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As development explodes, BRA tries to squelch new parking spaces
By adamg on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 8:19pm
WBUR interviews BRA Director Peter Meade, whose thoughts on encouraging public transit and young residents who aren't so tied to cars come a bit too late for the guy who proposed an Allston apartment building with almost no parking, only to get shot down by the city when nearby residents protested.
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Comments
I love the idea of encouraging people to utilize public transit.
But the MBTA doesn't meet the needs of the population. It's basically a series of spokes meeting near the financial district/city hall with little effective cross town service.
Maybe if we had NYC or London's public transportation system this would be justified. Until we invest in useful and effective expansion of public transit and housing development along those lines, a lot of people are going to use cars, no?
NY
The NY subway is also effectively a hub-and-spoke model. Try getting from Brooklyn to Queens or from Queens to the Bronx without passing through Manhattan or taking buses. Or try getting from the Upper East Side to the Upper West Side by train. There also also huge swaths of the outer boroughs that are not served at all by the subway. In the area of Brooklyn in which I grew up, you pretty much needed a car.
Having just spent much of my
Having just spent much of my day today in "deepest Brooklyn" I can attest to the need for a car when you get into the furthest reaches of the borough. Still, I've been a Brooklyner for six years and all of it car free.
And, yes, bikes are great. Except when it's raining, or snowing, or you need to park the bike. Or, you don't want to bike home in the dark. Or it's a day like today and by the time you arrive at your destination you need a shower and a change of clothes. Sometimes you just want to get somewhere.
First step in weaning Bostonians off of their cars: major infusion of cash to fix the deferred maintenance on the T. Then a major bond issue to expand it.
Oh, wait, all the Bostonians are going to be FREAKINGOUTOHNOOMG to hear plans for increased transit access and 24-hour service in their (presently completely sedate, quiet, and closed) neighborhoods.
Brooklyn is also almost twice
Brooklyn is also almost twice as large in land area. And you'd get just as sweaty walking as you would riding a bike on a day like today. People who get sweaty on normal days riding are pushing themselves too hard. If you ever go anywhere in Europe where there are lots of cyclist they're going much slower, but they also aren't forced to battle with traffic either.
Exactly. And the only way we
Exactly. And the only way we wouldn't have gotten sweaty would have been to hop on a bus. Which we chose not to do--exercise, ehmerhgahd!
I've been following this
I've been following this issue for a long time. And fortunately, I've *never* heard anyone in Boston complain about proposed 24-hour transit service on noise or safety grounds.
Paris Metro is a better example
I was going to say precisely that about having to transit Manhattan. I think Paris is better example of a blanket (less hub/spoke) system.
http://www.ratp.fr/informer/pdf/orienter/f_plan.ph...
Incidentally, several people I know who grew up in Bay Ridge used to the say the same thing about cars (that they needed them because of where they lived). By "need" they meant "to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time". Right or wrong, I think there are a lot of people who feel the same way around Boston.
All hail former Brooklynites now in Boston!
The Atlantic recently posted an interesting article about why Brooklyn and Queens are so "distant" from each other even though they're right next to each other. All has to do with the way all the trolleys were replaced by bus routes - the two boroughs used to have much more of a Paris-like mesh rather than a Manhattan-centric subway system (but tsk, tsk, Atlantic for saying all subway lines go through Manhattan - there's one that doesn't, and it goes from Brooklyn to Queens).
Was Boston like that - did we have a crosstown transportation system before the CT buses and the fabled Urban Ring? Although based on the bus routes out of Forest Hills (most of which follow old trolley routes), it would seem not - since they all are very much hub-and-spoke, with the hub being Forest Hills.
In the case of Boston yes and
In the case of Boston yes and no. The horsecar lines mainly ran into downtown (Tremont House, Scollay Square, the Northern Depots, etc) The Metropolitan in the late 1860s did run a through crosstown line from the South End to East Boston before it was ultimately banned from using the ferries. If you had to go from Egleston to Fields Corner, at best you had a two hour trip via downtown.
On the eve of the West End consolidation the Middlesex (serving Charlestown, Somerville, and the lower Mystic Valley) and the Highland (serving the South End and Roxbury) consolidated; they simply merged some of their routes into crosstown lines (i.e. Franklin Park-East Somerville).
After the West End united the entire system in 1887 many lines were merged into long through lines: i.e. Bayview-Baldwin Street, Cambridge; City Point-Harvard via Park Square; West Somerville-Lenox Street.
