As reported here, the Seattle City Council has approved the Mayors plan to let developers build fewer parking spaces for their new projects, in areas that already have high density and few parking spaces, enabling the moonbat "Urban Village Utopia" idea that is so near and dear to our Mayor, who is, what else, a Dem.
Why are they doing this? The Mayor has this grandiose idea that by increasing density in a neighborhood, people will be "encouraged" to not only live there, but find employment there as well, and by limiting the number of parking spaces, this will "encourage" people to get out of their cars, and use mass transit instead. A side issue that they are spouting, is that, because developers won't have to build so many parking spaces, it will save them money, and therefore the theory goes, developers will be able to build more affordable housing units.
So what's wrong with this idea? Well, first of all, they are targeting neighborhoods that already have to few spots available, and as the developers begin to build their projects, more spacces will be lost during the construction period. I know this first hand, as it happened in my neighborhood, and it hasn't changed, even though the projects here are finished.
Secondly, businesses need places for their customers to park while they shop, and for their employees who either just don't, or can't, use mass transit to commute, and business owners have already been complaining about the lack of parking in the targeted neighborhoods. How is this plan going to alleviate that? It won't - it will only make it worse - and some business owners have already stated that they may have to relocate simply due to the lack of available parking places. If businesses relocate, where are the jobs going to come from? Where the businesses have relocated to, of course. Which means that people will have to commute away from the "Urban Village Utopia" to get to their jobs.
Thirdly, residents who own cars need somewhere to park their cars, whether they use their cars to commute, or use mass transit. Many people that live in Seattle, work in other cities, and will not give up their jobs to work "closer to home". Why? Salary, for one reason. Another is the type of job they do. If I worked at, say, Microsoft, and was making a decent salary, I would be foolish to give that up to go work somewhere "close to home" simply for the convenience factor, especially if there were no jobs available in the field I worked in. Am I supposed to give up my higher paying job at Microsoft to go work at a pizza restaurant, just because the pizza restaurant is "close to home"? The Mayor seems to think that is a good idea for some goofy reason.
Fourth reason. Even though the Seattle Metropolitan area has one of the most extensive mass transit systems in the US, buses go where they go according to schedules and routes set up by someone else, and not by the people who use the buses. Many people have to make two or three, and some even more, bus route changes to get to and from work, spending upwards of two to three hours a day on the bus! I do use the bus to commute to and from work, and I consider myself fortunate that I only have to take one bus to do it, and that it only takes me about 20 minutes to get to work. If I had to take more than one bus, and if it took me more than 30 minutes, to get to work, I'd drive.
The Mayors and City Councils reasoning is beyond me, but rest assured, the "Urban Village Utopia" idiocy is coming soon to a neighborhood near you ... and probably me, too.
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