Talking Transportation: The Price of Free Parking
Free Parking Isn’t Really Free
Our love affair with the automobile depends on one thing: free parking. After driving on our “free” highways, we have to park someplace, and we all hate to pay for what’s really a privilege. It’s as if there’s some constitutional right to free parking.
But free parking is actually expensive and paid for in more than just dollars.
The industry standards setting group known as the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) has defined 266 different types of businesses and has determined the amount of nearby parking they require. So when your local Planning & Zoning Commission is looking at proposals for, say, a new restaurant, they consult the ITE manuals on what parking would be needed.
Mind you, a fast food joint like a McDonalds will require less parking than, say, a fancy steakhouse, given the number of patrons and how long they stay there dining. But when it comes to the rules of parking, we’re talking about more than restaurants.
Consider convents. For whatever reason the ITE’s “bible” says religious convents must have one parking space for every ten nuns or monks in residence. Hello? They’re in a religious retreat! They’re not going anywhere! Wouldn’t it be smarter for the convent to be able to use its land for better purposes than an empty parking lot, like growing its own food?
Or how about hotels? Their parking regulations are based on the assumption that they are sold out, something that certainly doesn’t happen very much. Wouldn’t it be easier for the hotel to make special arrangements on those sold-out nights than have acres of asphalt baking in the sun most of the year?
Drive up the Boston Post Rd and see the bitter fruits of this short-sighted planning. Thanks to zoning regulations a lot of big-box stores devote 60% of their land to parking and 40% to the stores themselves. Just think of what that means to how they price things. Isn’t it any wonder that Amazon can compete on price?
Awhile back I drove through New Britain where I once lived. I hardly recognized the downtown with its empty stores and sidewalks next to a ten storey parking structure. They “built it” (the parking), but nobody came. The downtown looks empty.
If you look at the communities with the liveliest downtowns you’ll see people, not cars. People attract people as they go into shops, walk along and window-shop. It’s pedestrians we want, not parking lots.
UCLA’s Donald Stroup wrote a great book, “The High Cost of Free Parking”, and made his point with a tale of two cities:
Decades ago both San Francisco and Los Angeles opened new downtown concert halls. LA’s included a $10 million, six storey parking structure for 2100 cars. But in San Francisco, they built no additional parking, saving developers millions.
In LA after a concert the music-lovers scurry to their steel cocoons and drive away. But after a show in San Francisco, (at least pre-COVID) patrons would leave the concert and stroll the streets, spending tens of thousands of dollars in nearby bars, restaurants and stores. Guess which city’s economy has benefited most from its investment in the arts.
The buzzword these days in development circles is TOD, Transit Oriented Development. By putting stores, mixed use office buildings, housing and amenities near train and bus stops, people will use mass transit to get there instead of their cars. That doesn’t mean we don’t need parking at train stations. But even a parking structure can have stores at street level and maybe affordable housing too.
City planners need to remember that human beings come with two legs, not just four tires.
About Jim Cameron:
Jim Cameron has been a commuter advocate for over 30 years, with a special focus on the Metro North railroad. He spent nearly two decades on the Connecticut Metro North Commuter Council, and most recently founded The Commuter Action Group. Jim Cameron’s Talking Transportation was a popular column on the former WestportNow.com prior to its cessation, and joins The Westport Local Press and several other online community organizations. A resident of Darien - he serves on its Representative Town Meeting and is Program Director of the town government TV station, DarienTV79. He can be reached at CommuterActionGroup@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: @CTRailCommuters
The Westport Idea: MoCA Westport and the WAAC Announce New Exhibition
Six Dancers, Children at Yangzhou School for the Deaf and Blind, 1996, Westport Public Art Collections, Gift of the artist.From MoCA Westport: MoCA Westport and the Westport Arts Advisory Committee (WAAC) announce the opening of The Westport Idea, a new exhibition featuring selected works from the Westport Public Art Collections (WestPAC).
The Westport Idea will be on view at MoCA Westport from January 28 – March 12, 2022. The exhibition will enable audiences to enjoy selections from WestPAC holdings of more than 2,000 artworks at a public venue. Most of these works are housed in public schools and municipal buildings, not always accessible to the public.
