thinking about low-car and car-free development and the barriers to their realisation ...
the current configuration of housing and mobility provides a huge barrier to improving aspects of livability through car-reduction.
new developments are expected to provide a minimum number of parking spaces per dwelling (bedroom?) due to the current high car dependence and ownership
this is so embedded in expectations for new developments that planning strategy (right down to local plans) have minimum off-street parking provision expectations written into policy documents
of course this guidance does have some logic - if we want to avoid streets clogged with parked vehicles and footpaths rendered impassable through pavement parking, the vehicles need to be stored somewhere
are buyers expectations too considered to be non-negotiable when it comes to the provision of convenience parking for vehicles close to houses? new developments quickly reveal the dominance of the car over other uses for street-space - particularly visible where off-street parking provision is not adequate
to challenge this dominance in a single development seems nigh-on impossible, the combination of current practice in planning and development design, along with buyer expectations of quick and convenient access to private vehicles seem insurmountable
but how much are these expectations based on reality as opposed to assumptions and system inertia?
**path dependence and systems thinking**
it's hard to see how to make the leap to low or zero-car with so much car-centric infrastructure providing such inertia - doing one element differently is made harder because the whole system is biased toward continuing with the current configuration (lack of safe active-travel routes or convenient mass-transit options act to solidify car-dependence)
to change one element (e.g. reducing parking provision in a new development) becomes reliant on simultaneously (and successfully) implementing other significant changes to the system
\-- is the multi-level perspective helpful to understand (lanscape, niches and innovations) --
**looking to the near future**
should we be building-in such large provisions for off-street parking when we accept that the dominance of the car should (and will) make way for more active travel and mass-transit modes?
unfortunately the gap from where we are now, and where we want to get to feels like a chasm - build too little provision and face a mess of car-littered streetspace, build to current demands and lose valuable land to storing vehicles (and be left with redundant provision as things finally shift in 10 years)
**street spaces in transition**
what does a model for street spaces in transition look like?
do we build temporary car-storage spaces that can be easily converted to other uses when the other aspects of the future of low-car mobility catch up?
