Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Streetsblog.net

How the Accommodations We Make for Cars Impose Huge Costs on Cities

Drive-thrus and parking lots are bad news for a city's tax base. Image via Streets.mn

Wide highways, big parking lots, dangerous intersections designed for speed -- there are a lot of downsides to all this car-centric infrastructure, including the way it saps the fiscal health of cities.

Bill Lindeke at Network blog Streets.mn lists seven, from the erosion of the local tax base due to land consumed for highways to public health costs in the form of chronic diseases caused by polluted air and sedentary lifestyles.

It's not just the car traffic that costs cities, but the land devoted to storing cars as well, he writes:

From a strict assessment perspective, there’s nothing less valuable than a surface parking lot. (OK a nuclear waste dump would be worse…) But designing streets to privilege cars means you’ll almost always be building lots of surface parking, scattered in between older or newer core city buildings, around strip malls or industrial parks. Often this involves bulldozing old buildings where half the density has been replaced by parking...

The point is this: every time we pave over the old urban fabric to use it for car storage, we reduce the bottom-line for the city. Imagine what the tax rolls would look like if half or two-thirds of our urban parking lots were valuable buildings instead.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Transportation for America shares its transportation policy recommendations for the next president. Greater Greater Washington looks at the feasibility of building a gondola connecting Georgetown to D.C. Metro. And Bike Portland shows off the city's new two-way protected bike lane, including a bicycle roundabout.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Wednesday’s Headlines Think Globally, Act Locally

In a world where the federal government is aligned against all your goals, what else can you do?

February 5, 2025

Study: You’re Not That Much Safer In a 4,000+ Pound Car

For decades, American car buyers believed that bigger = safer. A new study finds that rule appears to have hit a ceiling.

February 5, 2025

Op-Ed: Reviewing America’s First (and Last?) Federal ‘Reconnecting Communities’ Pilot

The Biden administration exhausted the funds of the first-in-the-nation Reconnecting Communities program before they left office. But how did they spend the money — and what can we learn about how to do better next time, if advocates ever get another bite at the apple?

February 5, 2025

Tuesday’s Headlines Are a Sanctuary

The Trump administration's latest threat would withhold funding from many big-city transit agencies and transportation projects in some blue states with "sanctuary" policies on immigration.

February 4, 2025

This Automaker Is Attacking Sustainable Transportation Even More Than You Think

The world's largest automaker has been ramping up spending to put climate change deniers in Congress, and crushing support for all kinds of sustainable modes in the process.

February 4, 2025
See all posts