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Originally Posted by simms3_redux
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Waiting for the day we can stop building massive garages as part of every new development. Just got back from Seattle and they've been building multifamily without garages since before they had LRT and streetcars (in fact the north Belltown neighborhood isn't really even served by transit and they still don't build garages there!). It's pretty pathetic looking at Midtown at all these HALF EMPTY garages built because developers/lenders believe they're necessary in this city and code hasn't kept up with the times. In the 3 towers I have lived in in Midtown, every garage has been half empty with more bikes than cars.
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Very true. Two things related to this struck me when I came to Atlanta: 1) I had never had a job (Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Edinburgh) where I was expecting a place to park my car. On the faculty at the Hopkins Med Institutions there were only a handful of parking spaces available AND you had to pay for them and were reassigned when available (we joked that we had to watch the obituaries to grab a new place) - the result we took the bus to work or paid through the nose to park in some private lot. IN Atlanta, parking is often expected with the job. 2) High rises rarely had parking facilities; again, one parked on the street or tried to find some private garage nearby. Perhaps now is the time for some new high rises, particularly in midtown to build with less garage space and/or to share with another nearby garage. Of course, all this is tied to the availability of a comprehensive and convenient transit system.