How Parking Lots RUINED America 

I've never understood that either. Nearly everyone I know does this, meanwhile I'm begging them to just park on the outskirts so we can walk. It's similar to taking an elevator to go up one flight of stairs (for able bodied people, of course).

This pisses me off too!

My mother is one of those. I remember telling her as a kid that we could've already been in the store if we just parked. Talk about the cold shoulder for a week and the glare I got for using common sense. Woof. Ah well, shes a bitch anyhow lol.

That's one of my biggest pet peeves. If you're able body bodied and wasting my time trying to find the perfect parking spot, I literally won't let you drive again. Going forward, I drive, my car gets abandoned at the first spot I find, even if its several blocks, and we walk, provided it's feasible to travel on foot, as car drivers should be doing in cities.

I just park all the way in the back so people don't hit my car. 🤣

The only way to get to bars and breweries is by car tho 9 times out of 10.

@@baronvonjo1929 it's not so much the presence of the parking lot, it's the mandate that it must, under penalty of law, accommodate all people at the bar. Though, don't get me wrong, I hope the parking lots can be done away with altogether some day.

@MrC0MPUT3R Until every single person has their single family home in a walkable distance from businesses and places of interest and we have really solid practical trains, buses, bike lanes, and more to get to further destinations and you are able to convince Americans to change their entire life we will be stuck with said parking lots. Maybe decades of rebuilding along with decades of constant poltical will are possible. Along with several trillion dollars to fund all this new infrastructure can happen. But I doubt it. But that certainly will never happen in my life time.

Dam right

@@baronvonjo1929​​⁠ ​​⁠ Where I‘m from everyone complains about the national train ALL the time. Strongly. Maybe too strongly, but it really isn‘t good. Same goes for public transit at more places than not. But you know what? Those trains and trams and busses are somhow still full. My city has very terrible bike lanes. Calling them solid would be an extreme overstatement. Having them suddenly end is common and ond of the easier things to me. But still a lot of people use them. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be actually practical. And it‘s not like car infrastructure is solid either.

I’m looking into this now. Super cool! Looks like New York where I am is expanding these too

that's actually so cool

Or you could build a underground parking lot with HOUSES on top of it and solar on TOP of the HOUSE

France does this too

@@Faraonqa Or reduce the amount of parking needed by reducing the need to drive everywhere

I'd imagine it also massively reduces how long it takes for people to get away when the event's over. Instead of tens of thousands of cars funneling through a couple dozen parking lot entrances onto the local roads at a crawl, they filter smoothly out in every possible direction.

Last time I was in Detroit, a guy got stabbed right in front of me while on the bus, another incident, a group of cultured youths followed a young girl off the bus and ended up riding a train on her in the alleyway. This is why we drive, we don't want to get stabbed or robbed. America is NOT Australia in terms of culture and crime.

@@neoasura um, Australia has crime too, what do you think it's some kind of eden? wake up. while those two incidents you mention are very unfortunate you act like that happens 24/7 on every public transit vehicle. Those incidents are rare. Evil people will always try to prey on others, one way or another. That doesn't mean that the majority of public transit modalities aren't safe.

@@neoasura throughout the hundreds of times I have ridden the bus, the worst I experienced was some rowdy teenagers making insults at each other. We all have anecdotal experiences.

“Australia is an urban coastal nation. In 2001, 85% of Australia’s population lived within 50 kilometres (km) of the coast, but by 2019, that proportion had risen to 87% (ABS 2020b). This equates to over 22 million Australians now calling the coast home. While coastal population growth has previously been concentrated in urban centres, it is now spreading to coastal townships and villages (Infrastructure Australia 2020).” Source: Australia State of the Environment website, accessed 3/6/2024 Essentially, Australia is one continent-sized hub-and-spoke transit model, which can be visualized like the rims on a car’s tires. It’s rather easy to create a looping system that allows for easy mass transit when *almost all* of the population is located within a loop of one another. And then, Australia has an estimated current (March 2024) population of approximately 27 million. Compare that with America’s approximately 334.9 million (July 2023), meaning AUS has about one twelfth the population of the US. According to data from mixed sources, Australia has a per capita car ownership rate of 782 cars per 1,000 Australians, compared to 908 cars per 1,000 Americans. That’s only a difference of being in 8th place worldwide (USA) versus being in 14th place (AUS). How clogged would the roadways be with 12 times the current population? Further, I could take some time to dive into the history of car ownership in America, specifically, because, mind you, America largely invented the automobile as it is understood to the world today. Is it any wonder that developing personal transportation vehicles at around the same time as developing mass transit vehicles would cause the personal ones to take off faster than the public ones (pun unintended)? “You will own nothing, and be happy.” -Klaus Schwab

Accurate

Indeed. Fun fact - if you’re the person backing out of a space and get hit by one of those speed racers flying through the row, you’re the at fault party. In Florida anyway. Smmfh

The entrance and exit between the parking lot and the adjacent stroad are pretty dangerous, though.