By 1900 there were quite a few true crosstown lines that avoided downtown, but the El eventually altered most of them to serve as feeders to the nearest rapid transit station. Only a few lines still held out (i.e. 10 City Point-Dudley, 66 Dudley-Allston, 01 Dudley-Harvard).
For the most part our crosstown lines zigzagged across the city rather haphazardly (Ashmont to North Station via Egleston and the South End); a few actually saved time, reduced transfers, and avoided a roundabout trip (Porter-Allston via Central).
ermahgerd!
[size=30]Bicycles?[/size]
Boston is a tiny city. Just
Boston is a tiny city. Just providing adequate bike facilities through the entire city can aleviate a lot of demand on other modes. Also, parking is a loss leader for developers which is why they're pushing to get rid of minimums. Maybe there can be some trade off. You can put in less/no parking but you fund a half mile of cycletrack or help fund the extension of the orange line into roslindale or Hyde park or something.
Boston is not a 'tiny' city
One of this city's issues is it never consolidated surrounding cities and towns the way other big cities did; it essentially stopped expanding before WW1. And Greater Boston is one of the biggest metro areas in the country. It's CSA would rank it #6. It's difficult to compare it to, say, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta.
@48 square miles of land area, yes, the City of Boston is geographically by American big city standards [San Francisco is 46 square miles], but it's not 'tiny'. And metro Boston is huge. The City of Boston doesn't exist in a vacuum; people freely travel, live, work, shop, etc. around Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Malden, Everett, Revere, Chelsea, Quincy, Newton, Watertown, Arlington, etc. etc.
Everyone has heard about 'booming' Atlanta, right?
City of Atlanta
130 square miles land area
population: 435,000
City of Boston
48 square miles land area
population: 625,000
The City of Boston is 82 square miles smaller than Atlanta, but has roughly 200,000 more people. Add to this the fact the City of Boston absorbs more suburban and surrounding cities commuters and workers on a daily basis than Atlanta, Boston in fact ranks #1 in the U.S. in the percentage it's population increases on a typical workday, doubling in size to around 1.2 million people.
The City of Houston is twice the size in land area compared to NYC. It's even geographically bigger than Los Angeles. But it has much smaller population than either of those cities. Compared to Los Angeles or Houston, NYC is 'tiny'.
You just confirmed his
You just confirmed his argument about Boston being a tiny city for transportation planning purposes.
Atlanta's metro area is significantly larger than Boston's, along the exact same rules you laid out.
More to the point, Boston is a compact, Colonial city on a former peninsula and up against the ocean, where traffic is naturally constrained and thus can benefit strongly from even minor bike improvements, etc.; the other cities you mention are sprawl cities without natural boundaries. Try staying on point instead of doing phallus measurements.
Stop and think a moment
Boston is so small compared to its surrounding metro area because of the political happenstance of strong home rule - unlike in most other states, cities can't just gobble up surrounding suburbs (which is why West Roxbury is part of Boston - its residents voted to join the city - while Brookline, which on a map would seem to make more sense - is not).
But Boston doesn't exist in a vacuum. In fact, because it is so small, any transportation plan that fails to take into account transportation to and from the surrounding suburbs (let alone transportation between those suburbs) is doomed to failure. Doesn't mean Boston shouldn't be considering its own "smart growth" policies, especially given what's going on with development in Boston these days, but there are good reasons to have regional transportation and planning.
"Regional" is a dirty word...
...to the provincial pols inside Boston City Hall.
The biggest of them was heard once saying that he was on his way to a meeting at a certain regional high school 20 miles from Boston.
He named the school, adding "wherever the heck that is."
right - and this is why the
right - and this is why the city and all of the surrounding communities are suddenly pushing cycling - the city (and close-in communities) really needs to capture a high percentage of people on this mode otherwise the other modes won't be able to handle the influx of new users. It's by far the cheapest option of moving people around, otherwise we're spending billions on expanding T service or widening roads (we already have plenty of parking, btw - if you're willing to pay garage rates).
wrong numbers
Within the city there are roughly 600k jobs - roughly 300k Bostonians are employed. Where is this additional 300k coming from?
