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Suppose that parking a car takes about 10 square meters. Then you can easily compute what parking should cost in a certain area. There probably are places where

by phicoh 9y ago

Suppose that parking a car takes about 10 square meters. Then you can easily compute what parking should cost in a certain area. There probably are places where 10 m2 costs around £3,000 per year, but they are relatively rare. Traditionally having all car owners share all parking space makes sure that when you drive your car somewhere, for example to visit a friend, you can actually park there. If all parking space is privately owned that model tends to break down. The problem is that to have a functioning city (as opposed to a suburb) you need to have a high enough population density. And you cannot have a high population density if you have to reserve a huge amount of space for cars. The tricky thing is to design a city (or set policies to move in a certain direction) such that it is not one-size-fits-all. Slowly banning cars slowly from the parts of a city with the highest densities allows people who like to live without cars to move in and people who need a car to move to areas with a lower population density.

adrianN 9y ago
Eh, 10m² parking instead of more room for a building with three stories is already 30m² of wasted space. 3000 pounds per year is then about 8 pounds/m²/month. That's really cheap for urban space.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  In fairness, it's cheaper to build a parking spot than a three-story building...
- phicoh 9y ago
  Looking at data from the city of Amsterdam, which has specific reasons for keeping track of the value of land, then a reasonable price for a piece of land in a good location is about EUR 3000 per m2. So for 10 m2 you would expect to pay EUR 30,000 to buy it. That would make the main annual costs the interest of a mortgage for this amount. Currently in the Netherlands that would be around EUR 900 per year. (Amsterdam keeps track of the price of land because basically the city rents out land and doesn't sell it. Price real estate owners pay is based on the estimated price of the land)
- osrec 9y ago
  Car parks can be multi-storey too, no?
TulliusCicero 9y ago
> There probably are places where 10 m2 costs around £3,000 per year, but they are relatively rare. Costs in what sense? The whole argument here is that cities subsidize car space, so the cost to the end consumer doesn't prove anything. > Traditionally having all car owners share all parking space makes sure that when you drive your car somewhere, for example to visit a friend, you can actually park there. If all parking space is privately owned that model tends to break down. Depends. If it's privately owned by parking suppliers, then presumably you can buy parking. Or if it's privately owned by residents, then you can use your friend's parking. Besides, you can always have alternate options for visiting friends.
- phicoh 9y ago
  No, I'm talking about the cost to own a piece of land. In most areas it is possible to compute what a piece of empty land costs. Even if that piece is right in the middle of a city. If you want to have a car (or otherwise rely on cars) it is an extremely bad idea to rely on a privately owned parking supplier who can set prices at any amount. Additionally, if everybody reserves space on his/her own private property for visiting guests, you are wasting an enormous amount of space. Wasting space is bad because you want to have as high population density as possible within constraints set by your life style. So the obvious solution is to pool all that space and then let the local government set the price for using it. And then of course, it is best to just pay that as property tax. Of course, if you don't need a car, then it is better to live in an area where cars can not park. And that space is use for something else.
  - TulliusCicero 9y ago
    Ah, well in that case 3000 GBP/year doesn't sound that unusual to me. I bet lots of cities have prices that high in their CBD/downtown area. > If you want to have a car (or otherwise rely on cars) it is an extremely bad idea to rely on a privately owned parking supplier who can set prices at any amount. "If you need to eat, it is an extremely bad idea to rely on a privately owned food supplier who can set prices at any amount." > So the obvious solution is to pool all that space and then let the local government set the price for using it. Okay, maybe that can work if > And then of course, it is best to just pay that as property tax. Wait what? Why? That space is valuable, if the cost to the end user at the point of the transaction is zero then you're making people who walk/bike/bus subsidize people who drive, which means the poor subsidizing the affluent, not to mention it'll get overused. Why would you want to do that? Cars should be optional things, and if the government subsidizes them people will tend to drive everywhere and push for vast swathes of parking everywhere (see: almost every city in the US) which hurts every other form of transportation.
deleted 9y ago
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by phicoh 9y ago

adrianN 9y ago

Eh, 10m² parking instead of more room for a building with three stories is already 30m² of wasted space. 3000 pounds per year is then about 8 pounds/m²/month. That's really cheap for urban space.

jessaustin 9y ago
In fairness, it's cheaper to build a parking spot than a three-story building...
phicoh 9y ago
Looking at data from the city of Amsterdam, which has specific reasons for keeping track of the value of land, then a reasonable price for a piece of land in a good location is about EUR 3000 per m2. So for 10 m2 you would expect to pay EUR 30,000 to buy it. That would make the main annual costs the interest of a mortgage for this amount. Currently in the Netherlands that would be around EUR 900 per year. (Amsterdam keeps track of the price of land because basically the city rents out land and doesn't sell it. Price real estate owners pay is based on the estimated price of the land)
osrec 9y ago
Car parks can be multi-storey too, no?

TulliusCicero 9y ago

> There probably are places where 10 m2 costs around £3,000 per year, but they are relatively rare. Costs in what sense? The whole argument here is that cities subsidize car space, so the cost to the end consumer doesn't prove anything. > Traditionally having all car owners share all parking space makes sure that when you drive your car somewhere, for example to visit a friend, you can actually park there. If all parking space is privately owned that model tends to break down. Depends. If it's privately owned by parking suppliers, then presumably you can buy parking. Or if it's privately owned by residents, then you can use your friend's parking. Besides, you can always have alternate options for visiting friends.

phicoh 9y ago
No, I'm talking about the cost to own a piece of land. In most areas it is possible to compute what a piece of empty land costs. Even if that piece is right in the middle of a city. If you want to have a car (or otherwise rely on cars) it is an extremely bad idea to rely on a privately owned parking supplier who can set prices at any amount. Additionally, if everybody reserves space on his/her own private property for visiting guests, you are wasting an enormous amount of space. Wasting space is bad because you want to have as high population density as possible within constraints set by your life style. So the obvious solution is to pool all that space and then let the local government set the price for using it. And then of course, it is best to just pay that as property tax. Of course, if you don't need a car, then it is better to live in an area where cars can not park. And that space is use for something else.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  Ah, well in that case 3000 GBP/year doesn't sound that unusual to me. I bet lots of cities have prices that high in their CBD/downtown area. > If you want to have a car (or otherwise rely on cars) it is an extremely bad idea to rely on a privately owned parking supplier who can set prices at any amount. "If you need to eat, it is an extremely bad idea to rely on a privately owned food supplier who can set prices at any amount." > So the obvious solution is to pool all that space and then let the local government set the price for using it. Okay, maybe that can work if > And then of course, it is best to just pay that as property tax. Wait what? Why? That space is valuable, if the cost to the end user at the point of the transaction is zero then you're making people who walk/bike/bus subsidize people who drive, which means the poor subsidizing the affluent, not to mention it'll get overused. Why would you want to do that? Cars should be optional things, and if the government subsidizes them people will tend to drive everywhere and push for vast swathes of parking everywhere (see: almost every city in the US) which hurts every other form of transportation.

deleted 9y ago

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