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Where I live (Cambridge), many people rent an apartment that doesn't come with a parking spot. Instead these people pay the city for a street parking permit. Hy

Where I live (Cambridge), many people rent an apartment that doesn't come with a parking spot. Instead these people pay the city for a street parking permit. Hypothetically the city ensures that the number of permits matches available supply, though prevention of illegal parking is difficult and sporadic. Anyway, these people rely on their vehicles for transportation to work or school, and they pay for a parking spot. If a huge influx of drivers arrived without corresponding parking supply increases, I'm not sure these folks would be able to reliably park near their homes or get to work. We can imagine solutions involving increasing the street permit price, etc., but fundamentally more drivers without more supply (road* and parking) is bad for current drivers. *insert warning about Braess paradox and induced demand.

davidw 10y ago
Maybe in that case they'd be willing to pay a bit more for a more guaranteed spot - like something they actually own or something they are sure of. In a free-market-ish system, perhaps people would build more parking at that point. Seems like an example of an "economic calculation problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem
- ghaff 10y ago
  Cambridge has also historically been pretty hostile toward building parking garages. Parking permits were pretty cheap but garage parking was very limited and very expensive. So it's not really a free-market-ish system. Agree with the basic point which is essentially how things work in areas like Manhattan where people can't generally depend on inexpensive on-street parking.
jacalata 10y ago
it's only a fundamental problem if you already decided that the obvious solution (policing the illegally parked cars) is impossible. New residents owning cars which they cannot park on the street without being towed would not affect current permit holders at all. Sure, policing might not be done now. But is that because it's not worth doing/nobody cares enough, or because there is some law of physics which makes it impossible? Even a street sweep every few days immediately after most people arrive home from work would massively change the risks of parking illegally.
CalRobert 10y ago
The solution is the same as it always is when lots of people want a scarce resource. Increase the price, or increase supply. If parking is expensive someone can open a lot, or a garage, and turn a profit. Parking on my street is very limited, so the spots are expensive. This way there's often at least one available. If there isn't, I can park around the corner in a privately-owned garage. Nobody says you can't build new apartments because they expect parking welfare at their neighbours' expense. The problem is that most people feel it's perfectly reasonable to expect to claim a bit of land _for free_ for their car - if I just built a second house on a parking spot people wouldn't say "well the solution is to limit park-house-permits to local residents", they would demand I buy land on which to place my house.

davidw 10y ago

Maybe in that case they'd be willing to pay a bit more for a more guaranteed spot - like something they actually own or something they are sure of. In a free-market-ish system, perhaps people would build more parking at that point. Seems like an example of an "economic calculation problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

ghaff 10y ago
Cambridge has also historically been pretty hostile toward building parking garages. Parking permits were pretty cheap but garage parking was very limited and very expensive. So it's not really a free-market-ish system. Agree with the basic point which is essentially how things work in areas like Manhattan where people can't generally depend on inexpensive on-street parking.

jacalata 10y ago

it's only a fundamental problem if you already decided that the obvious solution (policing the illegally parked cars) is impossible. New residents owning cars which they cannot park on the street without being towed would not affect current permit holders at all. Sure, policing might not be done now. But is that because it's not worth doing/nobody cares enough, or because there is some law of physics which makes it impossible? Even a street sweep every few days immediately after most people arrive home from work would massively change the risks of parking illegally.

CalRobert 10y ago

The solution is the same as it always is when lots of people want a scarce resource. Increase the price, or increase supply. If parking is expensive someone can open a lot, or a garage, and turn a profit. Parking on my street is very limited, so the spots are expensive. This way there's often at least one available. If there isn't, I can park around the corner in a privately-owned garage. Nobody says you can't build new apartments because they expect parking welfare at their neighbours' expense. The problem is that most people feel it's perfectly reasonable to expect to claim a bit of land _for free_ for their car - if I just built a second house on a parking spot people wouldn't say "well the solution is to limit park-house-permits to local residents", they would demand I buy land on which to place my house.