Car culture is deeply ingrained in the American consciousness, usually connected to visions of freedom while driving down a wide open road, or the adventure of a road trip. But most car travel is not that. It’s driving to and from work. It’s going shopping or shepherding children between activities. It’s a chore.
We tend to regard driving as a personal preference, but our transportation choices are heavily shaped by housing and land use policies.
And those car trips aren’t free, not for the driver and not for the people around them. They have serious costs that we don’t account for, most notably traffic deaths. According to NHTSA data, traffic deaths are a leading killer in the United States for adults. Driving also creates noise pollution as well as air and water pollution, which drives even more deaths. And then there’s the amount of public space we devote to roads and parking lots, which increases the temperature of our cities and decreases the space we could use for things like parks, homes, and the arts.
One of the biggest things that incentivizes car ownership is parking availability. Economists have long observed that when parking is cheap or included with other purchases, then people are more likely to use it. That certainly holds true in Somerville, where most homes have attached parking. And even if they don’t, almost all are eligible for street parking, which is incredibly cheap at $40 per year.
In fact, Somerville street parking is so cheap that many people who have off-street parking also get a street parking permit. In Somerville, there are about 34,000 households, but we issue about 50,000 resident parking permits per year, despite having only 25,000 on-street parking spots. That means we issue roughly two resident permits for every available curb parking space. The permits also allow parking throughout the city, which encourages short driving trips instead of other modes.
But where will they park?
The first question any new housing proposal gets is “where will they park?” That’s understandable. It’s easy to blame new construction for increasing traffic and car use, because it’s the most obvious thing happening alongside increasing traffic. But it’s not nearly as big a cause as folks think, because city policy actively tries to reduce car usage in new construction.
For residential construction, there are two policies that make a huge difference. The first is that residents in new construction within half a mile of a transit stop cannot get street parking permits. If they want to have a car, they’ll need to pay for off-street parking. The second policy is that new buildings aren’t required to provide that parking if they don’t think their tenants will pay for it. Combined, those two rules make owning a car a bit more expensive and less convenient. As a result, households in these new buildings are a lot less likely to own a car. Even if they do have one, they can’t park for free on city streets, so when they do drive, they’re not likely to make short in-town trips.
For large commercial projects, the city has developed a Transportation Demand Management program, which requires developers to plan for and support non-car trips to and from their buildings.
None of these policies prohibit owning a car. Instead, they make car ownership less convenient by eliminating subsidies and making car owners pay a bigger portion of the cost of driving. Coincidentally, removing the requirement to build parking also makes it easier to build housing.
For example
The new building at 115 Thurston St includes one parking space per home, fewer than would have been required under older zoning rules. Residents in this building can’t get street permits, so if they want to park, they have to pay. In other words, they’re less likely to have cars. If they do have a car, they’re less likely to use it to drive across town. And if they do use it for short in-town trips, they’ll have to park in a public or metered spot and not a residential one.
Meanwhile, 28 Mt Pleasant St. contains 32 new apartments with no parking at all. The building is close enough to the transit options at Sullivan Square that it’s practical to live there without a car, and residents who do want a car can always rent a space elsewhere. Will that arrangement work for everyone? Of course not, but it only has to work for the people who live there.
28 Mt Pleasant St: Big Building, No Parking
It’s only been a couple of years since the city enacted these rules, so only a few buildings use them, but they illustrate an important point: driving in Somerville isn't simply the result of individual preferences. It is shaped by the incentives cities create. By allowing less parking, limiting subsidized curb parking in transit-rich areas, and encouraging alternatives, Somerville is gradually making it easier for residents to choose something other than driving. And that benefits everyone, even when they’re driving.