This isn't the way to get rid of cars. If public transit is still shit, people will still have cars. They will instead park on the roadside and be more unhappy that their parking isn't convenient.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2026
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Public transport in Barcelona is excellent
I only visited but it seemed very good to me. Up by the university I was astounded by how much they packed (subway, trams, buses going anywhere and everywhere.)
There is no way to get rid of cars without inconveniencing drivers, and they will have to be very inconvenienced.
Public transport in Barcelona is great, and street parking for residents is also pretty affordable.
Barcelona has great public transit and quite a decent bike lane network. I have no idea why people use cars in Barcelona.
Parking on the roadside (outside the official parking spots, which you have to pay for) will usually get you a ticket or towed ... free public roadside parking is mostly a thing of the past in most densely-populated places, really ...
Getting rid of parking is 100% the easiest way to get rid of cars. Maybe second easiest besides replacing roads with pedestrian walk ways.
Building efficient inexpensive public transit is the best way to get rid of cars. Otherwise you just have cars circling blocks looking for a parking spot.
They'll do that one or two times in a city before realizing it's better to take public transit in.
I knew people who would move their cars every week just to be able to drive out of the city once a month.
People do occasionally travel outside of metro transport coverage.
A lot of European apartment parking is just a designated street parking space anyway. I'm not sure if that's the case in Barcelona, but I see it often in the UK.
I think this is fine
It means easier rules for housing in a city that's mostly friendly to public transit and biking, which should help with the rising housing cost Spain is dealing with.
If you live in barcelona you aren't expecting to need a car anyways.
unhappy that their parking isn’t convenient.
Oh no, not me, I'm perfectly fiiiine walking as far as necessary to get to my apartment from my parking space (says the people who are able to drive home in the middle of the day and park up for the night when everybody else is at work).
It's not just lack of convenience, it's behaviors: double parking, congestion, Oh I'm just going in for a second...
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I am curious to see if it plays out the way experts anticipate. I'd worry that cars are increasingly parked alongside roads, taking up space. I would love for parking to be a mandatory part of any real estate here in Germany.
The idea is to remove free parking on the road side as well. Taking up space from the public like this shouldn't be free. The end goal is to reduce the numbers of cars, not to put them somewhere else.
What do you think tax money pays for? And what do you think making building install parking is? Paying for parking….
If you remove the free parking and remove mandatory parking in buildings. Where would the parking be?
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Hard no. Parking shouldn't be bound as a necessity to every real estate, but every car ownership (see Japan).
There of course is an argument to make sure there's enough parking per let's say square 100m for everyone who'd need it for their car (even more so if this free's up the damn road), but mandating an available car parking space for any real estate would go the wrong direction.
Oh I mixed it up. Thought the whole "parking with real estate" was mandatory there, but it totally makes sense to connect that to car ownership.
That's how it played out in my neighborhood. The less space for cars on private property, the more cars left out on the street. The cars become a problem without even being used.
Just because parking isnt mandatory doesnt mean they wont build it. It will just match demand more closely.
Plenty of functional cities were built before parking was a thing. While they do have lots of on street parking, pre-1950s cities also have the best transit.
is it legal to randomly park on the side of the street in spain/barcelona? Here in sweden it's at least not something that would be tolerated en-masse.
I don't know. In my homecountry it is however very common
No, please God don't make mandatory parking a part of real estate. Build one large garage per X blocks and get rid of cars as a primary means of transport. Cars are a blight on the land and far to expensive to be sustainable. We need better public transit everywhere in Germany (although I think it's quite good especially compared to the north America).
Trams, trains, and subways should be the future of Germany as they're far more cost effective and far more human centric.
maybe not garages, but just centralizing surface parking lots is definitely a good idea since it makes car ownership more annoying and later on you can trivially construct a proper building on that spot.
Anything that keeps cars off streets the longest and efficiently stores them. The vast majority of people should be forced to use public transit to transverse cities. Everything is made slower and more expensive when we allow cars on inner street roads.
I think this is one of the key quotes:
“It used to make sense to require parking in homes to avoid public spaces being filled. But this generates traffic because it encourages people to drive. Young people are also less likely to own a car. They may either opt for car sharing or renting.”
There's practically no free public parking in Barcelona. It's either for-pay or you have a resident permit.
I hope this frees up space, not just for sustainable transportation but also for more affordable housing, something Barcelona really needs ...
I mean, in an ideal world, this is great.
I think it needs a followup to at least track, possibly tax, residents of apartments which lack parking who also own cars. In small numbers it's no big deal, but it could quickly get out of hand.
I still view the Japanese model as ideal ...
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