Black Friday Parking 2021

 

The day after Thanksgiving again found me prowling the parking lots of the Cedar Rapids metropolitan area, on my annual mission for Strong Towns, the urbanist organization of which I am a member. (I just got the recurring donation thing figured out, and now I am feeling rather Strong myself!) Strong Towns has been running this event nationwide since 2013, mainly to point out the negative impacts of minimum parking requirements in city zoning codes. Their crowdsourced map started in 2015, a cooperative venture with the Parking Reform Network, includes Cedar Rapids as an example of a city that has removed parking maxima for its downtown (Jordan and Wilberding 2021).

Regulations concerning parking comprise 25 pages of the Cedar Rapids municipal code. They are "intended to ensure that adequate parking is provided to meet the needs of individual site designs and the community at-large" (32.04.02.A.1); later the same section refers to "appropriate" amounts of parking. These terms represent value judgments, in spite of the calculations suggested in 32.04.02.B and other attempts at objectivity. They seem to say "You be you, and we'll figure out the parking," but that assumes everyone makes free choices, and those free choices result in the best possible city design. I'd argue both of those assumptions.

The section contains numerous tables defining minimum parking requirements for a given development. General parking requirements (Table 32.04.02-3, pp. 132-134) include two per residential dwelling unit, with less for buildings with small apartments and accessory dwelling units; live-work units are required to have an additional parking space for every 333 square feet of office space. Cemeteries are required to have one parking space for every 50 square feet of the chapel. Elementary and middle schools are required to have two parking spaces per classroom, while high schools are required to have six per classroom plus one per 300 square feet of non-classroom floor space. Want to teach ballet? Studios and instructional spaces are required to have one per 333 square feet. Financial institutions are required to have one per 200 square feet used by the general public, plus one per 600 square feet not used by the general public. This is a fascinatingly granular table, and the effort to compile it must have been impressive.

More importantly, Cedar Rapids now--and I'm pretty sure this is a recent development--has maximum parking rules, as well as exemptions and exceptions to parking minima. Maxima are determined as a percentage of minima (Table 32.04.02-5, p. 135): if 0-49 spaces are required based on Table 32.04.02-3, for example, developments can have no more than the greater of 6 spaces or 150 percent of the minimum number required. Section 32.04.02.F allows exceptions for downtown, and reduced minima for shared parking spaces, residences for the elderly or handicapped, closeness to a bus stop, and connection by sidewalk to trails.

At the very least, this shows sensitivity to the way parking lots waste urban space, and a willingness to develop at least the core part of the city in a way that can serve multiple functions besides car storage. I do not, however, think that Cedar Rapids parking craters are caused by municipal regulation. I think they're caused by the way we do things, at least most of us most of the time, with the ability to ignore people who must or want to do things in a different way. For example, the Blairs Ferry Road Target, in whose parking lot I took three pictures the very first year I did #BlackFridayParking, has 173,941 square feet of retail space, which indicates a minimum of 523 spaces. Maybe I'll count them next year? I'm pretty sure they have a lot more, and were never sweating that zoning regulation back in 2002.

There may be, somewhere in the Cedar Rapids municipal code, an ordinance requiring me to have a second helping of stuffing at Thanksgiving dinner. All that stuffing has analogous negative effects on my physical health to the effects of all that parking on our towns' civic, environmental, and financial health. (Also, by discouraging walking and cycling, too much parking makes us less healthy, just like too much stuffing!) But I'm not stuffing in the stuffing because I'm concerned about an ordinance. I'm doing it because it's what I do on Thanksgiving. Similarly, we build commercial property with gigantic parking lots because that's just what's done.

You be you, drive to Target or Wal-Mart or Fleet Farm, and we'll make sure there's a space for you to park your car. But all this parking is not a neutral engineering/planning response to what people happen to do. It is part of a chain of fateful choices by powerful people that cause the town to develop in a way that driving is what everyone must do.