An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Friday, January 28, 2022 from 6 – 8 p.m. at MoCA Westport. The reception is open to the public. Attendees must show proof of a COVID vaccine or negative COVID test results.
The Westport Idea was co-curated by Westport Town Curator Kathleen Motes Bennewitz and Liz Leggett, MoCA Westport’s Director of Exhibitions, and with Ive Covaci, PhD, WestPAC Director of Education and curator of the ‘Learning Galleries.’
“The exhibition originated as an ‘Idea’ between WAAC and MoCA Westport to bring annual selections of WestPAC’s heralded, but rarely seen, collection of original works of art on view for the community to enjoy, appreciate – even be wowed by,” said Town Curator Kathleen Bennewitz.
“It also demonstrates how Westport’s cultural legacy enabled artists, educators, and donors, then and now, to build these important Collections. Like WestPAC, MoCA Westport evolved and thrives from the same energy that is the basis/source of ‘The Westport Idea.’ There is a legacy of creativity and appreciation of art that underpins both of these organizations, as well as other art institutions in Westport,“ Bennewitz added.
Ruth Mannes, MoCA Westport’s Executive Director stated, “MoCA strives to present thought-provoking and relevant arts experiences, and we look forward to sharing these WestPAC works with the community. This is an exhibition the entire family can learn from and enjoy.”
Click here to expand release
The Westport Idea includes several of WestPAC’s 2021 acquisitions by artists of color and under-represented groups. WAAC’s diversification effort is a step towards acquiring art by, and more broadly representative of, Black artists and people of color in our community. Examples in the exhibition include Three Shadows by esteemed photographer Adger Cowans of Harlem’s Kamoinge Workshop; Charles Joyner’s collage, Village @ Ntonso, filled with colors and patterns abstracted from African symbols, architecture, and textiles; and Don't Judge Me (2021) by Stamford artist Christa Forrest whose work is a mixture of realism, exploration, and experimentation.
“As our new acquisition initiatives proceed, WestPAC will continue to grow with original works by notable artists representing varied and diverse voices,” Bennewitz said.
WAAC’s mission is to bring attention to Westport’s artistic treasures, of which WestPAC is the most significant. In addition to 60 works of art from the WestPAC collection, the exhibition includes ‘Learning Galleries’ on Pop Art and Color & Collage. The WestPAC Committee collaborates with art and other subject area teachers to develop these installations. They rotate between schools, supporting curriculum and classroom projects and focusing on specific themes, genres, styles, or media.
Ive Covaci, WestPAC’s Director of Education, stated, “The Learning Gallery groupings will also evolve as WestPAC’s holdings grow, with future iterations including recent accessions like the collages on view in this exhibition by Charles Joyner and the late Fred Otnes.”
Westport’s heritage as an arts community is long-standing. As early as 1904, painters, sculptors, printmakers and illustrators gravitated to Westport, CT from New York City. A Bridgeport reporter noted in 1911, “there seems to be something in the air and scenery of this town which induces artists to settle within its limits.” In 1931, “The Westport Idea” originated with Samuel Duff McCoy, a poet, biographer and newspaperman. Nowhere in the radius of New York, or any large city, was there a year-round community of artists. Forty-three artists and twelve writers joined together to create a collective that planned and exhibited together under McCoy’s leadership.
The Westport Public Art Collections’ origins go back to 1910 but more fully evolved in 1965 through the vision of Westport artist and educator Burt Chernow. His “Idea” was to collect original fine art for students to experience daily. Chernow believed that “the vital and formative years spent by children in public schools are significant in determining their adult attitudes toward art.” This inaugural collection consisted of about one hundred works donated by eighty credentialed area artists. Today, WestPAC has more than 2,000 artworks by global luminaries and esteemed American and regional based artists.
