Skip to Content
Streetsblog California home
Log In
Streetsblog USA

How the Accommodations We Make for Cars Impose Huge Costs on Cities

12:58 PM PDT on November 4, 2016

Drive-thrus and parking lots are bad news for a city's tax base. Image via Streets.mn

Wide highways, big parking lots, dangerous intersections designed for speed -- there are a lot of downsides to all this car-centric infrastructure, including the way it saps the fiscal health of cities.

Bill Lindeke at Network blog Streets.mn lists seven, from the erosion of the local tax base due to land consumed for highways to public health costs in the form of chronic diseases caused by polluted air and sedentary lifestyles.

It's not just the car traffic that costs cities, but the land devoted to storing cars as well, he writes:

From a strict assessment perspective, there’s nothing less valuable than a surface parking lot. (OK a nuclear waste dump would be worse…) But designing streets to privilege cars means you’ll almost always be building lots of surface parking, scattered in between older or newer core city buildings, around strip malls or industrial parks. Often this involves bulldozing old buildings where half the density has been replaced by parking...

The point is this: every time we pave over the old urban fabric to use it for car storage, we reduce the bottom-line for the city. Imagine what the tax rolls would look like if half or two-thirds of our urban parking lots were valuable buildings instead.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Transportation for America shares its transportation policy recommendations for the next president. Greater Greater Washington looks at the feasibility of building a gondola connecting Georgetown to D.C. Metro. And Bike Portland shows off the city's new two-way protected bike lane, including a bicycle roundabout.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog California

Eyes on the Station: Metro Fortified Turnstiles at MacArthur Park Station

Metro fortified turnstile entrances at MacArthur Park in order to curb fare-evading riders; sometimes this has adverse impacts on fare-paying riders

September 27, 2023

Streetfilms Tours Emeryville, the Little City that Can

Did somebody say "encore?" Safe streets rock star John Bauters, Mayor of Emeryville, population less-than 13,000, gave Streetfilms producer Clarence Eckerson a tour of his city

September 27, 2023

Guest Opinion: Metro Should Treat Walk and Bike Projects with the Respect They Deserve

Prioritizing true first mile/last mile infrastructure isn’t somehow optional; it’s how your customers get to and from the transit stations.

September 27, 2023

‘I’m Not Grieving Alone’: New Play Explores a Father’s Journey After Losing Two Children to Traffic Violence

Colin Campbell and his wife Gail Lerner lost both their children in a car crash with impaired driver. A new play explores how to talk about similar tragedies.

September 27, 2023
See all posts