| Parking is a dystopian microcosm of our climate dilemma. That's my takeaway after reading so many thoughtful, nuanced comments about my previous column on parking minimums. None of you, unsurprisingly, were in favor of prioritizing cars over people. Or sprawl. Or the insanity of telling bars to have too many parking spots, as Alan of Houston points out: "Because we want people driving home after sitting at a bar and drinking?" But many of you also pointed out that doing away with parking mandates is not that simple. "I agree that parking requirements often go overboard," writes Viki of Bend, Ore. "But [eliminating them] needs to be part of a comprehensive development plan." While Bend has dreams of being a bike-friendly town, she says, the city's rapidly growing population and infrastructure "can't keep up." John Roskelley, a former Spokane County commissioner, also noted that when his county eased parking minimums, it couldn't build adequate light rail or persuade enough people to jump on buses. Others noted access issues for those without vehicles or mobility. The conclusion: Parking minimums must be part of a plan tailored to entire communities, not a stand-alone policy. These points reveal a larger problem: How do we undo decades of infrastructure and assumptions about how we're supposed to live? It's tempting to just say, "Better luck next generation." But just because ending parking minimums might not work everywhere doesn't mean they should exist everywhere. Cities, set in steel and concrete, evolve faster than you think. Take the Dutch. In the 1960s, roads in the Netherlands were not unlike those in the United States. In 1971, there were 3,300 traffic fatalities, more than 400 of them children. Outraged by this carnage, communities across the nation decided to reclaim the roads. Over the next few decades, Dutch cities embarked on a building spree of 22,000 miles of bicycle paths, bike parking and transit access. Today, more than a quarter of all trips there are made by bicycle. New York is not Amsterdam. But the Netherlands, roughly the size and population of New York's tri-state metro area, shows what's possible — less parking, more transit, better bike routes — even if you're starting with decades of bad decisions. | 
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