I’d love for the city to build park n ride lots/decks on its urban edges like an airport, and then run the RLine to shuttle them around the core as a placeholder until we have some other viable options. When other viable options become operational, we can then redevelop those park n ride facilities.
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Who says they haven’t tightened the parking somewhat? Raleigh recently changed their rates to more closely align with other US cities. I suspect developers do studies and analysis and pretty much know exactly how much parking that they expect will be needed at full occupancy. I am less worried about parking decks as part of a building because they are usually hidden better and will obviously stay with us, but free standing parking decks can eventually be removed and replaced with office or residential as the need falls for parking. But the need for parking in Raleigh will not lower significantly for at least 10 years and probably a lot more years than that. Get some BRT’s, real protected bike lanes, and the commuter train built and then let’s talk.
It’s my understanding that the lack of parking for the most part applies to weekday office/business owners. Companies want parking because they have people that frequent downtown. (you know, 4-5 days a week) Building for them should continue, as much as I dislike it, because the ramp up for transit is still taking its sweet time.
The evening and weekend visitors should have no issues parking. In some situations, they may not like their options but there is space for that vehicle.
I think I agree with you @orulz if I’m getting you. What it has to look like is that, when someone wants to get downtown, driving and therefore parking can’t necessarily be the obvious, no doubt, easiest option.
If you could somehow measure safety, cost, convenience, etc. factors on a scale of least desirable (1) to most desirable (10) we want driving, transit, biking, and walking to be somewhat close together rather than driving being an 8 and the others being a 2 or 3. That’s the current situation from my perspective and hope to see that starting to change. Get transit to 6 or 7 but no need to drop driving down to 3 alongside the others.
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I like framing it as a 1-10 rating scale.
I would say meet in the middle. If driving drops to a 5 or 6, and transit/bike/walk rise to a 5 or 6 as well, then we’re in good shape.
Currently, we’ve maybe brought non-driving alternatives up from a 1 or 2 to a 2 or 3; at this point if we let (or make) driving slip from an 8 to a 7, we’re still doing just fine.
Let’s say that the with the combination of current traffic, current parking ratios, and current parking costs, as @dtraleigh said, driving is an 8.
If we continue to take (possibly extraordinary) measures to make sure driving always remains an 8 no matter what, then we’re definitely on the wrong track.
Now, eventually, as growth continues, given the finite capacity of roads into downtown, traffic congestion is going start making that number drop. But If that’s how it goes then it will come with significant drops in quality of life even for those who don’t drive, and it will make buses get slower too.
I’d much rather just let parking supply (ergo, costs) serve as the valve rather than road congestion.
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It’s all a matter of one’s perspective I suppose, but I would think that if everything is 5 or 6, then we are most definitely NOT in good shape. 
I would describe places like downtown Denver or Minneapolis as places where driving and alternatives are all in the 5-6 range. Basically if you work downtown and live in a suburb not near transit, then you suck it up, drive, and deal with traffic and parking costs; if you live in the city or near a transit line and work downtown then you do that and deal with whatever inconveniences that it involves.
Those places seem to be doing OK?
Chicago would be a 2(driving) - 8(transit) and Manhattan would be a 1 - 9. Meanwhile Raleigh is an 8 - 2. Charlotte might be a 7-3 or 7-4.
Name one place in the world where driving AND transit are both 7+. It doesn’t exist, because nobody has unlimited resources. Any place big enough to have actually good transit, it’s going to be difficult or expensive (or both) to drive. The infrastructure needed to accommodate high driving mode shares just doesn’t scale to areas like Midtown Manhattan or the Chicago Loop.
And for my money, downtowns where cars aren’t the overwhelmingly superior option seem to be the more dynamic, vibrant and pleasant ones. That is what I want Raleigh to be. The goal should be to get as many people into downtown Raleigh without their 5,000 pound steel rolling protective cages as possible, without killing growth.
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Basically I want parking to be expensive enough that many people will take transit even if it takes them 25 or 50% longer (door to door) to get to work. This is “pushing”.
Simultaneously we need to work on improving transit so the time penalty over driving is as small as possible. Get as many people as possible into the category with under 50 or 25% extra time for transit over driving. This is “pulling”.
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If you are only talking about downtown Raleigh I would say that we are probably at an 8 currently on driving. Mass transit outside of buses is 0. Buses without BRT’s currently is probably about a 3. Bicycling is probably a 1 (all are my views of the current situation). But in your point you are willing to accept none of them as being good and just mediocre at best to include driving cars, then that is a low standard to set. All of those examples that you gave had at least had one higher score that provided better than mediocre transportation choices. And I don’t disagree with your stated goal as I think most want that, I just don’t particularly agree with how you want to go about it. And I see “pushing” as punishment for doing an activity that you disagree with. I think provide people with good choices and many will choose those that you desire. And certainly don’t punish without first providing viable alternatives which we have precious little of.
I am certainly not saying that we should punish anybody. What I am saying is that we can’t have it all. we can’t have a world where driving/parking is easy convenient fast and cheap, AND where transit is easy convenient fast and cheap. And given that reality, I would choose for Raleigh to grow into a city with proportionally less driving/parking, and proportionally more transit/walking/biking than today.
