Who's Ready to Depave Tacoma?
As a sidebar to all this parking talk, we also noticed a fun little program linked to by the Etsy blog. Portland-based depave is a nonprofit with a mission of removing unnecessary pavement from urban areas and replacing it with asphalt. The depave website offers resources for learning about and joining their movement, including a how to page.
So, what’s Tacoma’s problem? Do we have too few parking lots or too many? And who’s ready to lead the charge on Tacoma’s first depaving project? Where do we start?
9 comments
T tom waits January 30, 2012
Nothing much to add except that the first couple times I read the headline, I saw “Deprave Tacoma.”
J jamie January 30, 2012
I volunteer my street to be both depaved AND depraved.
J Jesse January 30, 2012
They can start by taking up the pavement in all the planter strips along roads like South Tacoma Way and Pacific in Tacoma. I’ve never seen so many paved in.
T Thorax O'Tool January 30, 2012
I want to see cement in lieu of asphalt. Yeah, it’s more expensive but it goes much longer without crumbling into potholes.
E Emmett O'Connell January 30, 2012
“…removing unnecessary pavement from urban areas and replacing it with asphalt.”
That doesn’t seem to make much sense. Why would you replace one hard surface with another?
C Christine January 30, 2012
@Emmett: I think that asphalt may be porous to allow rain to soak through. Maybe Jesse can answer that.
J jesse January 30, 2012
I’m not certain what the difference between asphalt and pavement. I’m assuming that’s a typo.
A AreteTacoma January 30, 2012
Asphalt is a type of pavement. The following is an objective of their website:
“Provide information, inspiration, and technical assistance to those wishing to remove concrete and asphalt.”
That being said, I think it is generally trying to promote urban forrests and habitat is bad idea for Tacoma, and the open spaces of the surrounding area. The best way to preserve habitat and farm land close to cities is to have dense compact development in the central city while limiting sprawl. Hardscape in Tacoma preserves farms in the Orting Valley and forests in Spanaway. With Point Defiance, the various gulches, and the steep bluffs along our shores, Tacoma is already doing pretty good with urban forests. We just need to improve access.
E Erik B, January 31, 2012
<i>So, what’s Tacoma’s problem? Do we have too few parking lots or too many? And who’s ready to lead the charge on Tacoma’s first depaving project? Where do we start?</i>
Tacoma needs buildings on its surface level parking lots built to the curb so that some of the dead zones downtown might one day have pedestrians, not another version of a parking lot….