[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Doady

Parked cars have a traffic calming effect, and also provide a buffer for pedestrians from traffic. Parallel parking is important for making a street more pedestrian-friendly. On-street parking also reduces the amount of land needed for parking lots and garages.

Using parking space for outdoor dining is good. But if these shacks are enclosed, it's not outdoor dining anymore. If these parking spaces are to be used for dining, then they should remain open air, not enclosed.

I don't see how having a dining area between the sidewalk and traffic lanes would provide less of a buffer for pedestrians than parked cars would. In both cases there's an intermediate buffer space. Besides, the streets I've seen where this was happened still had some parking spaces. A few here and there just happened to be used for dining in front of some restaurants. And let's not forget that on street parking also has its downsides. Studies show that they're responsible for a lot of congestion in the form of people driving around looking for spaces and/or getting in and out of them. So a reduction in on-street spaces - especially such a small reduction - shouldn't be seen as negative.

I also don't see any point in nitpicking about what is or isn't outdoors. It would be like someone saying that camping is supposed to be about sleeping out in nature and you're not really doing that if you're in a tent since that's technically a structure. It's clearly a different experience compared to normal dining and one that some people seem to enjoy.

Originally Posted by pdxtex

I'm going to vote no on this one. They make for bad sight lines and most of them are ugly. Most of the ones in Portland look like some wonky taco stand down in Tijuana. Want outdoor dining, lobby the city to allow rooftop patios.

Rooftop patios are nice but they're a different experience than street level. There's not the same vibrance and feeling of being part of the activity that you get from being on the street. Besides, a lot of restaurants won't necessarily have access to the roof since they're just renting the ground floor of a building, while other places would need an expensive renovation since the roof may not have stair access. Seems like if it were a reasonable alternative for many establishments they would have just done that during covid.

Originally Posted by JManc

I understand their utility during Covid but most are indeed ugly and who wants to dine feet away from traffic?

If no one wants to use them wouldn't the restaurants take them down voluntarily? If they continue to be used it seems like people must like them.