this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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The last mile problem exists for cars too, we just don't think of parking in that way.
How far do you park from your home?
Not very far, thanks to the minimum parking requirements that are a subsidy to car owners and strangling the US.
No one needed any minimum parking requirements to make my house's built-in garage and I've noticed driveways and garages in homes in the other countries I've been to as well, so I'm not so sure you're right about that.
My bad, like most people my age, I have to rent my housing because of the massive amounts of debt I was saddled with early on in the promise for a better life. Suburbs are a different, related problem. It's a reason why there's so much urban sprawl, basically making a very expensive luxury item a requirement.
The last mile problem is more like the last 15-30 mile problem for most Americans.
Good luck installing train stations and other public transport within 1 mile of all rural and urban sprawl. It sounds perfect for big cities but it quickly falls apart when you see how the rest of the country lives outside cities.
Additionally, most commercial vehicles that require delivering tools and equipment on-site will never be public transport based and will still be crowding streets.
Of course we need better public transport, but cars aren't going away any time soon so let's make them more efficient with smart coordinated movement.
I used to live out in the boonies, trust me when I say that public transit is more simple than you think in rural areas. There will remain the need for cars and trucks for rural areas, but that doesn't mean we can't have train stations going between county seats, busses between towns, and express trains to the nearest big city. Urban sprawl absolutely is a challenge to public transit while deprogramming our collective car brain, but the trick is to place transit where people are to where people want to go. Suburbs already answer 1 of those 2 sides in the equation.
It's called a very short walk indeed.
Parking lots are a taxpayer subsidy to cars and car owners. As an example, studies show that parking for apartments adds $245 per month onto someone's rent because of minimum parking requirements.