap to know for sure, but let's not dismiss the message just because we don't like the messenger.

It sometimes helps to follow through the logic....
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Ah so if they don't fall under the downtown cap I retract my critique.
 
^^I made the same mistake on my first read through too.
 
Statler, watching Fox and taking a drink each time they mention any of the three words you said is a great drinking game that I have never played or witnessed.

While I hate to see more parking spaces as much as the next tree-hugger, I doubt that a cap will really make anyone take the train. It's sort of a much larger issue, that involves urban development, mass transit improvements, and more of stuff that we talk about all the time. I wouldn't be terribly disappointed to see the cap go; is it really that difficult to eliminate?
 
kennedy said:
Statler, watching Fox and taking a drink each time they mention any of the three words you said is a great drinking game that I have never played or witnessed.
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Well, I suppose if you are looking for a quick way to get drunk, that would do the trick.
 
What I don't get is this: If the "secretaries and back office workers" are the ones that Van Voorhis thinks are going to drive and park in the garage, then how are executives and professionals getting into the city? Helicopter?

BostonUrbEx said:
Not to mention it's impossible to take a train into the city as the financial district and back bay are so transit deprived. And taking a train is so much more expensive than $20/day parking.
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Yeah, somehow I think that the executives are more likely to drive and the secretaries are more likely to use mass transit.
 
By Scott Van Voorhis

Who is this clown and what else has he written? The article is 100% opinion based and doesnt even try to balance the opinion with facts that may disagree with what he thinks.
 
What does this say about the Fenway center which is supposed to begin construction this summer? Doesn't that have a giant parking garage as one component?
 
^^ That's a good point. Does anyone know the boundaries of the 'downtown' parking cap? If the Seaport is outside the border, it makes sense that Fenway may be as well.
 
I have a reverse commute every day from Boston to the South Shore and I constantly shake my head at the volume of cars trying to get into the city every morning. Obviously these people would rather sit in traffic and pay to park than take public transportation, so until that paradigm shifts we will have more and more traffic on roads like 93 North in the AM.

I'm also baffled by the decision to create an HOV lane, on the northbound side in the AM and southbound side in the PM, at the expense of a lane on the opposite side. It seems if they took this lane from the same direction it would create more traffic, thus forcing more people to consider carpooling or public transportation. We should be giving people a reason not to take their cars into the city everyday, whether it is longer commute times, more expensive parking, tolls, etc.
 
smw2340 said:
I have a reverse commute every day from Boston to the South Shore and I constantly shake my head at the volume of cars trying to get into the city every morning. Obviously these people would rather sit in traffic and pay to park than take public transportation
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Goes to show you how much public transit sucks in this town doesn't it? A lot can be said for the comfort of one's personal automobile relative to sitting next to a stinky homeless person(or JP hippy-crunchy) in a subterranean tin can potentially being driven by an affirmative action hire who may or may not be texting their way in and out of each station.
 
Unfortunately, kmp has a point. I'm no fan of driving, but I'm definitely a critic of mass transit. A little tough love never hurts, right?
 
Well, the lucky among us live on the Red Line. ;)

kmp1284 said:
Goes to show you how much public transit sucks in this town doesn't it? A lot can be said for the comfort of one's personal automobile relative to sitting next to a stinky homeless person(or JP hippy-crunchy) in a subterranean tin can potentially being driven by an affirmative action hire who may or may not be texting their way in and out of each station.
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I was busting through some old podcasts and one of the recent Kunstlercast episodes is about parking and how people get up in arms, on both sides, about it. It's worth a listen, not especially since he name drops a certain Boston web forum.

KunstlerCast #103: Parking Militants & Hot Heads

I also realized, listening to this, that the last time we talked about the KC it got ugly and I called the host a "moron". If you ever read this Duncan, I'm sorry. I've been a big fan ever since.
 
If public transportation didn't waste huge amounts of your time, more people would take it. I could spend a ridiculous hour to and hour and a half to get from Chelsea to work in Brookline, or I could drive and get there in 20-25 minutes.
 
That varies quite a bit by commute. I have a choice of driving from Roslindale to work downtown and needing 40 minutes for that trip, or taking the train and needing 15 minutes (door to door, house to office). But my wife commutes to Watertown, and the car is much faster.

Would Chelsea to Brookline in 45 minutes be considered a reasonable trade for driving? The reason I ask is that I am willing to use transit that takes somewhat longer because it frees time for napping or reading. But I wouldn't take it if the time commitment were say a doubling of driving. What is the sweet spot for this?
 
Goose, do you live within walking distance of the Chelsea commuter rail? An hour and a half sounds like a very long time if we're talking about one CR stop to North Station (or the 111 bus to Haymarket) and then the C line to Brookline. I admit I've never tried it, so I'm curious where the timesink is.

Henry - transit/auto parity can be achieved not just with faster transit but with slower and/or pay-per-use roads. With the Detroit lobby breathing its last, perhaps this might happen on a large scale sooner than we imagine.... who knows.
 
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