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No, You Don't Have the Right to the Parking Space In Front of Your House... ...And Other Observations About The State of Parking In Parking In Los Angeles Highland PARK and Cypress PARK are aptly named. When I was a kid, Northeast LA was one of the last places around the City where parking was ample…mostly because there was little reason to visit unless you had ties to those areas. One night, my guitarist told me to give up my space in front of our singer’s house on Mohawk Street, where we rehearsed at the time, so she could park there. Although I was not at all opposed to the idea, I asked him, “Okay, but why?” “Because it’s her house.” It’s a widespread notion people have in this automotive city—that they have the right to the space in front of their house, BECAUSE it’s their house. Alas, I relented, because…why bicker about something so trivial? Echo Park, like much of Central Los Angeles, has become a ground zero for high rents and increased density, hardly mitigated by the small-lot condos springing up everywhere. The weekend influxes of activity in the neighborhood has even spilled over to parking on the side streets. The truth is, you are entitled to the space in front of your house…. …if it’s available. …and you have paid your vehicle registration fees… …and the vehicle is not wanted in connection with a crime… …And there otherwise aren’t any parking restrictions in effect… You do not, however, have the right to the space in front of your house because the space happens to be in front of your house. Now that I’m done making fun of people who want to park on their own street (a reasonable expectation, I might add) I want to point out some other things about parking in Los Angeles… --- Lots of single-family homes… Los Angeles underwent its greatest period of growth during the period 1880 to 1930. The population grew 350.6% between 1880 and 1890 alone; the population burst from just over 50,000 in 1890, to over a million by 1930. The City responded in 1920 with Ordinance No. 42,666. The new planning law coded land use based on a scale from A through E, with “A” being single-family housing (“SFD”), and “E” being toxic industrial uses. For the better part of two decades, developers built prolifically, but only 5% of that development was in the form of single-family tract housing. Where did the rest come from? In 1934, the Federal Housing Administration enacted its homeownership incentive programs to counter the effects of the Great Depression. Residential areas deemed “high-risk” were ones containing mixed density development, e.g. single-family homes constructed next to a tall apartment building. This, combined with the large number of bachelors returning home after World War II, are two factors that contributed greatly to Los Angeles’ single-family sprawl, concurrent with the effective death of the trolley system (1952) and the completion of the interstate highway system (later in the 20th Century). At present, more than half of all land in Los Angeles is zoned for single-family housing. ..with driveways. I have yet to crunch the numbers (maybe download the .csv files from Census 5-Year Estimates and Transpose into GIS?), but based on casual observation, it’s clear that most of these SFDs have driveways…and not all of them are occupied. Why have the luxury of a nice driveway—often, one that can fit more than one car—and not use it? Some common answers I have received include: 1. “So I can use the space for recreation, family time, storage, etc.” 2. “Backing out of the driveway every time I leave is too much of a hassle.” 3. “My car leaks oil/antifreeze/fuel, and I don’t want the stains on the concrete.” 4. “Me, me, me, I, I, I.” Think of everyone else in your neighborhood and not just yourself. One, your family isn’t at your house 24/7. Two, if you can drive a car, you can back out of a driveway. As for number three…well…fair enough. But you can just use a higher viscosity oil that will leak less often. Plus, they sell concrete oil stain solvents. But hey, if you don’t have a driveway in the first place, you can just go ahead and ignore this part... Preferential/Permit Parking Once upon a time, there were people who figured that they were entitled to live in an urban area, but with an absolute absence of cars on their street, and no randos cruising through the neighborhood. After all, our public roads are their private property, right? So, in 1979, the City of Los Angeles implemented its first permit-based preferential parking program. It has mostly gained popularity in the last 10 years. How the Preferential Parking Process Works, as of the Writing of This Article: 1.) A neighborhood petitions LADOT with proposed district boundaries. 