NIMBY Cronicles 2, What happened to all the parking?

I moved into Wicker Park over thirty years ago. Back then, a bad parking spot was next door. Kids still played baseball in the street. A truck making deliveries could pull up to the curb and not block traffic, because the streets were wide open.

Nowadays, if I park closer than a block away, it’s a good day.

Like most folks, I blamed the new development. It seemed a good bet. After all, I was standing on the corner at ground zero when the condo bomb went off, All the vacant lots were filled with infill construction, the factories had been turned into loftominiums. North Ave. used to look like Armitage, dotted with single family and small commercial. Now it is lined with four story buildings. Like most folks, I figured that the increased population  used up all of the parking spots.

Then I read a three part article in The Straight Dope by Ed Zotti, called “Where everybody went”

http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdccensus1.php

He had crunched the data from the 2010 census and produced a bunch of maps showing demographic shifts throughout the city.

In part three he had a map showing the change in housing units from 1970 to 2010.

I was squinting at the map, trying to pick out my census tract when I realized something.

Despite my impression of massive development, the number of housing units in Wicker park was pretty much the same as it was in 1970. I went back to part one and looked at the population density in 1980 and 2010 and again I was surprised. The population here is about the same as it was when I got here.

I was still incredulous, and looked at the census data myself. It was true. Here are a couple of graphs I produced from the data for the 8 census tracts that make up Wicker Park.

  

So where have all the cars come from? This is a problem 24 hours a day. They can’t all be day trippers and barflies?

Here’s another graph from 1970 to 2010 stacking the count of resident’s cars over the number of dwelling units.

The answer is clear. We don’t have too many people, we have too many cars.

And look at the timeline, this isn't some fallout from the postwar car culture, this is a pile of buffalo chips we dragged in our shoes.

We tried mandating minimum parking ratios for new construction.

Here’s a graph of our worst tract.

 This tract has probably the highest off street parking ratio in the neighborhood.

Only 5% of the units are in historic buildings with no parking, 15% are in single family homes with 2 car garages and fully 75% of the housing was built after 1990 and has a mandated 1-1 parking minimum. Despite an average parking ratio of at least 1.1 the automobile ratio is 1.3.  And judging by the street parking at least half of the people are using their garages to store lawn furniture

I have come to the conclusion that cars are like goldfish. If you keep feeding them, they will grow until they fill the bowl.

Neighborhoods are  funny things, when they stop growing, they start dying.

We have reached a point where the parking situation is strangling our growth.

That is why I am flexible about reduced parking ratios.

We haven’t room for any more cars. 

Paul K. Dickman