Also - of this number - the average commute distance for people who work downtown is somewhere around 6 or 7 miles - 10 miles is about the outer limit most people are willing to commute by bike. I'm not saying that everyone should be (or would want to start) commuting by bike, but just capturing 10-20% of all road users can have a huge impact.
plus - this discussion is about parking requirements for housing projects closer in to the urban core. No one is going to be proposing carless housing in hyde park or mattapan any time soon. Cambridge already has gotten rid of parking minimums in kendall square (coupled with improvements to bike infrastructure and tying in housing with commercial development) and saw a huge decline in motor vehicle traffic in the area. last I heard this is one of the priciest areas for commercial real estate in the entire country.
btw - I'm involved in this business so I know exactly why the BRA is proposing this - property owners usually cannot sell all the parking spaces tied to the units so they lease them out to suburbanites who commute into the city (but even then the lots are never completely full - so you have all this space sitting there unused). Talk to any developer and they'll tell you that we simply do not need all this parking... however - I do think there should be a trade-off so that developers are required to pay into other infrastructure improvements so that it's easier for people to get around by other means. I know the city doesn't exist in a vacuum, but there are an awful lot of people driving around or taking the T when they don't really need to. The only reason they aren't biking is because they don't feel safe on the roads.
You know there's buses, right?
Over 400,000 rides per day on MBTA buses, more than any single rail line.
In any event, the point of the reduced parking requirements is to take advantage of urban areas near good transit. That's because we have already invested so many millions of dollars in making it the transit system accessible in certain locations. Why would we waste that space on parking lots? It makes no sense.
If you don't want to use the transit system, don't live there. Simple. Let people who do want to use it live there.
Boston already boasts one of the country's highest walking and transit use rates. 36% of Boston residents do not have access to a car. In some neighborhoods, that number is over 50%, or even 60%.
Clearly, many people are already living in Boston without a car. It's about time the city started treating that with respect, instead of wasting huge amounts of taxpayer dollars forcing car infrastructure down the throats of people who don't want it, and neglecting all the other important aspects of city life.
You must have a lot of time on your hands
Buses are great - if you have forever to wait for them to fight their way through traffic and have an hour to get to the train station and all that.
And if you want to wait 40 minutes because OOPS! we forgot to run that one! (happens on the 94 and 96 all the time) or OOPS! Driver took a ten minute break so he/she decides to go OUT OF SERVICE for the first ten stops ...
Or if you take an express bus, which is efficient, but work the mandated 9 to 5 that they accomodate (no buses after 7)
Yeah. Great if you don't have to ride one. If Boston went to dedicated bus lanes for meaningful distances and enforced them, things might be a bit better. Dublin has an interesting system where buses mostly run in dedicated lanes and much faster than car traffic - and they have cowpath streets, too.
Well...
Well, if people stopped using their cars and were using the buses, then the buses would run more efficiently.
I disagree
The problem most buses run into isn't traffic. It's people. They end up needing to pick up far too many people for their capacity. At a certain point, based on how the buses are designed, there is zero room to move through the aisle because of all of the standing patrons and bags and strollers and everything else. Then, when someone in the middle needs to get off, the whole thing grinds to a halt as you convince people to disembark just so you can get off and then they have to get back on board.
Traffic can be bad at times and in certain places. However, the buses that have the worst complaints about bunching and delays are also the ones that have by far the worst overloading (1, 66, 39, 57...) AND a few of those also have the longest routes in the whole system. It's precisely because they are the de facto cross-town buses that get you around the outside (66 = Dudley to Harvard) without having to go downtown on the T instead just to go back outbound on a different T line.
The problem is less to do with traffic as it does with just the enormity of the problem being solved with too few buses trying to do something a subway should be doing instead.
66 Should be 666
I might be mistaken but don't the London buses use a get on in the front get off at the rear set up that helps reduce people jams in the bus itself? London also uses dedicated bus lanes but those are not helpful for the 66 line since most of the route the 66 takes is a single lane road only.
The B Line has gotten especially ridiculous now that they have the front door exit only policy. I understand they do this so people don't get ON the other doors [and not pay]. But there has got to be better ways to handle this. Perhaps by having T inspectors on busy platforms to catch scofflaws? Maybe arrest a few BU students for fair evasion as an example?
There are so many bottlenecks in the T system that could be ironed out with some common sense.
But the only right answer to the 66 is to replace it with a below ground subway line.
Riders entering bus in front, exit rear too logical
Riders getting on the bus/green line in the front door and exiting from the rear door is too logical and might need exceptions for the disabled, moms with strollers, and people with grocery pull along carts. Massive education program required, but I like it!
Density
Instead of square footage going to much needed parking, this proposal will take that square footage and turn it into more units. The density of residents increases and in a few years you think you are living in India.
Let's hope the next mayor has some brains in his head.
Oh horrors!
DENSITY IS TEH DEVIL THE EVIL HORRIBLEST THING EVER EVER EVER!!!~
Elect Anon for Neighborhood NIMBYCRAT party representative - he says the EVIL SCARY WORD DENSITY AND YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT! FIGHT ANY AND ALL CHANGE EVER at least until you have no control over change and it happens and YOU GET TO LIVE IN A POORLY PLANNED NIGHTMARE!
