(109th in a series of posts on parking)
(also 6th in a series about sharing your reading)
(and also relating to walkability too)
Jeff Speck: “Hide the parking structures. Exposed parking structures
do not belong next to sidewalks.”
(Walkable City Rules, 2018)
Jeff Speck: “Design parking structures for eventual conversion to human use.”
(Walkable City Rules, 2018)
You have seen Gadfly gradually resigning himself to the fact of a $16.8m Polk Street Garage though there seem to be significant unanswered questions.
$16.8m.
And turning his attention to its design.
And whining, “If we are to have new parking garages, deargod, let them be built with the most modern ideas.”
And wondering if the PSG is being designed in accord with goals other than simply warehousing cars, goals like walkability and Climate Action.
On the latter point, remember the recent letter of the Environmental Advisory Council to the Bethlehem Parking Authority.
Which brings him to Speck again.
Speck speaks of the now common practice of addressing walkability (street life) through a parking structure with a ground floor of retail.
Note, for instance, that the new New Street Garage has a Police substation and a Southside Arts District office on ground level. Steps in the direction of providing a bit of street life there.
Note, too, widespread talk of the need to liven up in some similar fashion the long stretch of Walnut St. along the Walnut Street Garage when it is repaired or rebuilt.
This is all good, and Gadfly believes the BPA is planning for ground-floor retail with the PSG and is already soliciting tenants.
But Speck suggests that “many cities and developers have moved on to a better solution, which is to set the parking lot back slightly and hide it from view.” In Dallas, for instance, “a ring of apartments hides a large parking lot.” It is “fully reasonable for cities to require hidden parking, and to stop allowing buildings to place parking up against would-be walkable streets.”
Interesting. Intriguing.
And let’s remember Councilman Reynolds’ good question discussed in the previous post on parking about the impact of ride-sharing and autonomous cars on the need for parking garages in the future. Reynolds — a young man — is kind of wondering if 20-30-40 years from now he and others will be wondering what to do with this damn underused building and why we built it in the first place!
Speck is on the same page with the Councilman:
The other mandate for the twenty-first century is to make parking lots convertible. If ride-hailing services — and eventually AVs — end up drastically reducing the need for parking, as predicted, we will wish that we had built all those parking structures with flat floors, removable ramps, and frames that can support human uses. Smart developers are doing it now.
As usual, all this is above Gadfly’s pay grade. He’s just trying to stir the pot. He’s concerned the PSG will be designed without sufficient public conversation and in isolation from wider community goals relating to the quality of life and long-term issues.
The follower Gadfly mentioned in the previous post has him thinking about bargaining chips. Perhaps a chip toward approval of the fine increase proposal might be assurance that the BPA will provide extensive public conversation over the PSG design and satisfaction that the design meets even non-technical city goals.
If you aren’t reading, you may not be growing. What are you reading these days? How about sharing with us? Gadfly invites you to share a few clips of your reading — with or without comment — or a few thoughts from your reading pertinent to the Gadfly project of the good conversation about Bethlehem that builds community.