I mean, if you're a pedestrian is not so great. Especially up against those enormous SUVs.

Anytime I go to the store, people cutting across the parking lot is the main thing I have to look out for. So, SO many times I've nearly been hit because of this. And this is with me in my car. I might be behind them and properly turn to enter the parking lot, then they'll drive up further, but suddenly decide they don't want to just continue driving up the lane (which would put them in front of the store) and instead swerve to the side and just cut through the empty spots. There's a particular Walmart in my city that has a horrendous hotspot for this. They've recently painted new lines to better assist but I still see assholes cut across. The stores here already have police cars out front to deter crime, but I wish there was also an officer (not just a security guard with no power) who would ticket those cutting across.

But then Japan also has businesses like Bigmotor.

Toyota is screwed… they’re the only major car manufacturer that ISN’T investing in e.v. models. They are putting all of their R&D budget into hydrogen vehicles. They say this is because electric battery vehicles still require rare earth materials… but hydrogen cars will still be horrible for the environment so they should just start manufacturing trains instead!

@@Code7Unltd　every country does have those black companies. Still, you should focus on the positive side, and not push the negatives to others ;)

​@@Code7Unltd and America had theranos, wework, ftx lmao

Used to live in Japan, now in America. I constantly miss trains, buses, and even just being able to walk to places to do errands and meet friends. Americans don't know what they're missing out on.

Minneapolis banned construction of new drive-thru's as well!

Banning minimum requirements really doesn't solve anything on it's own. If people are still forced to drive everywhere you will still require all that parking space.

@@rogerk6180 yes, until they stop separating us from where we want to go just so we buy a car this will never stop

@@cubanspy1231 lets hope it's a start of more things to come. Have to begin somewhere i guess.

🎯💯

Hey from Lithuania :) In here I think we also have those minimal parking requirements, or maybe used to have, because from 2010s we only see underground or aboveground multi layered parking lots. I do work at a mall myself and we have a multi layered parking in here and I hear alot that it is confusing at first, compared to the plain field parking lots, but at winter what we see is that our mall is more popular just because you don't get cold when going into or out of the mall to your car. So idk, would be very interesting to hear abut other places and solutions, but this one as for now seems to be the best imo.

Having lived in Lima, Bogotá, and Rio, I will say, Rio is the best designed, Bogotá has the worst traffic, and Lima is far from perfect. Certainly an improvement from the US because you can actually walk to some places, but so much noise, traffic, pollution, etc. Not to mention ya'll went beyond insane with Covid restrictions. Whatever Peru does, as much as there are things that I love about the country (most of the food, the history), whatever they do from an urban planning perspective should be taken with a grain of salt, although they are still better than the US

Yeah exactly! This is how I always know parking too! In all the Asian countries I've been in. It's just much more convenient for parkers and a way better use of space. Have underground or indoor in the same building parking lots so u can search around one level at a time & just go to the building by elevator, instead of walking a couple distance away and have trouble in a maze-like zone. For smaller shops, park near a sidewalk (dedicated area). There may even be people conducting the parking in and outs for a small change.

Fuck, I hate when a two way street is crowded by irresponsible owners who park in the street. If you don't have where to park, don't get a car.

This is how all the plazas in my area are too 🙄

The "not safe to walk" rang with me. So many of the plazas I frequent don't have effing crosswalks to get from the parking lot to the store. A lot of cars just blaze through if they don't see a pedestrian way. They then get visibly annoyed if you're walking across... what the F are we supposed to do?

Yeah this is one of those things you figure out pretty quickly when living in the city. Conversely, having a lot of large buildings around reduces the temperature because of the extra shade. Walking around my city in winter, often you'll be wearing a jacket in the CBD, then take it off once you're in the lower rise areas.

