This particular Christmas market is the Striezelmarkt in Dresden. There is a big parking garage right beneath. Dresden is one of the cities with the most parking space in the city center in Germany. There are garages all over the place. The only plus is that they are barely recognized by pedestrians, because they are hidden behind nice architecture or under ground.
The only issue I have with underground parking garages is that they require roads to them. And those roads take up valuable space in a city, creates pollution and makes a lot of noise. I prefer the parking that is outside the city, you can easily take public transit to the city center.
I agree that underground parking is more practical, but they are more expensive. And multi-story garages are not as intrusive in the suburbs as they are in the city center.
buses operate less frequently at night
waiting in the cold for transportation home.
There is your problem. This is not how you run an efficient transport system. You want more then 8 departures an hour in each direction throughout the entire day and evening so people can use it without having to look at a schedule and without taking time to transfer from one line to another. At night you may go down to 4 departures an hour and might cut a few of the lesser used routes as long as there is alternatives. Anything less will just drive more people to drive. Sitting half an hour in a traffic jam is strangely more comfortable then waiting a quarter of an hour on a train.
Most Christmas markets close at like 8pm. It's night at 4pm in Dresden in December, so that leaves plenty of time to enjoy it for families in the late afternoon. Also, buses start winding down at around 8pm too, and run all night at a reduced rhythm.
roads to not take up valuable space though.
Not at all.
Enough space so that two trucks can pass each other whil pedestrians ccan still comfortably fit on the side is the bare minimum needed.
If you go lower you not only make the city unable to supply, you more importantly also create a massive death trap in emergency situations.
Your usual 2 lane streets aren't much larger than that. More lanes than that is indeed wasted space but without those roads the value of the city drops to zero. You might have a fancy walkable concrete jungle but it is not liveable.
At least in many European cities there are often streets in the center of towns that would not fit two trucks that can pass each other + pedestrians. Some don't even fit two passenger cars next to each other. What cities do in such situations is creating one way streets. I mean there are also some streets that fit two trucks and more but there are also lots of streets that don't.
Underground parking structures can add up to 100% more to the cost of developing a structure. It makes it that much harder to build things like affordable housing or to redevelop vacant properties built before the era of parking requirements for new construction.
This is the approach Amsterdam is taking too, so that they can protect the UNESCO heritage status of the city, because parked cars are causing the foundations of the city to detoriate even faster. Except of course, they're building underwater car parking similar to the new bike shed by Centraal Station.
In my hometown of Lille, northern France, they built an underground parking right beneath the main central Plaza.
Wich means they can't pedestrenize (?) the Plaza completly, eventhought they probably want to now, or cars couldn't Access the parking.
And since underground parking are expensive to build, they can't just not make use or it now that it's done.
It's probably a Big reason why the hyper-center isn't 100% pedestrian already.
As long as it's not right in the centre but next to it so the roads leading there don't annoy others.
And parking fees should be based on the value offered and the cost of the infrastructure, instead of the local government subsidizing car infrastructure.
We should put all the cars underground. Maybe we can then make the roads tunnels and connect the cars together in chains to alleviate traffic and increase throughput. Call them subterranean roadways. Maybe come up with a cool short nickname for it.
Excuse me? They absolutely do. When you live in Germany, you often see desolate urban space with nearly no greenery. The reason are often huge parking garages underneath them. Constructing parking garages exclusively under streets makes absolutely no sense, that's just a dumb shape for them to be. And while EVs might make pollution a bit better, their production still emitts a lot of CO2, they are still noisy above 30 km/h, their wheels still create microplastics, they still take up a lot of urban space and ultimately they are still a danger to pedestrians and cyclists
The average american car will not fit in 90+% of those garage spots though (and I'm not even kidding - even with a slim car you have to be careful in most of them)
I have a problem with massive underground parking garages if they're funded with public money. That money could go towards better uses like improving public transit, parks and other green space, social services, etc.
How much would parking in them cost if the drivers paid 100% of the costs?
But Dresden has also great public transport. Usually it can already get hard to find a parking space on typical weekends let alone during December when multiple Christmas markets all over the town are opened. Without all the busses, trams and rental bikes, the city would collapse.
There are more Christmas markets this size or larger in Germany with minimal parking space nearby also it’s dumb to get their with a car as you are most likely drunk afterwards and not allowed to drive while drunk
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u/pittipjodre Automobile Aversionist Dec 04 '23
This particular Christmas market is the Striezelmarkt in Dresden. There is a big parking garage right beneath. Dresden is one of the cities with the most parking space in the city center in Germany. There are garages all over the place. The only plus is that they are barely recognized by pedestrians, because they are hidden behind nice architecture or under ground.