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eddie964 t1_jbfhdl2 wrote

Reply to comment by MattFantastic in New Haven restaurants facing fines for outdoor dining by YankeeinNCandIhateit

Both have their role. If I get a craving for Arethusa on my way back from the train station, a garage is not a great option.

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MattFantastic t1_jbfitih wrote

A slight bit more convenience for people from outside the city driving through, assuming one of the handful of spots directly in front of your destination is even available at any given time, seems like a bad trade off for the significant positive impact outdoor spaces and closures have on everyone actually living and working in and around the neighborhood.

Walking a couple blocks to get where you’re going is pretty normal city parking. But turning that parking space right in front of Arethusa into nice outdoor seating is going to make a lot more people happy and do a lot more for the neighborhood.

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green_lemonade t1_jbl70tg wrote

I don't see why your convenience is more important than the quality of life and safety of the people walking and using these streets every day and living in the city. A lane of parking can easily be converted to a dedicated bus or bike lane which would move far more people than just you in your car.

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eddie964 t1_jbmc7hw wrote

Wow. You certainly put some words in my mouth there. I think we could do all of the above with some planning and commitment.

For what it's worth, we're stuck with cars, and no amount of utopian pipe dreaming is going to change that. Find a way of unwinding 75 years of building our communities -- and literally our whole country -- around the automobile, and we can talk about buses and bikes as primary modes of transportation.

So yes. By all means, build bike lanes and bus lanes and pedestrian streets, but if we want to attract suburbanites to New Haven's stores and theaters and restaurants (and I'm old enough to remember what the city was likebl when suburbanites wouldn't come near downtown), we're going to need good parking options that meet their various needs.

I think we can do all of the above. There is a lot of wasted roadway capacity in downtown New Haven. Everywhere I look, I see broad streets that accommodate two lanes of traffic in each direction, plus parking, and still manage to become choke points because of standing bases, delivery vehicles, and inefficient traffic management. We can do better.

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green_lemonade t1_jbmy649 wrote

My apologies I didnt mean to put words in your mouth. However, your premise is flawed, the health of cities doesnt hing on "attracting suburbanites". Plenty of studies have shown tax revenues generated in the urban center are what subsidize suburban life and infrastructure, not the other way around. Suburbs are by and large financially insolvent, dependent on debt financing and continuous expansion to pay for their own infrastructure.

Downtown businesses also routinely overestimate how much out of town car-travel custom they get, they're mostly running on foot traffic and local demand.

Also, the notion that suburbanites have to take cars to use urban amenities is just wrong, plenty of cities around the world in Asia and Europe do fine with high quality frequent rail service. Its not a pipe dream at all, it is in fact exactly the kind of infrastructure we had in the US for the first half of the 20th century.

Edited to add - saw something on another subreddit that nicely sums up my argument in re: infrastructure. We dont need to bulldoze more of our cities for the sake of the car: https://www.reddit.com/r/bikecommuting/comments/11ncpvp/a_city_designed_around_driving_doesnt_work_for/

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