Fleet Farm, 4650 Cross Pointe Blvd built 2019 189,595 sqft store on 832,867 sq ft lot required parking spaces 570 actual ??

NE edge of the lot

SE edge of the lot

Fleet Farm is a new big-box kid in town. I remember when Chuck Marohn referenced them in his 2015 speech at Iowa City, and multiple people including me corrected him to "Farm and Fleet." We are all aware of Fleet Farm now! There were a lot of shoppers at Fleet Farm this morning, in search of deals like these...

...and they came in a lot of cars, but there was room for plenty more!

Hy-Vee, 5050 Edgewood Rd built 2005 87,524 sqft store on 494,842 sqft lot required parking spaces 263 actual ??

west edge of the lot

Groceries aren't your stereotypical Black Friday purchase, but the lot at this suburban Hy-Vee was nearly full. Elsewhere in this gargantuan plaza, many stores were not open...

It's quite the strip

Another lot of parking

People in this subdivision could walk to Jimmy John's,
or Hy-Vee!

Wal-Mart, 2645 Blairs Ferry Rd built 1990 204,266 sqft store on 772,783 sqft lot required parking spaces 614 actual ??

Lowe's is west of Wal-Mart

NW look at Wal-Mart

Sam's Club is east of Wal-Mart

"You could build a small town in that parking lot"--
awed Twitter comment

I did not take pictures of the closer-in sections of the parking lots, so it behooves me to tell you there were a lot of shoppers at all of these stores... just not nearly enough to fill the parking lots. Gigantism of stores and parking lots are a bill of goods sold on convenience and ease of access. It's time to pay attention to what they do to our town's social fabric, fiscal health, &c. 

Dunkin' Donuts: I don't understand my fellow humans
(Similar scenes at McDonald's and Starbucks)

SEE ALSO

"I Wish This Parking Was...," 27 November 2020 [last year's COVID lockdown-appropriate alternative]

"Black Friday Parking," 27 November 2015 [my first venture]

Associated Press, "Holiday Shopping Moves Into High Gear But Challenges Remain," KTLA, 25 November 2021

City of Cedar Rapids, Zoning Ordinance, 14 March 2021 [Section 32.04.02, "Parking," is on pp. 129-154]

Charles Marohn,"Where Parking Reform Ideas Go to Die... or Not," Strong Towns, 24 November 2021 [a story with a happy ending!]

Strong Towns, "Where Will You Be on #BlackFridayParking Day?" 22 November 2021 [this year's invitation]

Black Friday shopping can be a real battle?

I'm enjoying this way too much

Cedar Rapids mayoral runoff 2021

 

Washington High School Step Team, January 2020:
Can these young people find their futures in Cedar Rapids?

City Council elections are opportunities to take stock of where we are as a city and where we would like to be going. In my post from the last mayoral election four years ago, I complained that the candidates lacked either specific policy proposals or an overall vision of the city's future direction. I concluded: America, which includes Cedar Rapids, faces some profound challenges. How do we enable a satisfactory quality of life and economic opportunity for our citizens in the face of economic, environmental, racial, an financial challenges?... We've managed to have a school board election and two rounds of a city council election this fall without serious debate over any of these.

I did give the 2017 finalists, Brad Hart and Monica Vernon, credit for strategic competence: As a manager of problems with high levels of personal activity and familiarity with the city, either would be fine. Does that seem a bit naive today? All I can say is, after two years of relative quiet, the problems of 2020 and 2021 were of unusual magnitude: a worldwide pandemic that refused to go away, a summer of civil rights protests responding to murders elsewhere but recalling a 2016 police shooting here, and then the incredible force of the August 10 derecho. In 2017 I had been thinking about traffic and the city budget and stuff. The city and school district did as much as they could with the pandemic given heavy-handed oversight by a regressive state government, but the policy response to civil rights protests failed to satisfy advocates and makes progress on inclusion uncertain, and precious time was lost with Mayor Hart's delayed response to the derecho. Then there was Hart's deranged voice mail message for CSPS director Taylor Burgen. Perhaps day-to-day competence is not enough.