The temperature problem caused by asphalt, I was aware of it, it's a huge problem. But the rain on the weekends caused by cars, never thought of it. It does makes sense though, all the pollution escaping to the atmosphere during rush hours and what not and then when there are less cars on the road clouds need to "clean" themselves and hence we have rain. Unless there's another reason for that, I will gladly listen to that, I'm genuinely interested, you got my attention lol

And also, this "steals" rain from the agricultural areas than need it more.

@@TheRealE.B. Yes. The ground water issues. Also the issues with Urban sprawl grass.

@@LordVarkson The CBD?

Oh, but all those unused spaces are needed for major sale days. Imagine going to the mall for a big sale, only to be unable to shop because there's no place to park. I once worked at a mall, as a custodian. On Black Friday I had to drive the whole lot to find an open spot for just my car. I was late that day - I had no idea it would be that bad

@@dannyb9223was this many years ago? Because i saw on the news the past 2 years that all the stores in America were literally empty on Black Friday these past 2 years. The pandemic killed shopping in person and most people do all shopping online now

@@dannyb9223 Oh yes, overconsumption and overpriced things getting to what they are really worth. That is a great point!

@@lexa_power That is probably true these past few years. But keep in mind many of these stores (and related parking spaces) were designed & built decades ago... And why go rebuilding the parking lots now? It'll only cost more money to do so

@@dannyb9223 i've had to jump the curb and park in the grass before at walmart because the entire lot was full.

That's just a small part of the problem with American medcare. If you're a generally healthy person, you don't feel right seeing a doctor, cuz there's a good probability your "abundance of caution" will end up in the doctor saying there's nothing wrong with you in 2 minutes, and then you get a fat bill weeks to months later.

agreed!

Or ya know, just stop building car infrastructure. 🤦‍♂️

​@StLouis-yu9iz If you stop infrastructure for cars you have to have alternatives going to every single family home and apartment. Which is pretty much impossible and would be worse than taking a private car.

You know some of the truck drivers will just park across 3 of the small car spaces.

​@@baronvonjo1929 Well public transportation could definitely improve, and that's definitely not impossible 😅 but agreed parking infrastructure is not going anywhere any time soon.

Eliminate minimum parking requirements. Many cities are doing it

the solution is literally anything other than parking

Trains, investing in rail is the only solution to car culture.

Better public transport and better access for bicycles and pedestrians, such as proper protected bike paths and sidewalks at those large arterial roads/stroads. No minimum parking requirements that demand those large lots. No more strip malls far out of town so the only way to reach them is by car. With no minimum parking requirements, having shops and stores in the city centres instead far outside will be feasible again and removing or cutting back on parking lots within the city centres will provide new space to build those. City centres are much easier to access through public transport than that strip mall far outside the town. Allow mixed-use zones, too, so that stores can be build within residential areas to allow for easier shopping where you are and can do it with a bike or on foot instead of getting into a car and that new stores in the city centre can have offices or apartments above to make good use of the space.

That sounds like the original intents when they proposed malls, to be of mixed residential, shopping and entertainment - but the bean counters insisted on retail only.

I absolutely hate cars (like, driving, im not some intense environmental activist or smth lol). So i go out of my way to not drive. My car so frequently has a dead battery that i literally have a powerbank to jumpstart it inside at all times. So definitely not all people make use of a car just because they got it - but then again, if you rented it only for a couple days, you probably and rightfully feel like "i paid for it so i gotta use it", more so than if you actually bought it.

@@Yamyatos I've put 2,000 miles on my car over the last year. I hate driving as well now that I've moved to a city. I got an e-scooter and it's made my life so much more enjoyable.

This is precisely why I don't want a car. Walking an hour across town to buy special ingredients for cooking is my time to destress.

Those roads are usually 35-45 mph (~55-70 km/h). Highway != freeway/motorway.

@@wta1518 depends your dialect

@@IanZainea1990 If you look at the actual road, it is clearly not limited access. Also, I looked it up and that specific road has a speed limit of 70 km/h (it's in Canada, hence metric).

@@wta1518what part of what I said made you think i wanted to continue the discussion?

@@IanZainea1990 The fact that you were wrong.

They didnt shut down in Canada.

We still got one down here in Winnipeg@@zalafinari

very true!

you literally don't know what literally means

Parking lots in cities aren't costing city governments anything. All of the parking around every government building and many city streets is metered. What a ridiculous statement. It's hard enough to find free parking at businesses in the city, no major metro government is losing money by providing parking.

