Agreed. This very much feels like a tertiary strategy. Far more obvious would be doing things like simply ending parking minimums - a policy that would take zero time and money to implement, and which would then encourage businesses to encourage their customers and employees to cycle, since they would then benefit from the cost savings of a smaller parking lot.
Exactly. Bad zoning that mandates excessive parking and low density basically guarantees car-dependency, no matter what sort of transit or bike infrastructure you try to layer on top, just because shoving in the space for cars forces the actual destinations to be too far apart.
And that’s not even all. I’ve come to realize that The Problem is basically always the zoning code. Not just sprawl and car-dependency, but also a whole bunch of less obvious stuff like global warming, obesity, depression, and even inequality/racism/political polarization. There’s a great YouTube video titled “The Housing Crisis is the Everything Crisis”, but the one dot the guy doesn’t connect is that the housing crisis is itself caused by bad zoning!
I’ll push back a bit and say that zoning is a contributing factor to all of these things, but isn’t going to be the singular cause. Obesity, for example, clearly has to do with diet, which has to do with subsidies for some foods over others (and other factors).
But yes, zoning is very important and desperately needs reform.
Agreed. This very much feels like a tertiary strategy. Far more obvious would be doing things like simply ending parking minimums - a policy that would take zero time and money to implement, and which would then encourage businesses to encourage their customers and employees to cycle, since they would then benefit from the cost savings of a smaller parking lot.
Exactly. Bad zoning that mandates excessive parking and low density basically guarantees car-dependency, no matter what sort of transit or bike infrastructure you try to layer on top, just because shoving in the space for cars forces the actual destinations to be too far apart.
And that’s not even all. I’ve come to realize that The Problem is basically always the zoning code. Not just sprawl and car-dependency, but also a whole bunch of less obvious stuff like global warming, obesity, depression, and even inequality/racism/political polarization. There’s a great YouTube video titled “The Housing Crisis is the Everything Crisis”, but the one dot the guy doesn’t connect is that the housing crisis is itself caused by bad zoning!
I’ll push back a bit and say that zoning is a contributing factor to all of these things, but isn’t going to be the singular cause. Obesity, for example, clearly has to do with diet, which has to do with subsidies for some foods over others (and other factors).
But yes, zoning is very important and desperately needs reform.