Never mind that Boston proper peaked out at 1.5 to 2x as many people as there are now in an era when public transit was far better.
You're the dude
who graduated from BC, lives in Mission Hill and tries to bang your live in girlfriend while your 5 roommates are in the living room playing PlayStation. That's density and if that's what floats your boat, there's something wrong with you.
Density is completely different from overcrowding
In fact, an increase in density usually corresponds to a decrease in overcrowding. The North End of several decades ago is a prime example. People began creating more units and moving into their own units, instead of living together in the same unit.
The worst overcrowding happens in places with insufficient density. Because people need to live somewhere, and if there's not enough housing units, then they start to double up. That's what has happened in Allston with students. Since the zoning code in Allston forced the construction of so many large single family homes, there's not enough housing units to go around. Those large single family detached houses are very expensive because they are on extremely valuable land. Ordinary families cannot afford them. Shady slumlords takeover instead. So students overcrowd them.
The existence of slumlord housing there is partially caused by the way that the zoning code enforces artificial sparsity -- against the natural flow of the market.
Bad Stats!
Boston peaked at about 800,000 residents. Today we have more than 75% of that population.
I just hate bad stats!
El built to Queens due to Manhattan squalor
Density is psychologically unhealthy. It raises stress and violence levels for all mammals. Physically, it increases the spread of infectious diseases. High density also tends to be less desired by people. Somerville is very dense, Belmont, not so much.
Queens was an example of build it and they will come. People laughed at the project to build the elevated rail lines to the empty fields of Queens. Steinway Piano was an early settler in Queens, leaving Manhattan. They built housing and a company store for employees because Queens was the boonies. With time, business grew around the rail lines. Later on, Long Island grew from the new roads and LIRR. Inadequate transportation limits growth, adding transportation fuels growth. Boston is starving for more transportation, be it roads or rail. Of course, another way to increase economic activity is to become more of a 24 hour city and not roll up the sidewalks at night.
The problem with developers making more profit by selling more units instead of having parking is that residents in these buildings then park for free on the street, competing for already scarce spots. A compromise is to have parking that can fit 1.5 scooters, motorcycles, or bicycles per unit bedroom. That way, only people who decide to procreate or become handicapped will then want to go find a new place to live. The city needs to promote scooter and motorcycle use with free parking for them, much like they do for bicycles.
Lots of difference
Between Calcutta, 19th century Manhattan, 19th century Boston (almost 1 million people in current Boston borders) and now.
I'm sure you think modern Detroit is much healthier with about 1/3 the people it had in 1920. Yeah. That.
More bad stats
Boston in 1900, including the town of Hyde Park, had less residents than we have today.
Of course, North End, Charlestown, Roxbury and other close in neighborhoods had more residents, but the city as a whole had less people.
I hate bad stats!
You are wrong, as usual
Some of the most densely populated cities in the world are also some of the most desirable.
It's not the 19th century anymore. We know how to build safe, comfortable, healthy, and densely populated neighborhoods.
Not only is density perfectly healthy when built to modern standards, it's also natural and desirable. People have been flocking to cities for all of recorded history.
Finally, even in the older days, densely populated neighborhoods were often associated with reduced incidence of disease. The North End is a famous example, having some of the lowest rates of infant mortality in the entire city back in the mid 20th century, as well as the lowest rates of tuberculosis and other diseases. This despite being called a "slum" by city planners and being slated for "renewal."
I don't remember the exact numbers off-hand but in some cases the rate was about one-third of other, more suburban, neighborhoods such as Roxbury.
Which one of those top cities do you like?
From this list?
http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-citie...
How many of those top cities even have subways?
Which ones have lots of motorbikes, or the three wheel version - tuc tuc, for people and goods transit?
Oh, and how is the sanitation in those places?
Now we know who is wrong.
'Nice' list there
It puts Los Angeles at #90 and New York at #114. I'm not arguing whether the numbers are correct -- they are -- but they are arbitrarily chosen. What it shows instead is that measuring large-scale density is useless and tells you almost nothing.
Either you need to look at smaller, human-scale areas, or use something called population-weighted density to get a better feel.
You're also being facetious by listing many cities which are disqualified by my criteria of: "built to modern standards of health."
Back to the first-world: The most densely populated parts of Boston are: the North End, Beacon Hill, the Fenway, the Back Bay, the South End, Chinatown, and parts of Allston/Brighton along Comm Ave.
