Raleigh magazine had this article about parking downtown and in the suburbs and how distance is a lot of perception not reality.
https://raleighmag.com/2025/02/downtown-raleigh-parking-problem/
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Nice piece that might encourage some folks to venture in. thanks for the link.
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I love that they are looking at the parking situation objectively, and not just based on perception. It’s astonishing to me how lazy folks generally are.
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As Raleigh has extended the city limits northwestward, it now has residents who are closer to downtown Durham than downtown Raleigh – and with I-885, even people who live inside 540 often find it’s faster to reach downtown Durham than downtown Raleigh. Downtown Cary is slowly becoming a trendy place, too. I don’t know that downtown Raleigh’s only problem is the perception of inadequate or expensive parking; it could simply be competition.
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Good point. Same in Charlotte. Uptown Charlotte is the center of the region but not of the population as much of the growth is southward or far northward. Our small towns downtowns are competition to uptown Charlotte in terms of fine dining and so forth as our our suburban centers like SouthPark, Waverly, Ballantyne and Birkdale Village to the north.
If you live in Raleigh between I-440 and I-540 aka north Raleigh, North Hills is likely your “downtown” and special trips must be made to go to downtown.
Uptown Charlotte is saying they are the Central Activity District now and this is a good way to market where our arena, football stadium and major arts facilities are located.
This is why the Red Hat Amphitheater is so important in getting people to come downtown and let’s face it Martin Marietta Center for the Arts is not as busy as DPAC in Durham. Festivals and special events in downtown Raleigh help greatly. Raleigh is lopsided to the north and west and Charlotte to far south and far north.
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A bill has been introduced in the state legislature to ban parking minimums in zoning requirements statewide. I know Raleigh has already pretty much fully done away with minimum parking requirements, but this would be huge for the state as a whole. I’m a little skeptical it will actually pass, but it has bipartisan sponsorship, including from some rural counties, which to me is a very good sign.
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My uninformed quick take is that developers (i.e. Republicans) would be happy to have fewer restrictions when building to maximize their ROI, and pro-city/walkability/alternate transport folks (i.e. Democrats) would be happy to have less space and preference mandated for cars. So I can see the bipartisan appeal. But nothing government does is ever logical or simple.
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It’s less about Democrat vs Republican and more about young vs old. I have plenty of young Republican friends that are pro-city and highly in favor of walkability. I also know plenty of old Democrats that are about as NIMBY as you can get.
Usually, the difference in opinion is all about age. That bodes well for the future, IMO.
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I meant the politicians voting on it.
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The market will dictate what is required for parking. Private developers will never under park their developments as that will severely impact the value and make them unleasable/sellable. There is 0 reason for any municipality to have parking minimums in this day and age. The same really holds true for maximums as well as nobody is going to spend a dime more on parking then is needed. This is one of those issues that fully resolves itself in the private sector.
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I’m “old” and I want urban walkability. The problem isn’t young vs old, or Republican vs Democrat, it’s about urbanists vs the anti-urban crowd.
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I’m speaking in generalities. Of course there are select younger people and older people that think otherwise. But, I’d say they’re not representative of the entire population. The vast vast vast majority of older people I know prefer the suburbs.
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You can probably say that the vast majority of all people currently prefer the suburbs because that’s mostly what they know. I’d also add the families with small children have a particularly strong suburban POV. This is something that you especially see in much of North America.
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I do think there is another aspect that hasn’t (ever?) been mentioned on this forum. Pardon my uninformed suburban mindset here… Where are the doctors offices, dentist offices, day cares, vet clinics within walkable downtown proper? As someone with kids and dogs, these are necessary aspects of my life that have be driven to in a car. While a 100% walkable lifestyle would be great, it really just isn’t practical for a lot of folks given how our built environment is today. Somehow these basic services must exist in urban areas (NYC, DC, etc), but in the mid to small sized cities, these facilities are mostly in suburban areas. Another thing… what parent is going to literally drag a sick kid down the street to a doctor vs throwing them in a backseat of a car and driving? This is a serious question here. My answer is NOT this parent.
The discussion here feels very pointed and anti car (full disclosure, I would love to be much less auto dependent myself), but not everyone’s life choices lead them to the same place. A bit of understanding for others in a different life situation would go far, rather than vilifying them because they made different choices along the way and are playing the hand they were dealt the best they can.
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There actually are quite a few of those services downtown. WakeMed Primary Care, Loren Dental is on Fayetteville Street, there are a few daycares nearby (and at least one that I know is about to be developed), and Oak Heart Veterinary Hospital is on Person Street (not necessarily downtown proper, but close). I don’t have a dog myself, but it’s definitely possible to live downtown with kids or pets and still have access to the basics. There can always be more, but that will only come when we grow our downtown.
I don’t think anyone here is saying suburbs shouldn’t exist. It’s not the people living downtown who are going out to the suburbs and showing up at council meetings to protest new suburban development.
Another thing… what parent is going to literally drag a sick kid down the street to a doctor vs throwing them in a backseat of a car and driving? This is a serious question here. My answer is NOT this parent.
That’s your choice. But, it’s also coming from a perspective in that you’ve never known anything different. Plenty of people in existing walkable cities walk or bike their sick kids to the doctor’s office and don’t have a problem with it.
What folks are pushing back on is the idea that downtown shouldn’t grow because it doesn’t fit every lifestyle. Nobody’s really being told not to drive. We just want more options for how people can live. And right now, car-centric design is the default pretty much everywhere. Especially here.
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i was born in raleigh in the late 60s…I’m not a transit expert though i rode it for 16 straight years in raleigh, along with some taxi rides. if data is true, car travel commutes on average are near 30 minutes?? splatterguning 15 minute bus transit per route, where it is greater already, would reduce car commutes or general commutes by how much? i can get the overall plan to reduce car travel of parts of town as they get more dense..but where do these people go to to get to work? downtown to wake med? near downtown to out on why 54? north Raleigh to a job on campus at ncsu? how much on transit for desired reduction of car traffic?
An aspect of living downtown that isn’t quite as obvious as the walkabikity is how the rest of the city is readily accessible by transit.
If you live out on one of the suburban arterials with bus service, then you have single-seat access to everything on that corridor.
If you live downtown, then you have easy, single-seat access to every bus route, which covers pretty much every commercial area in the city. This includes places like Rex or WakeMed where lots of doctors offices are located.
If transit isn’t your cup of tea, then that’s your choice, I guess.
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@svp I saw the seafoam green BMW again parked downtown on Sunday, but apparently it’s contagious and spreading to Cary where I saw this on Tuesday. (I threw in a Bradford pear tree because everyone down here loves them.)
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The car on the far right appears to be an Acura
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