DUDE, WHERE'S MY PARKING SPOT?

Friday, July 16, 2010

Can L.A.’s built environment shift paradigms and become less car-centric? The suburban ideal of two cars in every driveway is giving way to an urban model of density and transit, but the movement is fraught with conflicts, and parking is one of the most intractable. “New” urbanists advocate for less parking, but L.A.’s drivers and communities demand more.

In this chicken-and-egg situation, developers, planners, and policy makers are caught in the middle, between costly and inflexible parking requirements on one hand and lack of adequate public transportation on the other. Drivers say parking costs too much. Academics argue it costs too little. Without density, we can’t get transit, but parking requirements make density difficult. How can we transition to urban vitality and pedestrian scale designs? Does one approach fit all of L.A., from downtown’s high-rises to Pacific Palisades’ sprawl?

The Westside Urban Forum brings together a distinguished panel to weigh in on the often conflicting goals of parking requirements and revitalization, and to discuss what policies could evolve to shape a vision for future transportation alternatives in L.A.

Join us on Friday, July 16, 2010 for this very exciting conversation.


Moderator
Bill Parent, Associate Dean, UCLA School of Public Affairs






Panelists
Honorable Scott Malsin, Councilmember, Culver City
Donald Shoup, PhD, Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA, and author of The High Cost of Free Parking
Mott Smith, Principal, Civic Enterprise Development LLC, and Board Member, Transportation and Land Use Collaborative