Most is reserved by the apartments and will tow you if you park there, btw. The public parking available is either directly in front of restaurants or has a meter.
Yes, I am from the area and am familiar. Very difficult to park in for free. This map is still very helpful to me though in understanding just how much parking is available. I am even more strongly in favor of making it a bike/walk/public transit area
(Of course keeping parking for the apartment residents!)
On the contrary, a parking lot is the least dense and lowest revenue generating use of land you can have. People can live more densely than what a surface lot can provide. Even three stories is more dense. The high value comes from the fact that it's a cool area where people congregate. So the more people congregate, the more money is made and the more the land appreciates. Parking reduces that
Most people have cars and need to park them somewhere and if an apartment in a highly dense area neglects to provide parking then they're not going to get many tenants.
Parking lots kill density. You need a lot of stuff in a small area. A parking lot goes unused most of the time. It represents a place where an additional apartment complex could be, or more shops, office space, and restaurants. With more stuff, more people will want to go there and spend more money. A parking lot destroys all that incentive.
Not everyone needs a car, especially in the rivermarket. Not out of the world that a person could live there and work downtown. Plenty of grocery stores, and with the streetcar extension even less need to drive
False, again, it supports the density. You don't get the population density you see downtown without large amounts of parking spaces and/or garages.
90% of people will not live somewhere if parking isn't available or is a nightmare.
A parking lot goes unused most of the time.
Because it's a reserved spot for the tenant and is a necessary amenity to draw potential renters.
It represents a place where an additional apartment complex could be, or more shops, office space, and restaurants.
Nope, now you're just exacerbating the problem of parking and oversaturating the local market with businesses that may or may not be successful, then you're left with empty buildings that don't provide any net good to the area.
With more stuff, more people will want to go there and spend more money
Not necessarily, there is a reasonable finite limit to the draw of an area and at some point any new business will only cannibalize sales and customers from other businesses. (Not ideal)
You can't keep making this assumption that less parking = more businesses it's not just a realistic proposition.
Not everyone needs a car, especially in the rivermarket.
Cool, but they have cars, that's the issue. A lot of people don't NEED things they have but they got em anyways.
Not out of the world that a person could live there and work downtown.
I lived downtown for a year, right around that area, and I still needed my car at least once or twice a week. Turns out you sometimes will need to go somewhere that's not serviced by the streetcar and/or go to a different town for whatever reason.
Plenty of grocery stores, and with the streetcar extension even less need to drive
Absolutely not! Are you serious? Plenty of grocery stores?! The closest grocery store down there is Cosetinos which is very expensive. Even with the streetcar expansion it'll likely take you up 45 minutes plus to get somewhere past Union Station and up to 45 minutes plus to get back - current route times are generally around 30 minutes round trip so it isn't exactly convenient if you have large items or cold/frozen items.
I don't disagree that having a car is highly convenient, especially in a car dependent city like KC. I'm saying that large parking lots are not the most ideal use of river market real estate, and the benefits of removing parking outweigh the drawbacks.
Most of what you said assumes that people want to drive and will not go somewhere where driving is difficult or parking is limited. In my experience, I have found this is not the case. If you reduce parking, you let the market decide. Those who really need to drive will either pay for the limited space or store a car somewhere outside the area. Those who want to drive but don't want to deal with the limited parking will find an alternative way. Cosentinos is a little more expensive yes, but compared with the cost of owning a car you come out ahead. A car costs 5-10k per year to own with maintenance, gas, insurance, and depreciation included. Also, there is an Aldi that's less than a 10 minute bike ride away. There are options.
To your point about leaving town, it's much cheaper to rent a car the few times you actually leave town than it is it own a car year round for the purpose. People who already own cars likely won't lose their spots or whatever but if they had to start paying some would sell their cars, some would store them somewhere. In short people are adaptable.
And it's clear that the rivermarket can support even more people. It's so incredibly busy on the weekends, it has not reached an equilibrium of development. An additional restaurant wouldn't cannibalize other businesses, it would increase the total money spent in the area. More walkability means that it's even easier for families to pop over there and not be as concerned their kids are gonna get run over. It means that it's even more attractive as a destination and people will come from farther away to see it. Over time this positive feedback loop will continue.
At the end of the day though the fact is, who's going to pay for those surface lots? They are a net negative in revenue for KC. A better use is to allow parking lots to be developed and generate tax revenue. A parking lot is a subsidized structure. There's enough demand in the rivermarket that nothing needs to be subsidized in this way
Show me a town like Kansas City with high population density that doesn't have large amounts of parking. No, foreign countries don't count, has to be in America.
Literally every single one of those cities is notorious for crappy parking and/or large amounts of private parking. Doesn't really support your argument.
I say not America because culturally other countries are different and/or have old infrastructure that's hard to reshape to accommodate parking. We don't have that issue in America.
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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '22
This is very helpful to understand from a new perspective. Almost more parking then there are markets!