@@ericvantassell6809 "umm akshually you dont know what literally means" - 🤓☝

@@MilwaukeeWoman lol its cute that you think metering makes up the lost revenue the city could bring in by having virtually anything else on that land.

People’s expectations and unwillingness to walk cause it

It's just the simplest least complicated design. Convergent evolution.

It IS my local shopping plaza. I was very confused for a bit

I was think of that song too!!!

The first thing that popped in my mind when I started watching the video!

When they could've just taken "A Big Yellow Taxi" instead 🎵

Think of all the poor Toyota factory though if they gave way to the hippies that want to bike / walk /s

@@jkibble98 oh shit, I didn't see the irony in me including the Toyota factory hahaha! I work at the Loblaws warehouse right beside the Toyota Factory, there is even a bus stop and a covered bike shelter that the warehouse provides in the parking lot, but all the roads are horrible to bike in the choices are mostly gravel, and having to merge with traffic at high speeds because the gravel is cut off by grass and curbs. and the bus route makes an hour out of a 20-minute drive on a weekday, on a weekend, forget it.

@@laserlotus5busses are just too slow which is the main reason people refuse to use them but for those of us who can’t drive there’s no other options. We need better bus routes and more frequent busses but no one wants to pay for it.

Pedestrians and cyclists are second class citizens on the US roads.

I hear that but there are definitely some cities in the US where you can thrive without a car, especially if you can ride a bike! Providence, Pittsburgh, philly, and more. I live in Providence and it is super doable to get around without driving, but I think if I didn't ride a bike it would be much harder😢😢

@@discocycle that’s fair! I noticed DC & Philly seemed to have ok train systems even though I didn’t use them while there. It’s just a shame the US doesn’t have more reliable public transit. The MTA gets me pretty much every where I need to go, but it’s definitely far from perfect.

@@emmalarson I know it's just so awful. We need to invest in the right places. I definitely think there are a lot of people who live in New York simply because they do not want to drive or physically cannot. It definitely sucks because you should have access to transit everywhere, not just in large cities

Isn't that a pity? Mandatory parking minimums need to be made illegal now! They are asinine, counterintuitive, harmful to businesses and customers alike, and wasteful! It's literally wasted space.

Even better: private parking garages with parking fees to avoid letting the taxpayers pay for maintenance. Let only the ones who actually use it pay for it.

😂 I like the sentiment of NJB’s videos but he also acts like we have the means to just undo the tangled web of car dependency the U.S. has

​@flytelp We do! Change in numbers baby! Speak to your local representatives!!

we freakin LOVE not just bikes, always a source of inspo for us ❤️

I don't know if anyone can reach that level of fart sniffing smugness.

​@@flytelpActually, it's the opposite. He sees no end in sight for the US and Canada, and tells everyone to just move to Europe if you can.

It's like that in most of the civilized world, but america managed to be the most rich country.. with the most messed up and most predatory systems in place of any first world country lol. Be it parking, health care, work or pretty much anything else. Heck, even the freedom they go on about all the time.. it's all bottom of the line.

Paid hospital parking isn't that common even in the US. I only see it in hospitals located in very urban areas (like downtown city centers). That's obviously still sucks, but it's still usually free to park at hospitals otherwise.

No. We Need a well functioning public Transport System.

SUV's should get the best spots they will be the people buying the most stuff.

The Costco parking lot is hell, but there's no way i'd be able to transport what I buy there without a car

Ironically, Costco is the best for car drivers because the space between the spaces is so huge, you never have to worry about hitting another car with your door, and there's plenty of room to maneuver.

How do you carry everything home?

Cargo bike, occasionally with a cargo trailer attached. Since a Costco opened up 5 miles from me that can be accessed sort-of safely by bike, I’ve done almost 100% of my Costco trips by bike, with or without a trailer. Some actually have decent bike racks. Sadly, not mine, though I keep asking. I’ve driven maybe twice over the last two years to it, and I think it was more to get gas from their station than anything I was buying from the store.

Costco has the best parking lots out there. Plenty of room...

In some cases, sure. In others, if they walked more, maybe they’d be better able to…walk more. My own 70+ parents are in the latter group, mostly able but with handicap placards on their vehicles and an insistence on getting the very first Handi parking spot everywhere they go so they’ll drive around the lot till they get one, wasting time and the opportunity to actually move their limbs. It is very frustrating.

Maybe if you live in a highly congested city. I spend nowhere near that amount of time.

