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See also: http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/07/26/if-americans-paid-for-the-parking-we-consume-wed-drive-500-billion-fewer-miles-each-year/ http://usa.streetsblog

See also: http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/07/26/if-americans-paid-for-the-parking-we-consume-wed-drive-500-billion-fewer-miles-each-year/ http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/07/26/if-americans-paid-for-... The expectation that parking should be cheap or free is bizarre when you take a step back and think about it. I don't expect the government to provide massively subsidized self-storage spaces, yet I do expect massively subsidized places to store my private vehicle.

mikeash 9y ago
Exactly. I'm a surburban car user, but I still think the expectation of free parking is harmful to all of us. Why do we get to park for free on government land?
- dawnerd 9y ago
  > Why do we get to park for free on government land? Because presumably, your tax money is already paying for it.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Right, except it's not my tax money specifically, but all of our tax money, even tax money from people who don't use street parking. Free use of government property is a great thing when it's a public good, but parking is not one of those situations.
    - inetknght 9y ago
      Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it's not a public good. If tax money built the parking spot and tax money maintains the parking spot, then why should the government get extra income from the parking spot? Is my tax burden alleviated when I pay to use this parking spot?
      - mikeash 9y ago
        The whole point of charging for the parking spot would be so that they wouldn't have to use tax money to maintain it. It's not a matter of alleviating your tax burden, it's a matter of alleviating everyone else's tax burden so they're not subsidizing your car. You should pay for what you use unless there's a compelling reason for it to be subsidized, not the other way around. Roads are essential for freedom of movement and in any case are too difficult to toll on a massive scale, so it makes sense to subsidize them. Parking spaces are inessential and easy to charge for, so we should charge for them.
        sgdread 9y ago
        Nobody is subsidizing your car: as a car owner, you already paid 1) sales tax; 2) yearly registration; 3) yearly property tax; 4) taxes included in gas. Why car owners should be double-triple taxed?
        mikeash 9y ago
        Those don't come close to covering it all. Especially since I don't pay any (4). Paying to store your car is not a "tax" so it cannot result in being double-taxed. It's a standard payment in exchange for use of property.
        Sleeep 9y ago
        Those costs are minor and not close to covering the cost of car ownership. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving...
    - davemp 9y ago
      > Free use of government property is a great thing when it's a public good, but parking is not one of those situations. Gonna need to provide some sources if you want to claim that public parking doesn't benefit society.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        Public parking benefits car owners, and does nothing for non-owners. Do you dispute this?
        sgdread 9y ago
        Well, car owners can use the same argument: public transportation benefits only people without cars, why car owners should pay maintenance of train stations, buses, trolleys, repair shops for those etc?
        mikeash 9y ago
        Public transportation benefits drivers by taking traffic off the roads, and benefits everybody by reducing pollution. It also helps poor people get around, and they could use some help. I can't come up with any such counterarguments for public parking. It doesn't benefit non-drivers in any way, and the people it does benefit mostly don't need public assistance.
        sgdread 9y ago
        Is public transportation more efficient per mile/person? Yes. Does it solves all the transportation problems? No: it's not covering even half of our needs. Just for reference: only 30% of NY population is using mass transit for commutes. SF is just 15% [1]. And in most areas in the country you can't go and buy some food if you have no car: there is not even a sidewalk, not to mention public transportation. So what you are proposing is to additional burden for the majory of the population for "storing their property" without providing any alternative. Edit: who pays majority of taxes for road use? It's car owners. You have cheap buses only because car owners paid majority of the bills for road network maintenance and development. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_transit_in_the_United_States#/media/File:NorthAmericanPublicTransport.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_transit_in_the_United_Sta... [2] https://taxfoundation.org/state-gasoline-tax-rates-2017/ https://taxfoundation.org/state-gasoline-tax-rates-2017/
    - lemoncucumber 9y ago
      Exactly. The article I linked makes a pretty good case for why free parking is not a net public good: "Transportation is now the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the nation. Pricing parking, on its own, could make a significant dent in the nation’s carbon pollution, not to mention the terrible loss of life on the roads." I don't expect private cars to ever disappear, but starting to line up the economic incentives to to disincentivize private car use makes a lot of sense if we're really serious about addressing global warming.
    - gozur88 9y ago
      I don't see free parking as any less of a public good than a park. Besides, last time I was in SF I didn't see any free parking. It was all meters and expensive garages.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        Anyone can use a park. You can't use free parking unless you own a car. Cars are expensive, so free parking just subsidizes people with money. Free parking is rare in SF, which makes it all the more unusual that the people on this street had it for thirty years because they didn't pay their taxes for it.
owenversteeg 9y ago
I agree with that, but that article says the _average_ American parking space costs six hundred dollars PER YEAR. How does that make any sense whatsoever? Maybe in downtown areas in a few big cities. But that's the average for the entire country. There's no possible way that can be true.
- i_cant_speel 9y ago
  Are you saying that is expensive? The parking in my building in a big city is over $200 per month. The extremely expensive places are going to pull up the average quite a bit.
- randallsquared 9y ago
  In downtown areas in some US cities, a parking space might go for hundreds per month. http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_cost_of_a_parking_spot_in_dc/8348 http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_cost_of_a_parking_...
- mikeash 9y ago
  Why can't it be true? Land is expensive, road construction is expensive, road maintenance is expensive. $600/year to maintain ~200ft^2 of road seems relatively reasonable to me.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wokky 9y ago
  ...estimates that the annualized cost of land, construction, maintenance, and operations per parking space in the U.S. comes out to $600 [PDF]. I've heard it said, although I can't find a cite right now, that the construction of an underground parking complex may cost $40,000 per space. You can see how that sort of thing would push the average up a lot. You can also adjust "annualized costs" a lot by changing assumptions about useful lifetime. In practice, many American suburban parking lots are maintained very poorly and probably come out very cheap per space. The PDF linked from the article does show more detail than the $600/year figure. While some categories cost a little less than $600/year, several categories cost a lot more, so the average gets up there even though the expensive kinds are rarer.