If more of the city were to become like, say, Beacon Hill, I think most people would regard that as a resounding success. At least, money talks that way.
For the record, the top city on that list that I've visited is Osaka/Kyoto. It's a very nice place.
Elitist much?
So you say high density is great... with your conditions, which few of the top 75 might meet. Otherwise, higher density is less healthy and less safe from crime, disease etc.
What offends me most about urban planners is their desire for total control and power, intolerance for property owners with differing views, and Utopian fantasies that often don't work out. The planners who built high density housing projects that became crime hubs were certainly as well intentioned as every other generation of planners/social engineers. Were planners of the 1800's smarter than those post WWII, with new grads smartest of all? They are all tyrants in my book.
Where have you travelled?
I'm guessing "none of the above" if you make such a statement as "few of the top 75" are liveable?
The reality is that planned cities - the Vancouvers, the Barcelonas, etc. are the ones that are able to increase density
Many unplanned cities that have horrible sprawl have low quality of life due to, well, bad sprawl and poor planning. Mexico City isn't a shithole due to density, but due to excessive sprawl and complete lack of planning. The total population and lack of infrastructure means that it cannot be supported by the total population of the endorheic basin/former lake it sits in. (yes, been there)
Seems to me that liveability is NOT a function of density, but has a lot to do with the degree to which inevitable change is embraced and directed than it does with population density. Vancouver knew it was going to grow and that it could not sprawl due to the surrounding geology. Hence the doubling of population in the same city footprint, which was inevitable, has been accommodated in ways that preserve and enhance the vibrancy of the city. Barcelona was laid out in the 1850s by a king who gave enough of a shit to hire the best experts in sanitary city design to devise a city that could expand, would have running water and sewer, air, light, space, and yet allow people to move around to work.
And, yes, I will have travelled to a good third of those top 75 cities by the end of this year, thankyouverymuch.
Newsflash
Poor places are poor: they are less safe from crime and disease regardless of density. The cities are still better off than the countryside in those countries, even if by our standards they do not look healthy. There are strong economic reasons to form cities, and dispersing them will only cause long-term harm.
Speaking of elitist: It takes a great deal of elitist regulation to create sprawl. Remember, all those rules which prevent proper growth inside of cities are the result of planners deciding to socially engineer people's lives. Those planners decided to force their utopian vision of spread-out society on the rest of us. Even though people are willing to fight over homes to live in cities, the planners - in their infinite "wisdom" - won't permit any more homes to be built.
The housing projects of the 1950s were the result of what suburban planners thought cities ought to look like: buildings with lots of (dangerous) greenspace and parking lots around them. Those housing projects are distinctly anti-urban, not really that densely populated, and approximately the opposite of actual city life.
Seriously?
Here's the global top 125 cities by population density.
http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-citie...
Notice that Boston isn't even on the first page of this list - but Denver(!) and San Francisco and Vancouver are in there!
So, if we have more density, we will know the horrors and discomfort of living in ... Denver? The horrors of overcrowding seen in Vancouver and Toronto! The terrifying crowd crush of being doomed to live in Montreal or New Orleans or Honolulu! Lord help us!
(Barcelona is probably my limit of density. It is near the top, but designed for good health of the residents and truly a beautiful place. I never felt crowded there - but the population is under 4 million and that probably makes a difference as it is easier to both see mountains and get out of the city that way).
If you look at the top 250, Boston comes in behind such squalid and packed and teeming metropolises as San Diego, Portland, Calgary, Sacremento, and San Antonio. With more density, we will certainly achieve the packed terror of Winnipeg! Or Seattle, or Milwaukee!
We have a long way to go before density is even on the radar as any sort of real issue. Sort of a highly local Faux News type of issue, really - apply facts and it disappears from any serious conversation.
That list is based on CSA,
That list is based on CSA, not on the city. The actual city of boston has a density of closer to 5,000/sqKm [1] placing it around 50th on the list. That certainly is far away from the 25,000 you see in Membai, but we are definitely more dense than, for example, Denver, which truly is at 1,500/sqKm.
Generally, this just points out flaws in the method of averaging a population over a large area. Somerville is at 7,000/sqKm and Cambridge is at 6,300/sqKm ; not because they are that much more dense than Allston, but because they aren't as diluted by vast swathes of less dense land.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston
And ...
If you push the entire Boston area population into the Boston-only area, you still end up around Barcelona's population density.
Push the entire area population into Boston, Somerville, Cambridge and Brookline and you wind up with about Vancouver's population density - which includes all the land in Stanley Park.
