Many Americans Are Open to Car-Free Living — Human Transit
humantransit.org
Is Americans a “car culture” or are they “car dependent”?  Do they drive because they love driving, or are they in an unhealthy relationship with a substance it would be happy to do without?  Obviously there are plenty of Americans who do love their cars, but here’s more evidence that there are fewer of them […]

cross-posted from: https://kbin.melroy.org/m/upliftingnews@lemmy.world/t/1372827

We find that nearly one fifth of urban and suburban US car owners express a definite interest in living car-free (18 %), and an additional 40 % are open to the idea. This is in addition to the small share (10 %) of urban and suburban US residents currently living without a car.

  • JoshuaFalken@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    7 hours ago

    If that fifth of people would attend local council meetings and petition their municipality to remove parking minimums, maybe we’d get housing developments that encourage a car free lifestyle.

    A property nearby is being developed into a midrise apartment building with fifteen units. The building itself takes up about a third of the land, and the rest will be asphalt, no outdoor space at all. It could have easily been a 30-40 unit building with a common green space, but oh no where would the cars go.

    • apprehensively_human@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      7 hours ago

      One of our recent council meetings had a developer wanting to rezone a lot to medium density but needed a variance to allow for less parking given the size of the parcel.

      Council unanimously approved the rezoning citing the need for more medium density projects, but were completely divided on the vote for the parking variance. They could not fathom that a developer would know best how many parking spaces would be needed to still be functional and profitable. All they wanted was to reduce the requirement from 1.5 spaces per unit down to 1.25 spaces per unit. A decrease of like 9 spaces total.

      Luckily the variance was eventually approved but not before a lot of debate and grandstanding about what people are supposed to do with their cars.