mikeash 9y ago

Exactly. I'm a surburban car user, but I still think the expectation of free parking is harmful to all of us. Why do we get to park for free on government land?

dawnerd 9y ago
> Why do we get to park for free on government land? Because presumably, your tax money is already paying for it.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Right, except it's not my tax money specifically, but all of our tax money, even tax money from people who don't use street parking. Free use of government property is a great thing when it's a public good, but parking is not one of those situations.
  - inetknght 9y ago
    Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it's not a public good. If tax money built the parking spot and tax money maintains the parking spot, then why should the government get extra income from the parking spot? Is my tax burden alleviated when I pay to use this parking spot?
    - mikeash 9y ago
      The whole point of charging for the parking spot would be so that they wouldn't have to use tax money to maintain it. It's not a matter of alleviating your tax burden, it's a matter of alleviating everyone else's tax burden so they're not subsidizing your car. You should pay for what you use unless there's a compelling reason for it to be subsidized, not the other way around. Roads are essential for freedom of movement and in any case are too difficult to toll on a massive scale, so it makes sense to subsidize them. Parking spaces are inessential and easy to charge for, so we should charge for them.
      - sgdread 9y ago
        Nobody is subsidizing your car: as a car owner, you already paid 1) sales tax; 2) yearly registration; 3) yearly property tax; 4) taxes included in gas. Why car owners should be double-triple taxed?
        mikeash 9y ago
        Those don't come close to covering it all. Especially since I don't pay any (4). Paying to store your car is not a "tax" so it cannot result in being double-taxed. It's a standard payment in exchange for use of property.
        Sleeep 9y ago
        Those costs are minor and not close to covering the cost of car ownership. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving...
  - davemp 9y ago
    > Free use of government property is a great thing when it's a public good, but parking is not one of those situations. Gonna need to provide some sources if you want to claim that public parking doesn't benefit society.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Public parking benefits car owners, and does nothing for non-owners. Do you dispute this?
      - sgdread 9y ago
        Well, car owners can use the same argument: public transportation benefits only people without cars, why car owners should pay maintenance of train stations, buses, trolleys, repair shops for those etc?
        mikeash 9y ago
        Public transportation benefits drivers by taking traffic off the roads, and benefits everybody by reducing pollution. It also helps poor people get around, and they could use some help. I can't come up with any such counterarguments for public parking. It doesn't benefit non-drivers in any way, and the people it does benefit mostly don't need public assistance.
        sgdread 9y ago
        Is public transportation more efficient per mile/person? Yes. Does it solves all the transportation problems? No: it's not covering even half of our needs. Just for reference: only 30% of NY population is using mass transit for commutes. SF is just 15% [1]. And in most areas in the country you can't go and buy some food if you have no car: there is not even a sidewalk, not to mention public transportation. So what you are proposing is to additional burden for the majory of the population for "storing their property" without providing any alternative. Edit: who pays majority of taxes for road use? It's car owners. You have cheap buses only because car owners paid majority of the bills for road network maintenance and development. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_transit_in_the_United_States#/media/File:NorthAmericanPublicTransport.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_transit_in_the_United_Sta... [2] https://taxfoundation.org/state-gasoline-tax-rates-2017/ https://taxfoundation.org/state-gasoline-tax-rates-2017/
  - lemoncucumber 9y ago
    Exactly. The article I linked makes a pretty good case for why free parking is not a net public good: "Transportation is now the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the nation. Pricing parking, on its own, could make a significant dent in the nation’s carbon pollution, not to mention the terrible loss of life on the roads." I don't expect private cars to ever disappear, but starting to line up the economic incentives to to disincentivize private car use makes a lot of sense if we're really serious about addressing global warming.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    I don't see free parking as any less of a public good than a park. Besides, last time I was in SF I didn't see any free parking. It was all meters and expensive garages.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Anyone can use a park. You can't use free parking unless you own a car. Cars are expensive, so free parking just subsidizes people with money. Free parking is rare in SF, which makes it all the more unusual that the people on this street had it for thirty years because they didn't pay their taxes for it.

owenversteeg 9y ago

I agree with that, but that article says the _average_ American parking space costs six hundred dollars PER YEAR. How does that make any sense whatsoever? Maybe in downtown areas in a few big cities. But that's the average for the entire country. There's no possible way that can be true.

i_cant_speel 9y ago
Are you saying that is expensive? The parking in my building in a big city is over $200 per month. The extremely expensive places are going to pull up the average quite a bit.
randallsquared 9y ago
In downtown areas in some US cities, a parking space might go for hundreds per month. http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_cost_of_a_parking_spot_in_dc/8348 http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_cost_of_a_parking_...
mikeash 9y ago
Why can't it be true? Land is expensive, road construction is expensive, road maintenance is expensive. $600/year to maintain ~200ft^2 of road seems relatively reasonable to me.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wokky 9y ago
...estimates that the annualized cost of land, construction, maintenance, and operations per parking space in the U.S. comes out to $600 [PDF]. I've heard it said, although I can't find a cite right now, that the construction of an underground parking complex may cost $40,000 per space. You can see how that sort of thing would push the average up a lot. You can also adjust "annualized costs" a lot by changing assumptions about useful lifetime. In practice, many American suburban parking lots are maintained very poorly and probably come out very cheap per space. The PDF linked from the article does show more detail than the $600/year figure. While some categories cost a little less than $600/year, several categories cost a lot more, so the average gets up there even though the expensive kinds are rarer.