Days Numbered for City Hall Parking

Ever since Dilworth Plaza was reborn as the wet and wild Dilworth Park, the north side of City Hall has looked worse than ever. Walking towards North Broad Street through or around City Hall, you might be wondering where the Walmart is. That's because every day of the week there are anywhere from a few to a lot of personal vehicles treating the north apron like a suburban parking prairie. 

PhillyMag.com

It's ugly. PhillyMag.com called it crap.

Ramping up for a visit from the Pope and the upcoming Democratic National Convention, the city is finally recognizing the lingering blight throughout Center City that might be caught in the backdrop of an international news broadcast. But we're not just hosting the Vatican and a bunch of politicians, we're also prepping for millions of visitors who will be taking billions of pictures and posting them to Instagram.

Well, the north apron of City Hall is about to get a makeover that will help it blend into Dilworth Park a little bit better. While permanent bollards will put the kibosh on the abundance of civilian parking, eradicating parking in and of itself isn't that exciting. What's more noteworthy, particular for our upcoming tourists will be more greenery and the fact that City Hall will be keeping its mature trees. Finally, someone in Philadelphia recognize the value of a living tree!

The changes obviously won't be as dramatically transformative as Dilworth Park, but not everything needs to be in order to be just as significant. 

However there are some questions that remain to be answered. 

For one, what will happen to the parking that has been allowed to run rampant over the last few years? Will it be condensed to the Northeast corner of City Hall or will City Hall simply tell its employees to walk from the dozens of parking lots and garages a few short blocks away? And two, will City Hall use this redesign as a misguided opportunity to formally accommodate permanent parking spaces on the apron?

How One Parking Garage Exposed a NIMBY's Ulterior Motive

The Piazza is getting a new parking garage, you know, right around the corner from that other parking garage. Despite easy access to SEPTA's Girard Avenue El, Northern Liberties residents seem deeply attached to their cars. And neighbors already turning a blind eye to heinously bizarre street parking juxtaposed against fantastic architecture seem more than willing to accommodate suburban traffic as long as there's a place to stash their beloved Priuses.

A new parking garage on land that can accommodate one may seem benign. Despite Northern Liberties should-be proximity to Center City (Spring Garden really is just a few blocks from Old City), it's been an island since I-95 was built. But residents' lack of reaction to more parking exposes neighborhood groups' own hypocrisy and what they really expect of the city.

Um...

At the height of the building boom, numerous high-rises were proposed along the river. So many so that they could have created a densely urban neighborhood on par with West Market Street. 

What happened? 

The neighborhood bitched and moaned about shadows and access to the river until the economy collapsed. Then they all retreated west of the interstate to pat themselves on the back for a job well done. 

Well fuck that noise.

These NIMBYs didn't give a shit about shadows or river access - something that still only exists in Penn Treaty Park, a park never threatened by development - but were only concerned with potential urban density that threatened their precious parking spaces.

If Philadelphia wasn't afraid of being Philadelphia, this could have happened.

I guess I just can't grasp the new urban mentality. The mentality of those somewhere between suburban and urban. By the time you've accommodated all the ills that make the suburbs so intolerable you've created a microcosm of those suburban ills: parking structures, parking lots, and a sprawling lack of density.

By then, you've killed your neighborhood and turned it into Ardmore without the charm.

As cities grow - and Philadelphia is growing - that means taller buildings, more people, and less parking. That should be exciting to anyone living in a city. You can't move to a city, applaud yourself for being an urbanite, and then turn around and expect your Starbucks drive-thru. You have to learn to enjoy the urban experience. 

If you don't like it, well, that's why New Jersey exists.

Ample Parking, Day or Night

When I first moved to Washington, D.C. almost twenty years ago, my large studio cost a modest $450 a month, development was stale, and the internet was for nerds. Today my first apartment - untouched and still teeming with more roaches than Joe's Apartment - asks a whopping $1200 a month. And that's considered affordable.

Twenty years old and raised on a farm, I was just tiptoeing my way into urban life. Put your license and cash in your sock at night, but leave a few bucks in your wallet in case you get mugged. Don't make eye contact with the beggars. And don't go in Meridian Hill Park after sundown unless you're buying drugs or a blow job. 

The neighborhood once home to abandoned embassies, one of them torched, is now full of microbrews, new families, and strollers extending all the way to Maryland.

But one thing hasn't changed, a frustrating urban ill I learned to deal with very early on: You will never find a parking space at your door. 

In Washington and many other cities, parking hassles are acceptedly traded for the luxury of living downtown. If you have to own a car for work, circling your block, even the surrounding blocks for twenty minutes is just something you have to do. 

But in Philadelphia, a city three times the size of Washington, D.C., having a car isn't largely perceived to be a privilege or unfortunate necessity, many view door front parking as a right. That attitude is expected in some emerging neighborhoods where long time Philadelphia residents spent the better part of the 20th Century living amongst abandonment when parking was a breeze. 

As the city's built environment grows, so does its population. Neighborhoods in North and South Philadelphia once vacant enough to accommodate a car for every member of the family parked along their block are quickly discovering what cities a fraction of the size have known for decades. 