I've been to both of these cities - they are extremely lovely, vibrant, livable and beautiful cities.
Boston proper once held nearly twice the current population as it is (if you counted students then as they are counted now). These are not the densities seen in cities of India or China. Not by a long shot. Thus making arguments about "Boston will feel like Calcutta", or arguing that density is any sort of issue at all in this area, are, frankly, fact-free bullshit.
Again, bad stat!
Is Boston's population currently 401,000? No! It's about 625,000!
Boston's population peaked at 802,000, in 1950. Yes, we had more people back in the day, and these people were able to get to and fro. And yes, there were a lot less cars then.
Once again, and this is nothing personal against you, but people are making up figures that are pretty solid.
Try Again
I'm not making anything up. I have the advantage of having worked with both historical and current census data and have experience with the methodological changes and flaws in past surveys.
First of all, the Census didn't count Boston's students in 1950 on the census as being Boston population - and the GI bill ballooned enrollments at colleges and universities in 1950, and many of those students brought families. They counted the students in 2010. 1950's census taking is also known to be flawed in that people who didn't answer the door or were working or didn't have anyone at home who spoke English, etc. were never counted. That's why the minority and immigrant communities were often seriously undercounted up to the 1970 census, where mail-in forms were used, and the 1980 census, which attempted to remediate the undercount. Current estimations are far more accurate.
Also, Boston's population peaked at nearly a million between 1940 and 1950, at the height of the war effort. It did not peak in 1950 (unless you count students, families, and get an accurate count on minority and immigrant communities - which we know they did not). Like pretty much any other port city in the US on either coast saw peak population between those census years, for very obvious reasons.
SO, if you add the GI-bill student boom to the 1950s census figures and adjust for the likely undercount (or take the wartime swell into account in 1945), you get nearly twice as many people shuffling around and through the city on a given day as you have today. This was accomplished by more extensive public transit networks.
In any case, I was responding to the initial poster claiming that any additional density would turn Boston into the sprawling Asian slum cities he's heard about on Faux News. Let's just agree that we are seriously unlikely to become Calcutta if people don't get treasured parking spots and developers build high rises.
That was the original poster's bullshit proposition - one that I've heard before when a group of NIMBY idiots and a state rep wannabe were fighting a group trying to build 32 units on a 1.5 acre parcel near Alewife that was zoned for 51 units. The North Cambridge Stagnation Committee thought it should have 3 single family houses at the most and any developer should donate parking to the neighborhood! Because condos aren't affordable housing, but half-acre McMansions are. Seriously. Never mind that the proposed development density was similar to the existing neighborhood and less than that of the street it was on.
Oh horrors, density similar to Honolulu is "like Calcutta". Condo complexes near transit stations - RUIN LOCAL QUALITY OF LIFE because DENSITY! In the CITY!
I think the statistics - be they historically flawed every ten year census figures from the early-mid 20th century or the more accurate current estimates including students - still say outright that we are in zero danger of any sort of density beyond what we see in Vancouver. Even if we packed the entire population of the Metropolitan Statistical Area (about 4 million people) in to the current boundaries of Suffolk County and the inner suburban parts of Middlesex (yes, I blew the metric conversion, above) we'd still come out around the current density of Barcelona.
1945 figures don't look too good for you
First and foremost, we are in agreement with the overall point, which is that Boston can handle higher density. It did before, so it should be able to do so again. I was and am correcting starts that anons have also made.
There's no way there was ever 1.2 million residents of the City of Boston. Period (in addition to the period at the end of the previous sentence.) Never happened. Were one to point out that Boston has over 1.2 million people in it at one point, sure. Heck, the BRA made that point over a decade ago (though the underlying assumptions stretch it.)
There is no way that there was a 50% undercount of Boston for the 1950 Census. Sure, there were people attending Boston schools on the G.I. Bill, but there wasn't much student housing. They were commuting to BU, BC, and Northeastern, not living there. They were also older students with families. The Census Bureau was not going to skip entire families. Well, they did and they do, but I will only concede at most a 20% undercount, and that is a lot more than I think it would be. The only other direction one could go would be to say that there are 235,000 students living in Boston that could not be counted.
As for the "inter-census" counts, Boston has one here. In 1945, Boston had about 750,000 residents. So, postwar we add 50,000, which seems right. As for wartime population rises, remember that Boston didn't have a lot of industry. Charlestown was doing repairs. Keystone in Dorchester and Studevent in Hyde Park would probably be adding some employees, but not too much. Quincy and Lynn would be the place for growth.
