Minneapolis moves to ban new drive-throughs

[Chef]

Minneapolis City Council committee votes to ban new drive-through facilities
Minneapolis could be the first of its size to take such action, city planners say.
By Miguel Otárola Star Tribune AUGUST 1, 2019 — 9:21PM

With a unanimous committee vote Thursday, the Minneapolis City Council moved one step closer to banning new drive-through facilities at fast-food restaurants, banks and other businesses.

If approved by the full council Aug. 8, Minneapolis would likely become the first U.S. city of its size to ban drive-throughs, according to city planners.

City Council President Lisa Bender proposed the ban last year to cut down on vehicle noise, idling and traffic and to make sidewalks safer for pedestrians. While new drive-throughs are already prohibited in 17 of the city’s 23 zoning districts, this policy would extend the ban to include the remaining areas, which include industrial and some commercial districts.

Council Member Lisa Goodman, who sits on the committee and co-sponsored a similar proposal three years ago, said during the meeting that “one of the more controversial things that comes before us is neighbors opposing drive-throughs.”

“I rarely have seen anyone other than the applicants of drive-throughs come to speak in favor of them,” she said. “It is nonsensical for people who walk or bike to be thinking about having to go across large driveways.”

She said she was proud of the new policy, adding, “It’s something that should happen in a city like this.”

Bender, who also sits on the committee, said the city was already working to make commercial corridors less car-oriented.

“This is not a huge, dramatic departure from our past,” Bender said of the ban. “It’s actually just an incremental move toward what the city has been doing for many years.”

The Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which was approved by the council last year, directed the city to outlaw new drive-throughs and gas stations.

The proposal would prohibit any new drive-through facility involving a business transaction at restaurants, banks, ATMs and more. The city would still allow businesses to designate a parking space for dropping off or picking up goods.

http://www.startribune.com/minneapol...ies/513519562/

[dc_denizen]

Good.

[Steely Dan]

Another smart move from Minneapolis.

[Crawford]

I think it's OK from a public policy perspective, but kinda odd. Minneapolis is a very car-oriented city, so this will just mean that grandfathered drive-in properties will become much more valuable. It won't actually make the city more transit-oriented, as car usage isn't due to presence of drive-ins, the reverse is true.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think it's OK from a public policy perspective, but kinda odd. Minneapolis is a very car-oriented city, so this will just mean that grandfathered drive-in properties will become much more valuable. It won't actually make the city more transit-oriented, as car usage isn't due to presence of drive-ins, the reverse is true.

I wonder if it will also encourage such places to be surrounded by more surface parking since people will be forced to park and go inside.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think it's OK from a public policy perspective, but kinda odd. Minneapolis is a very car-oriented city, so this will just mean that grandfathered drive-in properties will become much more valuable. It won't actually make the city more transit-oriented, as car usage isn't due to presence of drive-ins, the reverse is true.

Exactly. Most fast food joints are not by their nature designed from an urban perspective. A McD's without a drive-through will still be a stand-alone structure surrounded by a sea of surface parking.

[10023]

Originally Posted by JManc

Exactly. Most fast food joints are not by their nature designed from an urban perspective. A McD's without a drive-through will still be a stand-alone structure surrounded by a sea of surface parking.

Most fast food chains as Americans know them are not. Most fast food joints, which would include everything from a NY pizza by the slice place, to a London kebab shop, to a Berlin currywurst stand, to a México City taqueria, are little grab and go storefronts that are very fast and very urban.

And even McD’s and others are perfectly capable of building urban format stores.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by 10023

And even McD’s and others are perfectly capable of building urban format stores.

But they are not going to unless local ordinance mandates it or market is profitable enough to make the investment. McD's will default to the suburban style stand-alone restaurant if they can.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by JManc

McD's will default to the suburban style stand-alone restaurant if they can.

the world's most obnoxious example of this unrelentingly stubborn mentality:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8931...7i16384!8i8192

that whole block of shit can't be hellfired out of existence fast enough.

[10023]

Originally Posted by JManc

But they are not going to unless local ordinance mandates it or market is profitable enough to make the investment. McD's will default to the suburban style stand-alone restaurant if they can.

And that’s exactly why local ordinance should mandate it. Otherwise they will inflict negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood that are not reflected in the cost to the company or its customers.

Allowing McDonald’s to build a suburban format store in the city is like allowing a factory to belch chemicals into the air with no pollution controls. It’s cheaper, but it has a cost that the free market doesn’t accurately price.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Good for them!

One of my pet peeves is, a lot of times you'll go to a restaurant with a drive-through, and there are, like, 10 cars waiting in line at the drive through, but if you actually get OUT of your car and WALK into the store there's almost no line at all! People are so lazy they'd rather sit in a line for 15 minutes waiting for their order than get OUT of their car and bloody WALK into the store where they can get their order in 5 minutes. It's unbelievable. Either that or they're too stupid to realize that it's often faster to get out of the car and order the normal way than to wait in a mile long line at the drive-through.

I mean people are just really stupid and mindless.

[authentiCLE]

The drive through is often still faster. Most fast food places have more staff fulfilling drive through orders than dining room.