2.) LADOT comes out and holds a meeting to establish what is causing parking shortages in the proposed district. A second petition is circulated, requiring a 2/3 majority of the residents. 3.) If the initiative passes, LADOT conducts a study with four spaces on each block as a working sample. LADOT considers the situation to be a “parking problem” if 3 of 4 spots are occupied the majority of the time by non-residents. 4.) If just four blocks within the proposed district pass the study, LADOT writes all of its pertinent reports (Summary of Results, EIR, etc.) and conducts a hearing with a public comment period. 5.) When, and if, the LA City Council approves the findings…well…the city starts printing the dreaded “Permit Parking Only” signs and, finally, issuing the extortionate pieces of paper known as parking citations. --- The Mismatch Between DESIRE for Preferential Parking…and the NEED For It Does anybody notice that most of the time these preferential parking districts are in single-family neighborhoods with driveways? Preferential parking is ironically named, because it’s just that—its preferential. It’s privileged parking. Such a name reveals a sort of guilty self-awareness on the part of whoever conceived permit parking. Meanwhile, there are neighborhoods that have no preferential programs for residents suffering from immense shortages of parking. There can be a number of possible reasons for this. In the case of MacArthur Park, one of the densest districts of Los Angeles, most homes are multi-unit (or large apartments) that were built before the automotive era (or during, but when people had far fewer cars). On Halloween 2007, 20-year old Brian Ramos, a hard-working young man uninvolved in any crime, was shot and killed by gang members while moving his family’s three cars. Moving cars around every few hours so they don’t get ticketed is a way of life in many parts of the City—why shouldn’t they have permit parking? It doesn’t seem like permit parking is a logical “solution” rooted in urban planning, but in NIMBYism. My response to the nonsense concept of permit parking is roughly the same as my response to “I have the right to the space in front of my house”: You don’t. If it’s a public street, and you are properly parked, and you have paid your vehicle fees (which rise every four friggin’ years in CA to little avail) then you should be allowed to park there. Of course, I’m not suggesting indefinitely or without any restrictions (e.g. time, day, side of street.) When people ask me who’s hiring, I always jokingly tell them, “Parking Enforcement.” Funny, but true. The starting pay is pretty swell ($24.00/hour, with benefits), but the tradeoff is that you have to put up with a lot of you-know-what from other people. Other Things Contributing to the State of Parking in Los Angeles -Multiple cars per household. Which, granted, may be necessary if the occupants work in different places. -Large developments. Some developments have subterranean parking, but this space is usually not open to non-residents. -One person, one car. Anybody who has made long commutes has observed an ocean of cars—6.5 million in Los Angeles alone—…and they all have one friggin’ occupant! One person taking up 60 square feet. Thinking over-idealistically, if half of those people carpooled, it would increase the available space on the road. -General human population growth. This is unavoidable. With the world population expected to hit 10 billion by the end of this century, we have to figure out some way to accommodate this exponential growth. LA’s population will certainly be taking in a few more million by the end of the century. In the long run, and given the speed of future population growth, none of the above three mitigation measures will free up parking space or road space forever. Oh, and—lowkey—there is an agenda at City Hall to liquidate the land making up the public parking lots in Highland Park. The City figures they’ll sell the land for millions of dollars to some developer. I obtained this information via emails obtained via the California Public Records Act. I won’t mention names—yet—as I am still trying to pinpoint who it started with. Either they are desperate for money, not thinking straight, or they are trying to force social engineering. But Hey, Here Are Some Cool Parking Hacks… 1.) Parking in loading zones after 6 PM will open up a few spaces at a time. What’s that? You can park in loading zones? Why yes. According to the LADOT website, you can park in the following colored sidewalk zones: Yellow curb zones: You can park here after 6pm Monday thru Saturday, and all day Sunday, unless otherwise posted. Green curb zones: Same deal as yellow curb zones.
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Victor R
8/25/2019 05:54:35 pm
Re: Dodger Stadium
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