On November 2, 2021, city council members Marty Hoeger, Tyler Olson, and Ashley Vanorny were reelected without opposition; in District 3, Dale Todd won reelection by a wide margin (62-37) over  Tamara Marcus, the county sustainability manager. Marcus proved to be an exceptionally thoughtful candidate, and I hope she will continue to be present in local politics. The only race, then, to require a runoff was the race for mayor, where former newscaster Tiffany O'Donnell led with 42 percent to 28 percent for both Mayor Hart and Amara Andrews. Andrews had exactly 41 more votes than Hart, who conceded and endorsed O'Donnell. The runoff will occur Tuesday, November 30.

The executive power in Cedar Rapids, like most towns, is mostly in the hands of the city manager since 2010, Jeff Pomeranz, who by all accounts has made good choices on policy (one-way to two-way conversions and protected bike lanes) and city staff. What's left to the mayor, besides one vote on a nine-member City Council, is the public visibility that comes with the position. Ron Corbett (2019-2017) used his position, among other things, to advocate for health and fitness, promoting Blue Zones, commuter as well as recreational cycling, and sidewalks. Who we elect as mayor says much about how we see ourselves as a city.

Meanwhile, a letter writer to the Cedar Rapids Gazette Sunday complained about the lack of amenities for senior citizens, mainly by railing against cyclists. I don't know enough to comment on the senior amenity situation, and can only wonder how a town full of voting senior citizens could possibly be deficient. I can say we need a mayor who can explain to people why inclusion is a good thing, and why policies that seem to benefit people who are not you can actually benefit you by improving the city as a whole.

Tiffany O'Donnell (from her campaign site)

O'Donnell became well-known as a television newscaster for 20 years, including 15 at the local Fox affiliate. She is the CEO of Women Lead Change, which calls itself "the state's premier leadership organization for women, dedicated to the development, advancement and promotion of women," and was active in the founding of and fundraising for the New Bo City Market. Her website highlights the need to "take the city where it needs to go" in order to retain young people and "the workers of the future." There's not much issue detail, and a lot of obvious, but her priorities page includes downtown and river revitalization, and the intent to "incentivize and support growth of existing businesses" and "lean into our entrepreneurial economy," which are worthy goals indeed. Her last-week op-ed (O'Donnell 2021) touted her leadership credentials and the need for change.

Amara Andrews and friends (from campaign website)

Andrews, a newcomer to city politics, is an executive with True North Companies whose beat includes transportation and business development. She was also active in business development in Champaign, Illinois. She is involved in Advocates for Social Justice, which arose out of the 2020 protests, and the Academy for Personal and Social Success. Her website is far more substantive than O'Donnell's. She notes the need to shift business support towards assisting existing small and midsize businesses, while attaching public goods conditions when we use tax incentives; the connection between walking and biking infrastructure and needed improvements to our public transit system; and one-stop "opportunity centers" to help workers with any and all barriers to employment. Her last-week op-ed (Andrews 2021) discussed the coalition-building and persistence that led to the creation of the city's citizens review board, and talked about the need to include the unhoused in policy efforts.

Both candidates are hitting the right notes, even if Andrews's are arranged for a chamber ensemble and O'Donnell's for Casio keyboard. I'm a word guy, so Andrews is the one speaking to me, yet it would be nice to have a Mayor O'Donnell bringing her networking experience to bear on our common life. Both articulate the need for policy change, which is refreshing in a city where the political culture can be maddeningly complacent. Cedar Rapids has done some remarkable things in the last 15 years, but we are far from being the inclusive, environmental, walkable, and opportunity city we need to be. To have someone in the mayor's seat showing why and how we need to do things differently would really be something.

SEE ALSO:

Amara Andrews, "Choice is Between Change and More of the Same in C.R.," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 21 November 2021, 1C, 4C

Tiffany O'Donnell, "Time to Stop Being 'OK' With "OK' in Cedar Rapids," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 21 November 2021, 1C, 4C