That's a gross oversimplification. The US is a huge country and 1 in 3 Americans lives in a rural small town or a suburb. Living in a city is a luxury that many Americans can't afford. But all the jobs are in the cities and rural small towns and suburbs are disconnected from cities except for the highway. So, by that logic you might be asking someone in rural California to bike or walk 50+ miles in the San Joaquin desert, and hike through miles of the Tehachapis, some of the most rugged mountains in the country in order to get to their workplace in LA.

When a lot of them were built land was cheap. What surprises me is why more aren't being redeveloped considering how land costs and property values have soared. Probably has a lot to do with zoning laws and minimum parking requirements.

@@frederickclause2694 That makes sense in the past, yeah. Of course the whole idea that everyone has to depend on a car doesn't help...

@@tansangirlieWe can all thank the politics behind zoning restrictions for that.

It's was done on purpose for three major reasons. Safety reasons most unground / aboveground parking garages where dangerous because it allowed people to attack you in a secluded area even if cameras and security. ; theft is also a big issue for the same reason. Then there's zoning and other laws and reasons, one if a mall or multiple shops you need to have parking close to all of them to attract people to those businesses and to prevent overcrowding from other business buildings just look the parking lot is like a moat separate that building from the neighbors buildings. And last visual advertising if you see a packed parking at a place say like home depot your first thought is something good is there maybe soom cool tools

@@Lostboy811 It's sad that this is probably true.

WOW employees aren't safe huh

Yeah, LA is such a beautiful place. I'm not sure why people think it's a good idea to design it in such a way that makes being outside so uncomfortable. Same thing in Hawaii.

how much dos it cost compared to a free parking lot ?

@@woltews almost the same

@@woltews its technically called vertical rotary parking, but we just call it parking coz it's normal here

and that number would be ?@@aimzone8672

Yeah and generally we don't have these sprawls of asphalt that you can see in America. Malls have underground parking usually and there's always an elevator close enough to where you park. Even when we have surface parking it's not designed in the way that we have to get right in front of the shop - the shops are close together while the parking is to one side. This means you can walk around and shop pretty easily. I hate the car based system here in the US since I came here for my studies. I can so easily use public transport back in India. Delhi has such an extensive metro system that I usually never *have* to use a car.

I agree if I was forced to enter from the back I would still drive to the front to find the best spot.

Harbour Park is now called Port Place Mall but they didn't show it that I saw. They showed Country Club and Woodgrove though.

Listed??

@@WindowsXP_logon_sound_25yrsago In the uk that means protected from demolition

@@tcraigh1 oh! So it was demolished?? If so that's lame! That's bad. Parking garages are good.... Unless it's going to be replaced by housing or idk... A Stargate or some shit.

That's why North American zoning law sucks, if you can have small shops in your neighbour you don't need to buy a week or two weeks of grocery once, instead you just buy what you need for one or two days right after work. For bigger stuff, cargo bike is a thing, most small community shop will have the option for you to use their cargo bike/even free delivery to you door. Also, if you can easily walk to shops around you, just bring your own small shopping cart, that's literally $15 at Walmart

Backpack. Bring a bag. Hold it.

@@user-fn1st3mh8s I was just thinking the same thing. When I lived in Japan I could pick things up as I needed because it was on my way from the train. Easy peasy.

For walking, as mentioned, you don’t need more than a few days’ worth, and there are many models of folding wheeled shopping carts that will hold two large paper grocery bags worth of stuff. They are narrow enough to take onto buses or trains. If you want more capacity, there are larger ones that will hold 4 large paper grocery bags worth of stuff. For cycling, any rear rack can hold panniers for two large paper grocery bags worth of stuff, plus what you can strap to the top of said rack. If you get a cargo bike, you can carry a lot more. My mid-tail cargo bike can hold six paper grocery bags worth of stuff between its large pannier bags and the front basket, plus more strapped to the top of the rear rack, and I can attach a cargo trailer if I need even more capacity (not typical). Except for the large flat screen tv I got last month, I’ve not had to use my car to make a Costco run since one opened up 5 miles from me a couple years ago. There are cargo bikes with even more capacity, long-tailslike the Radwagon or any Yuba, or ones with a large box in front, which can also carry stuff on a rear rack like any other bike. Electric motor assist has made hauling or towing cargo a lot easier, well worth it on a cargo bike.

@@chow-chihuang4903 And then it rains.