Gone are the days of saving your spot with a piece of rusted lawn furniture. South Philadelphia residents may soon even find themselves faced with the fact that median parking is illegal, a law currently overlooked that will inevitably be enforced, further exasperating the parking within nearby neighborhoods.

Dead for no good reason

But where the parking gripes are even more quizzical is in the city's core. Not only do an over abundance of surface lots and parking garages adequately accommodate those living and working in Center City, the individuals who live and work here knowingly chose apartments and accepted jobs in one of the nation's densest downtowns within one of its biggest cities.

Ironically the same voices in Center City that champion better pedestrianization, urbanism, and bike lanes are the same ones who pipe up when a developer proposes a new apartment or office building, citing traffic and parking as a concern. 

Old City, a neighborhood once densely packed with warehouses and factories is now a high priced neighborhood full of charming alleyways broken up by small surface lots to accommodate both unnecessary cars brought in from New Jersey for nightlife as well as the community's reluctance to allow larger development that might bring with it a parking garage. 

But an even greater hypocrisy occurs across town near Rittenhouse Square where the Center City Residents' Association blocked the development of a sky scraping apartment tower at 19th and Chestnut. Despite a half dozen nearby high-rises, the CCRA claimed that spot zoning should not allow a building so tall, yammering from buildings that spot zoning allowed.

The larger complaint apparent in community meetings, on message boards, and the online comment Rabbit Hole regarded parking and traffic. With streets in the vicinity overwhelmingly metered, the parking grief is a nonstarter. Wealthy tenants who would inexplicably want to park on the street would need to hunt for spaces well below Rittenhouse Square. But more realistically, most who even owned a car would likely rent a space in one of the dozens of lots and garages in the area, many just a block away.

Despite being an American powerhouse that continues to grow taller and spread wider, Philadelphia's old habits dictate development in our densest pockets. The ongoing spot zoning argument doesn't validate the concerns of resident activists, rather it exposes an outdated zoning map, one that allows the tallest building between New York in Chicago on Arch Street, but nixes a high-rise apartment building a few blocks south.

Our current zoning in Center City refuses to accept the fact that the city between Vine and South is fusing into a cohesively proper downtown. There are places where height is relevant, notably in the Independence Historic District. But spot zoning in and around Rittenhouse has already set a precedent, and any debate about shadows and wind tunnels should be moot. And parking should never be considered in any debate regarding development downtown. 

The only regions within our city where development seems free to do its job is where the Atlanta-ization of our city is possible, where vast disjoined apartment complexes can provide ample parking near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and University City. Meanwhile hypocrisy and entitlement are stymying development in the one region within the city where common sense says it should touch the sky.

The day will come when logic, reason, and the quest to truly become an advanced and competitive city will supersede the lost cause of revisiting a Philadelphia that died in the 1950s, a lost cause that quells its agitation simply through the posterity of quiet streets and quaint architecture. We're a big city primed to be the next New York. Let's start acting like it.

Pig in a Prom Dress?

Whether or not you like Erdy-McHenry Architecture, one thing that can't be denied is that the firm designs interesting buildings and doesn't try to hide their experimental presence.

Their parking garage near Broad and Arch is nearing completion and popular opinion is mixed. With the building's unusual metal curtains draped across the façade, is it a pig in a prom dress or the best way to address a necessary evil?

The architectural merits of parking garages is rarely discussed, and the discussion is a little silly because they typically all look the same. The best thing we usually hope for is some sensible ground floor retail. With construction costs making subterranean parking cost prohibitive, parking garages are everywhere and try their best to hide.

Erdy-McHenry's parking garage won't win any awards, but it's industrial, funky, and weird, and it works just fine amongst several centuries of Center City's eclectic architecture. Often, Erdy-McHenry's designs mix Brutalism and Bauhaus movements, using concrete, metal, and various raw materials with swatches of basic colors thrown in.

Their parking garage easily reflects this signature style, but with the graceful metal curtains signaling their harsh characteristics evolving. More interesting than the parking garage itself is certainly how Erdy-McHenry intends to incorporate their new design experiments into future projects.

Something to Vote For

Garages and surface lots throughout the city have been running a campaign that blames the high cost of parking on a 20% tax, asking voters to vote to lower it to 15%. These cretins have even created a Facebook page dedicated to their "plight". 

Don't be fooled. If anyone believes the price of parking will go down if taxes do, you're wrong. Surface lots in particular, have nearly no overhead. This means that after taxes your parking fee is nearly 100% profit.

Several garages throughout Center City charge as little as $5 a day. Lots that charge as much as $25 a day don't do so because they have to, they do so because you're willing to pay. 20% is a tax break compared to most major cities.

Lowering corporate taxes only means more profit. It means nothing to the consumer and never has. The only way to lower the cost of parking is to utilize our public transportation, convenient taxis, or to be a savvy consumer and seek out the competition.

Giving these slumlords a tax break will only encourage them to pave over more of Philadelphia until there's no reason left to park here. Ever been to downtown Houston? Do you really want to encourage more of this?