…And I would choose to start that process now, rather than waiting for transit to reach some arbitrary threshold, with goalposts that can be moved all too easily when we get there because we’re collectively too comfortably stuck in the status quo and too afraid of change.
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This is a really long video. I’ve been watching in pieces today, and am still not halfway through it.
I just believe that most drivers are now living in suburbs that are too far out (and out of the way) and they are mostly a lost cause anytime in the foreseeable future. Build the BRT’s and the commuter trains and protected bicycle paths and greatly build up the density along those nodes so that people moving here and others living in Wake County who may chose to move and live there can do so without the need of a car. I believe less pushing and more pulling is far less punitive. And we basically are starting now, basically just barely starting now. Way too early in the game to start the punitive pushing phase of your plan. But anyway, it’s been fun (slow day at work). 
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@TedF I’m enjoying this too. Glad to have you on here. Any forum that’s just an echo chamber isn’t as useful as one where reasonable people with different ideas and opinions come together. Debate is the crucible through which thoughts and ideas are processed and purified into coherent and persuasive arguments.
Again, it’s not punitive, it’s just regulatory. It’s using development regulations to turn downtown Raleigh into the place we want it to be. With all the griping that I hear on this forum about parking lots, parking decks, parking podiums; traffic on McDowell, traffic on Dawson, traffic on Capital … I think it should be obvious that the last thing downtown Raleigh needs to rise to the next level is more cars and more parking.
When somebody comes downtown, it’s good for the city. They generate economic activity, patronize businesses, eat at restaurants. Vibrancy. Good. When that person comes in a car, it comes with a few extra negatives: First, the $25-50k in capital expenditures that were required in order to provide storage for that car, yet take up valuable space and contribute nothing in terms of vibrancy. Second, the road space the car takes up on its way in and out of the downtown and the congestion that results, which also contribute nothing to vibrancy (and in fact probably detract from it.)
This is not intended to be judgemental in any way. People making rational decisions for themselves is fine.
If that same person comes on foot or on a bike, the magnitude of those negatives is almost zeroed out. All the contributions, none of the negatives. That’s better for downtown. Having more of that will make downtown a better place. Having development regulations that encourage this behavior over driving is not punitive, it’s just logical. It just makes sense for the city, for downtown. Yet we are actually doing very little - almost nothing, in fact. We have been hemming and hawing for seemingly years trying to get a single cycle track on the west side of downtown off the ground. Yeesh.
As for buses, you have to account for the cost and space of the bus station and the traffic generated by the buses, but this seems like it could easily be lower impact per person than cars, especially when you consider the case of just accommodating more people on the existing system without buying or running more buses.
Commuter rail obviously benefits because there are no parking decks to build for passengers, meaning less dead space downtown, and more people downtown without more traffic on roads. While the rail infrastructure itself is expensive, the capacity is high and you have to balance it against the cost of adding roadway and parking capacity for an equivalent number of cars. This is less of a clear win in terms of costs and capital, but a big win in terms of people->vibrancy without dead space.
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Creating vibrancy locally, from workers and residents (and hopefully they are oftentimes one in the same person), will eventually make supporting those who come by car economically unnecessary. When Raleigh’s DT renaissance was REALLY in its infancy, the city used ease of parking as a lever to fuel vibrancy downtown. As time goes on, and more and more people moved downtown, prioritizing parking as a lever has become less necessary. The vibrancy itself becomes the lever, and the desire to be part of it will cause people to find a way to participate in it. How might that happen? Well, let’s say that parking was super easy to find, cheap or free, and created no stress whatsoever to anyone who wanted to come downtown to create a new scene. In that scenario, a group of friends might all choose to drive individually downtown for a night out. Now let’s say that there’s actually a desire to come downtown in the context of larger crowds, more expensive and scarcer parking. How might that be managed? Well, people may think about carpooling and sharing the cost of parking. Others might consider taking Lyft or Uber, and those who are fortunate to live along a convenient transit line might choose it instead. If it’s reasonably close, others might choose to take bike share.
My point is, when there’s a desire to be somewhere, people will figure it out, and we don’t have to continue to think about every single person needing their own parking space for an evening. And the beauty is that, when there’s a built-in supply of customers living downtown, there’s a lower risk to the city and its establishments when we decide to not over-cater to suburban drivers.
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I am in love with the rollout of these curbside pickup spaces! What a way to roll with the current situation and provide a way to help. 
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Great idea! And thanks for the link. I picked up some new accounts to follow.
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This is new to me but the Dillon parking deck has a “spaces available” display. First in downtown? (the city?) It’s not new tech for sure but new to Raleigh, I’m all about it!
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‘But, but, but there’s no parking!’ (Even now). That’s a cool feature though. Maybe that will help dispel the myth.
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It would be amazing to see that number at the top of every hour spanning a long period of time. 
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That’s a really good idea and a long time coming! Now I want to see the red/green indicator lights above each parking space so that folks can find a space quickly.
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