“Of course, these painters really are not artists of Westport. They belong to New York, to Paris, to Munich and Rome. They are first class painters, and while their homes are in Westport, they are citizens at the same time of the wider art world. Two important things have combined to call this colony of artists together. First, convenience to New York, with its publishers, its collectors, galleries and exhibitions; second, the great landscape beauty of the surrounding country." - Christian Science Monitor, 1913
Simultaneous with The Westport Idea, MoCA will also showcase the works of high school students around the region in its annual high school exhibition. Entitled Identity this year, the exhibition features over 100 works based on the memories, experiences, relationships, and values that create one’s sense of self. All high school students were eligible to submit their work, including drawings, paintings, digital/graphic images, photographs, sculptures or videos.
Admission to MoCA Westport’s gallery is now complimentary for all visitors, made possible through the generous gift of an anonymous donor in 2021.
MoCA Westport thanks Wendy and Jacques Bouthillier for their generous support in funding The Westport Idea exhibition. Their gift allows the Museum to make this extraordinary collection available in a formal museum space for the first time.
For more information, please visit mocawestport.org or contact Liz Leggett, Director of Exhibitions. MoCA Westport’s winter hours are Wed 12 - 4PM | Thursday 12 – 7 PM | Friday – Sunday 12 - 4 PM. MoCA Westport is located at 19 Newtown Turnpike in Westport, Connecticut.
Artists Included In The Exhibition
Lynsey Addario, Enrico Bai, Leonard Besser, Ralph L. Boyer, Paul Camacho, Carlotta Corpron, Ann Chernow, Adger Cowans, Charles Daugherty, James H. Daugherty, Lisa Daugherty, Stevan Dohanos, Jim Dine, Walter Einsel, Sam Francis, Elaine Kaufman Feiner, Leonard Everett Fisher, Davira Fisher, Lillian Freedgood, Christa Forrest, Jerri Graham, Hardie Gramatky, Charley Harper, Howard Heath, Richard Hunt, Robert Indiana, Albert Drexler Jacobson, Lester Frederick Johnson, Asger Jorn, Charles Joyner, Alex Katz, Nicholas Krushenick, Estelle Thompson Margolis, Henri Matisse, Joan Mitchell, Norma Minkowitz, László Moholy-Nagy, Enid Munroe, Fred Otnes, Gabor Peterdi, Mel Ramos, Baroness Hilla von Rebay, Robert Rauschenberg, Barbara Rothenberg, Lucy Sallick, Larry Rivers, Larry Silver, Victor Vasarely, Tom Wesselmann, Jean Woodham
Supporting Programming for The Westport Idea
Thursday, February 3, 2022 | 6 - 7 PM
Kathleen Motes Bennewitz, The Westport Idea Co-Curator Talk
Free Admission; Register at mocawestport.org
Thursday, February 17, 2022 | 6 - 7 PM
“An In-Depth Discussion on Tom Wesselmann”
Huffa Frobes-Cross, Tom Wesselmann catalogue raisonné project manager at the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, NYC and Paris.
The Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc. is a non-profit foundation dedicated to the study of art history and to fostering the accessibility, cataloguing, and digitization of archival materials that support critical research in the field.
Free Admission; Register at mocawestport.org
Thursday, February 24, 2022 | 6 - 7 PM
Ekphrastic Writing Workshop with Diane Lowman, Westport Poet Laureate
Free Admission; Register at mocawestport.org
Thursday, March 3, 2022 | 6 - 7 PM
WESTPAC Teaching Gallery Talk with WestPAC Director of Education and Learning Gallery curator Ive Covaci, PhD, and Westport Public Schools Educators
Free Admission; Register at mocawestport.org
Westport COVID-19 Cases Up 140 over Weekend; State Positivity Rate down while Hospitalizations are Up
The Aspetuck Health District and the State Department of Public Health reported 140 new COVID-19 cases for Westport over the weekend. The State’s daily test positivity rate was down to 23.68% while hospitalizations were up 79 patients, totaling 1,889 patients across the State - 68.1% of whom are not fully vaccinated.
Westport total positive or probable cases: 3,177 cases.
Westport total COVID-19 Deaths: 33 deaths
State Daily Test Positivity: 23.68% [up from 24.55%]
State Hospitalizations: 1,889 patients [+79]