A Master Planned On Street Parking Problem

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Do you see a wreck waiting to happen?

No texting, talking on a cell phone, sip of Starbucks, or any kind of distracted driving here! The problem is you can’t see around the corner and at times there is barely enough room for two cars to squeeze past each other.

This is during the day when you have the additional ability to attempt to see any kind of motion. Nighttime is more of a terrifying crap shoot. You’re relying on someone to have their lights on and you have to be on high alert to notice the headlight reflection off a parked car. It’s not like you’ll be able to see the headlights directly around this corner–they are blocked out by parked cars!

The grey car is blocking the view of the corner and my guess is there was another car between it and the silver car too.

On a Friday or Saturday night you could set up a tailgate party at the end of the street and make your own entertainment by placing bets on cars playing chicken as they attempt to safely enter and leave the neighborhood.

Look at all the vehicles lining the entire street! You  know there were additional cars parked behind the cars in the foreground since people normally have the tendency to park as close as possible to their destination and those spaces are suspiciously close to a car length long…

Why are neighborhoods built like this?

The master planned community builder has to know this will be a problem. It’s not just the street–there are no planned overflow spaces for additional parking off-street.

While I certainly question the poor design, you gotta know there will be an on street parking problem ahead of time when you buy a house six feet from five separate neighboring houses with a shared driveway.

Just to make that extra clear: six houses are sharing the same driveway, as are the next six houses and the next six houses…

It is no surprise cars are illegally parked well before and well after the no parking signs. There is only enough space for two trucks or three compact cars between each six houses given the additional space marked off as no parking zones.

Other on street parking problem concerns

If parking extends all the way down the street and around the corner is there enough space for emergency vehicles? A fire in one house with others in such close proximity is a scary possibility. Precious seconds count when a life is on the line. Access to a fire or to help a person in distress is a real concern.

How easy is it to see kids at play? It’s difficult at best. No speeding here! Hopefully, the kids in this neighborhood do not play in the street like they do in my neighborhood…

There are perfectly valid reasons setting up this situation

Want a big house, but not a big yard? I’m not knocking the residents for not wanting to have a lawn. A postage stamp size yard is certainly easy to maintain. You can probably think of a million different things you’d rather do than walk behind a lawn mower. If there is any grass in a yard this small you could cut the grass with a pair of scissors…

You can still go out to the beautifully HOA maintained green spaces throughout the neighborhood. You could also walk just over a half mile in either direction and play on two really fun city maintained playgrounds.

It might even be easy to park in this neighborhood in between Monday and Thursday. The problem is only one rocking party will take up the entire street and then you might be parking at the city maintained playground…

From the builder’s perspective, allowing each home with a tiny backyard to have it’s own driveway along an extra street or two is a boom. Their intention is to fit as many houses as possible in a square quarter mile. Any extra personal space or allotting a small parking lot is one less fat check coming in.

As with any good argument there are some upsides.

You get to know your neighbors as you walk from your house to your car on the street. A smile and wave turns into a conversation, which turns into building up neighborhood morale.

Kids are encouraged to go to the green spaces rather than playing in the street. They can meet others their own age and play in huge areas rather than playing dodge-the-car on the street.

You try to keep stuff from taking over your parking spaces in the garage. Less walking to and from your car on the street is certainly incentive.

Master planned parking solutions!

Here are a couple suggestions and there probably are a multitude of others.

Redesign the lots with driveways. I’m not a fan of large front yards–all that effort to maintain a lawn with not a lot of actual use. Very few people sit on their front porches to enjoy the weather and newspaper. However, the driveway portion gets lots of use. A driveway long enough for two cars gets two more cars off the street and a clearer line of sight. Perhaps run the driveway along the side of the house. This solves two problems: parking and adds distance between your house and making it harder for a fire to spread.

Build overflow parking in the master planned community. Make the streets off limits for parking and place parking spaces throughout the townhouse sections.

The only solution left for this neighborhood is for residents to make sure their stuff does not consume parking spots in the garage.

It is unfortunately too late for this neighborhood except for the last personal suggestion. If this is something we, the interested homeowner, notice ahead of time, when those houses are not selling maybe there is a reason why…