I’m working on – or rather, not working on because I’m blogging – a paper about parking policy. In it I intend to talk a little bit about Columbus’ proposed zoning ordinance changes regarding required off-street parking, which is exciting. I also pulled a couple images from Google Earth for illustrative purpose, specifically one which shows how much of downtown Columbus is now parking lots.
From what I understand, Columbus underwent a great deal of urban renewal in the 50s and 60s, hence why most of the buildings are not that old and/or became surface parking lots. The result is that the center of Columbus, the capital of Ohio, one of the largest states in the Union, has a handful of skyscrapers surrounded by a bunch of parking lots.
You can’t really tell this from looking at the skyline from a distance on the ground, but it’s pretty visible in this Google aerial image (had to use the Flight Simulator to get a bird’s eye angle). Disclaimer: the 3D buildings, produced by the Planning Department, may not be a complete inventory of all the buildings downtown, so this image may be somewhat misleading in that it does not show all the buildings at their proper height. Nevertheless, the images of parked cars on so many of the properties makes it pretty clear that it’s almost all parking lot once you go a few streets east (bottom-right) of the river. I annotated the map with some key landmarks and an approximate outline of all the parking lots I could see (red lines):
Downtown Columbus: Parking Galore (Source: Google Earth, 2010)
And I checked the approximate area of downtown Columbus – the section pictured is roughly a square mile (maybe more to the north and south). Think how much fits in a square mile in New York. Or Chicago. The Loop, strictly speaking (within and immediately surrounding the El tracks), pretty much fits in less than a square mile.
Well, at least Columbus has plenty of parking.
City Forward 
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28 April 2010 at 10:12 pm
Daniel
That’s good to hear that Columbus is working on their parking oversupply. I don’t know if the code change will do anything about the lots that are already here, but maybe things will start to retract if they get redeveloped.
I always wonder how many of these lots are simply placeholders for land speculation.
1 June 2010 at 7:54 pm
Anna
That was my dad’s explanation for the lots, too – redevelopment placeholders, I mean. Columbus (working with MSI) is in the first stages of considering a revitalization of downtown (using a lot of transit, bike infrastructure, etc), so I guess the “if you build it, they will come” theory might prevail.
Although Columbus’ housing market is doing better than a lot of places, I’m hoping the foreclosure crisis combined with the apparent movement of young people back into cities will bring businesses back to the city (especially downtown) in the long term.
31 May 2010 at 11:57 pm
Dave
I noticed in the Code Revisions – Key Highlights that maximum parking caps will be put in place. Do you know any specific numbers for that? I agree with Daniel that there may be little effect on existing lots unless there is redevelopment (but I don’t know if the reductions in minimum requirements will be enough to encourage it). Could the caps force immediate change?
Also, the rule about screening – do you think that will lead to a bunch of ugly fences or will it encourage landscaping? i.e. which is cheaper?
Is there anything about bike lanes? Do they already exist? Is there demand for biking?
By the way, I found this blog by following your link on the Daily Beast list of cities for college grads. I was DaveMc in the comments section – looks like we were thinking along the same lines, only you put in a lot more effort to explain yourself!
1 June 2010 at 8:01 pm
Anna
Dave – thanks! I was mostly infuriated by Florida’s conclusion because having lived in Ithaca for a year, and knowing a few Census facts about it, the fact that it was the #1 city for recent grads made it total crap (in my opinion). Then, realizing several other college towns were also high on the list, I got more suspicious.
Re: Columbus, I don’t think the requirements will force immediate change. Where they might help first, actually, is in redeveloping some areas around OSU, where developers or small-business owners might want to start more projects, and the lowered cost of parking might sufficiently sweeten that deal. Certainly downtown needs more help than hedgerows! Fences probably are cheaper unfortunately, in terms of maintenance, and would do little good for the streetscape… if the permit review board steps up and pushes for landscaping, though, it might go through. I can’t remember if downtown has a comprehensive/urban design plan; if so, they can lean on that at least.
There is demand for biking, especially along High Street (where a lot of thriving neighborhoods + OSU campus are located), and some bike lanes are going in. Columbus isn’t the Portland of the Midwest yet or anything (that would be Minneapolis, apparently!) but there is a bike community there. I’m not plugged into it really, but I know several of the Columbus Planning Dept. staff ride bikes (and/or bus) to work along High.