If I see a hard statistic that says a million in Boston, I'll take it, but I've just never seen above 802,000 (roughly).
She didn't say "exactly"
She said "nearly".
LTFR
But...
...if they don't get all those cars coming into Boston, how are they going to keep giving out all of those tickets? Revenue, people, revenue!
but they don't
Honestly, the amount of money Boston doesn't collect in tickets is kind of amazing to me. Enforcement of resident only is really spotty. You can block most intersections in the city with impunity. And refilling meters happens all the time. I know you were joking but parking should be expensive and you should get a ticket if you break the law.
revenue missed
Heck if they just gave out tickets from failure to signal a turn, we'd have all the money we need.
Fools
Who would be foolish enough to buy property in the City that does not come with parking? The same newcomers who complain about parking space savers in the winter, but are the first to put out a cone or barrel when the weatherman just mentions snow.
Time get rid of Peter
and the BRA for this lame brain idea. Whether people realize this or not, Boston is not Amsterdam, but is a driving city, The public transportation, the roads, the weather all suck. Look how many bike commuters have been killed the last couple of years. You need a vehicle to get around this city for pleasure, shopping and work. Most opposition at the Board of Appeals is due to parking issues. Allowing more development without requiring parking is a way to eliminate opposition.
not really
not really any more space on the Boston roads for more cars. We are approaching the limit and if we continue on this path the city will end up in grid lock at many times of the day worse than it is now. So many cars drive into/around the city with only one person in them....this is something that we should try and address...Americans love their personal space and freedom to go where they want when they want to but if we could figure out an effective car pool system it would eliminate so much traffic and save gas and money. The reality is the city can only handle so many cars and the more parking spaces we add to the city the more cars we introduce to the city. We really need to extend the subways out to the 128 area to clean up traffic in the region. We also need to change the culture that mostly 20 and 30 some things ride the subway but need to get the more affluent back into the subways!
Myth
The myth that people moving to the city don't drive is perpetuated by developers who do not want to put in parking. My house is within a couple of blocks of MBTA bus stops. I rent 2 of my apartments out to tenants who own a total of 5 vehicles. Half of them take the T to work, the others drive. The condos next to me have a total of 4 vehicles. They all take their cars to work. People want to live in the city and want their cars. Nobody is going to buy property without the option of off street parking.
Perhaps they should pay for it then
If they drive more than access to zip car can take care of, then, maybe, it is worth paying for the privilege of renting public land.
$1000 a year would convince the once-every-two-week car users to give having a city car that extra think.
Car owners already pay the city. It's called excise tax.
And yes, it approaches and exceeds $1k if you have a new car.
That's for the services
Like plowing and street cleaning.
Also, it isn't about what you are paying for. It is about how to ration a scarce public commodity. Put a price on it and generate revenue.
Not a fee - A RENTAL OF SPACE.
Nobody?
Or maybe you just think they're a "nobody" since you hate people who don't own cars. You think that people who don't own cars should be forced to subsidize your lifestyle.
Get a clue. Developers are only interested in attracting customers. If customers want parking, developers build parking. If customers don't want parking, then developers don't build parking.
Or they wouldn't except that they are forced to do so, because assholes like you wrote tyrannical regulations that socially engineer city residents into having to accommodate cars whether they like it or not.
love the armchair
love the armchair planners...
"eliminating parking minimums" has been well accepted in planning circles for well over two decades and implemented successfully in several north american cities (including Cambridge). Boston is often really behind in utilizing things that are at the forefront of planning and urban development. if you think these ideas are stupid, you should probably start visiting ALL OF THE PLANNING PROGRAMS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD and let people with doctorates and decades of experience in economic development and urban planning know just how wrong they are.
have you actually been to amsterdam or copenhagen in the winter? it gets cold and snowy there.
we're also not a driving city - the majority of Bostonians get around by public transit, walking, or bike. motorists only make up something like 40% of all commuters.
Boston is not a driving city
It's quite capable of being a walking city, and is one of the few American cities that can boast that.
But if you are so addicted to driving that you cannot get over it, then you are welcome to move to one of the 98% of other American cities where it is impossible to live without a car.
The more parking spaces you force to be built, the more cars you pump into Boston, the less hospitable the city becomes. Until it loses its character entirely, and just looks like a bland recreation of Dallas, TX. Nothing but parking lots, gas stations, highways and fast food. If you want Dallas, go live in Dallas.
Downtown Boston is a walking city
Have fun walking from Dorchester to Hyde Park or Eastie to Charlestown. And don't give me crap about the T. The T sucks.