[The North One]

I don't understand what this accomplishes? So instead of a drive throughs they'll just have more parking spaces...

I'm getting kind of tired of Minneapolis's PR team promoting every planning decision as if it's this great revolutionary change nobody ever thought of before.

[Nomad9]

Originally Posted by The North One

I don't understand what this accomplishes? So instead of a drive throughs they'll just have more parking spaces...

I'm getting kind of tired of Minneapolis's PR team promoting every planning decision as if it's this great revolutionary change nobody ever thought of before.

It accomplishes at least two things:

1. Fewer idling cars = lower carbon emissions (yes it’s minuscule on a global scale, but it’s better for local air quality)

2. Makes the city fabric a little more walkable/bike friendly because (arguably) these drive-through places will be encouraged to build in a more urban footprint and there should be fewer entrances/exits breaking up sidewalks.

One critique that I think has some merit: for some elderly/handicapped/injured people who can drive, drive-throughs are probably much more accessible. Same with parents who have a bunch of small kids.

Edit: increased parking is a concern, but I assume that’s something planners have studied.

[cityscapes]

Originally Posted by Nomad9

Edit: increased parking is a concern, but I assume that’s something planners have studied.

As a planner who has seen many cities zoning codes, most calculate parking based on internal square footage. The addition or removal of a drive through would not have an impact on the overall parking requirement.

[Nomad9]

Originally Posted by cityscapes

As a planner who has seen many cities zoning codes, most calculate parking based on internal square footage. The addition or removal of a drive through would not have an impact on the overall parking requirement.

I get that, I’m just assuming (hoping) the Minneapolis planners have looked at whether the elimination of drive throughs will lead businesses to build more parking than what they would with a drive through.

[edale]

Originally Posted by cityscapes

As a planner who has seen many cities zoning codes, most calculate parking based on internal square footage. The addition or removal of a drive through would not have an impact on the overall parking requirement.

If the city has a system of parking maximums, then yes, the concerns over more parking resulting from eliminating drive-thrus is moot. If they don't, it's reasonable to think that developers would want to add more parking to these projects, since all customers would have to enter the restaurant to order.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by The North One

I don't understand what this accomplishes? So instead of a drive throughs they'll just have more parking spaces...

Drive-throughs by necessity need to have two curb cuts - one for entering, and one for exiting - which is bad from a pedestrian perspective. Although quite frankly, they wouldn't survive in a high-density expensive area anyway, so I'm not sure what this would accomplish.

A much better thing to attempt would be to design a more pedestrian-friendly layout for gas stations, since they often occupy prominent corner lots in otherwise fairly dense business districts, and stay around much longer due to there being a demand for gas stations. Some sort of curbside pump system would be ideal. I've seen them in Europe, but I dunno if they'd run afoul of national regulations.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Drive-throughs by necessity need to have two curb cuts - one for entering, and one for exiting - which is bad from a pedestrian perspective. Although quite frankly, they wouldn't survive in a high-density expensive area anyway, so I'm not sure what this would accomplish.

A much better thing to attempt would be to design a more pedestrian-friendly layout for gas stations, since they often occupy prominent corner lots in otherwise fairly dense business districts, and stay around much longer due to there being a demand for gas stations. Some sort of curbside pump system would be ideal. I've seen them in Europe, but I dunno if they'd run afoul of national regulations.

These used to be common in the US, but eventually cars became too popular for the curbside pumps to handle and led to lines at the pump causing traffic jams. After that, they were banned by many cities. I don't think those explicit bans survived up to the present day, but other state/local regulations have the effect of forcing all gas to besold in large off-street filling stations.

Not sure national regulations come into play... typically this kind of stuff is done at the state level by fire marshals, who share regulations via the NFPA and other organizations so there is a lot of consistency, state to state. In this case, the applicable reg is NFPA 30A, which does not specifically ban fuel pumps in the public way but places some restrictions on the location of pumps relative to property lines and buildings.

Practically, this kind of setup only works if car drivers are a distinct minority and there is limited demand for fuel... maybe in parts of NYC this could be the case, but in every other US city, the demand for fuel is just too high for curbside pumps to address. In high-demand areas, it would likely create traffic. Potentially you could counteract this with a stiff tax on curbside fuel sales, such that drivers are incentivized to drive out to traditional gas stations in fringe areas.

However, I think curbside charging for electric vehicles will become commonplace. There are fewer safety concerns with electricity vs. gasoline, and developers of new buildings may actually want to put charging devices on the sidewalk outside as a feature. The problem there is the sheer timeframe required to charge an electric car; really the technology has to improve for electric cars to truly work in urban environments. The long charge times right now favor those who have a garage, so either suburbanites or the wealthiest city-dwellers.

[10023]

Originally Posted by The North One

I don't understand what this accomplishes? So instead of a drive throughs they'll just have more parking spaces...

I'm getting kind of tired of Minneapolis's PR team promoting every planning decision as if it's this great revolutionary change nobody ever thought of before.

Aesthetics. Drive-throughs are fucking ugly.

They also reduce walkability, not because people choose to drive instead of walk, but because they mean curb cuts, danger of car/pedestrian collisions, and break up the street wall.