So you agree with me
That there should be no "1960s urban renewal"-style regulations, such as minimum parking requirements, in the walkable parts of Boston.
Zipcar and the $10 Boston Surcharge
I'm a big fan of zipcar and other car sharing services. I wish there was more of them. But one big problem is that due to the convention center laws, the first time you rent a zipcar within the city of Boston they tack on a $10 tax. (For zipcar it's once per year.) Every time you rent a car in Boston you're hit with the charge too. (Once per year per rental company.) It's really stupid considering the people renting zipcars are almost by definition locals. I need to walk to Cambridge/Brookline to avoid the tax.
Stupid things like this don't help the carless cause and should be removed.
I don't really understand why
I don't really understand why ZipCar can charge the $10 annually but traditional rental places can't do the same for returning customers. It's an enormous advantage to ZipCar. The garage up the road has both an Avis office and ZipCars and the Avis rates are often competitive with ZipCar (after factoring in gas costs) but the $10 tax per rental for Avis almost always puts me in a ZipCar (or on the T to a rental office out of the city).
There is a new office
There is a new office building under construction on "A" street next to the Channel complex. A large parking garage is being constructed behind the building; the proposed hotels in the area of the convention center include parking.
Only Boston residents are expected to live a BRA approved lifestyle, not commuters or visitors. Time was when the gov't didn't approve of the lifestyle of families living in the West End. Then there was the time the gov't disapproved of the businesses on Corn Hill.
Carfree lifestyles
Rarely involve school-age kids with demanding wealthy parents.
Nuff said.
Are you self-aware?
They destroyed the West End because it didn't look like their plans for the future, there wasn't enough parking in the old West End, the streets were small, and the BRA back then wanted to build large parking garages and big freeways for the convenience of rich suburban commuters.
Minimum parking requirements are a regulation that was imposed on the city. We are forced to live a car-dominated lifestyle because of those regulations.
The repeal of those regulations would give more freedom to choose whether or not you want to pay for a parking space. If you want to pay, great. That's your decision.
But the current overbearing regulations force you to pay, whether you want to or not. Of course, that's just the way selfish suburbanites like it. They like being given amenities for free, at our expense.
So you want to eliminate Zoning regulations?
So you want to eliminate Zoning regulations?
Or just the ones you don't like?
I noticed
I noticed that some of the new buildings on western ave in Allston have underground parking which makes complete sense, since there is not a lot of parking in the area and I would make working there more appealing. I think when new buildings can do this then they should do it.
Underground parking = luxury
Seriously, building an underground parking garage typically averages out to about $40,000 to $80,000 for each space created. The variability is due to the unpredictability of digging (something this town ought to know about).
Forcing a housing development to build underground parking virtually guarantees that the units will be luxury apartments. The cost of creating parking that satisfies zoning codes can easily add over $100,000 to the cost of the unit.
Investigation into the effect density has on valuations.
City of Boston Finance Commission
Minutes of the Meeting of June 20, 2013
The Finance Commission meeting was convened at 5:12 PM at 43 Hawkins Street, The Curley Room, 2nd Floor, Boston, MA. The meeting was attended by commission members
Meg Mainzer-Cohen (Chairperson),
Joseph Steinfield,
Reuven Steinberg,
James Weliky
and office staff Matthew Cahill (Executive Director)
and Michael Levangie.
5:15 PM: The Commission was updated on research into the processes involved in assessing property for taxation. Commissioner Steinberg requested that further investigation into the effect density has, if any, and further the value potential land use may have on valuations. Commissioner Weliky requested more information regarding the various approaches used in the assessment process (i.e., commercial, industrial, residential). Director Cahill will continue researching and bring the requested information to the next meeting.
5:35 PM: The Commission enters Executive Session to discuss an ongoing investigation.
5:55 PM: The Commission exits Executive Session.
5:55 PM: A discussion of the next meeting date was had. To accommodate summer schedules, it was decided that the next meeting will be held on Thursday, July 25, 2013.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:08PM.
A true copy.
Matthew A. Cahill, Executive Director
The City Of Boston Finance Commission
43 Hawkins Street Suite A111
Boston Massachusetts 02114
tel 617-635-2202
fax 617-635-2206
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Bostonia Condita AD. 1630.
Boston Founded in the Year of Our Lord 1630.
Sicut Patribus, Sit Deus Nobis.
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1 Kings viii 57
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City Status Granted by the Authority of the State in the Year of Our Lord 1822.
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All the do gooders
telling everyone how to live.
So you want Calcutta or Rio?
Because that's exactly what happens when growth is not planned or guided by "do gooders".