5 ms·

Good. Now can we remove the free street parking from Manhattan?

by cletus 6y ago

dybber 6y ago
Free? Sounds like socialism! In the center of Copenhagen it's $4-6/hour.
- kspacewalk2 6y ago
  Which is probably still a huge bargain/subsidy considering how valuable that space in major city centres is.
  - jaclaz 6y ago
    Unless my math is way off: 30 days x 12 h/day x 5 US$/h= 1,800 US$ month x 12 = 21,600 US$/year Typical rent 5% of value. 21,600/0.05= 432,000 Size of a parking spot 5x2.5 m = 12.5 sqm, let's make it 15. 432,000/15= 28,800 US$/sqm Cost of a house in Copenhagen (centre): https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Copenhagen https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Copenhagen 47,555.60 kr = +/- 7,500 US$/sqm
    - yokaze 6y ago
      > Cost of a house in Copenhagen (centre) That is for an apartment, not a full house of multiple storeys. If you have four storeys (counting the ground-floor), then interestingly the costs would be roughly on par. I am not sure, how many storeys the houses are supposed to have in Copenhagen.
      - jaclaz 6y ago
        Sure it is for an apartment, no matter the stories, it is a "living unit", the comparison is between 1 sqm of something that is covered by a roof, surrounded by walls, etc, and in which you can live and 1 sqm of asphalt/parking space. There is NO market in the world AFAIK where 1 sqm is considered multi-storey, a house that is 100 sqm in plan and is 2 storeys is a 200 sqm one.
        degrews 6y ago
        Sure, but the comment above is talking about "how valuable that space in major city centres is". The opportunity cost of 1 sqm of street parking space is not 1 sqm of "living unit", but 1 sqm of land. If 1 sqm of apartment is worth $7.5K/month, and average building height is 4 stories, that suggests 1 sqm of land is worth approximately 4 * 7.5 = $30K/month (minus value of the building).
        jaclaz 6y ago
        Oww, come on, why stop at 4 storeys? 16 will be 4 times that. My note was not about "opportunity cost", it was about the (extremely high) "rent" that a parking space at 5 US$/hour represents compared to its cost. If you buy a 50-55 sqm apartment/flat/living unit in Copenhagen, you spend roughly 400,000 $, you can possibly rent it for 5%/year, i.e. around 20,000 $/year. If you can manage to extort 5 $ /hour (for 12 hours/day) for a parking space which is 1/4th of area (and is not a building) you get more or less the same.
  - buran77 6y ago
    If the city charged you based on the value of the land you use, you'd go bankrupt after a picnic in the park. Cities offer plenty of things "for free" (payed by taxes and other sources of income) and you benefit from a lot of those also as pedestrian or cyclist. Drawing the line at drivers seems a bit self centered. I have the feeling you consider most of what you do to be worthy of gratuity. Bycicle lanes and parking still cost to build and maintain but you get them for no additional explicit cost. Ironically (car) road tax pays for some of that.
- Octoth0rpe 6y ago
  Oh my, that's shockingly cheap from my perspective. In the downtown core of much of the east cost US, you're looking at $20+ for a minimum period of 3 hours. On the other hand, in my small city in the midwest during my adult life parking has gone from $.50/hour to $1.60/hour, and people have been outraged by each incremental increase. Edit: noted that $20+ is often for multiple hours, but you regularly can't buy a single hour for $7, you're stuck paying a min of $20 upfront.
  - scrose 6y ago
    $20 an hour on the east coast? Where? The only place I can imagine that is in a parking garage, not on the street. Even the most congested parts of Manhattan that actually charge for parking don’t cost nearly that much, and that’s when they do actually charge for street storage.
    - Octoth0rpe 6y ago
      I am referring to parking garages, apologies. My experiences are mostly NYC (Manhattan, midtown and lower) and Boston's back bay, though in fairness, many places are $25-$35 for multiple hours, which is much cheaper per hour, but pretty annoying if you only need the spot for 20 minutes.
    - wolco2 6y ago
      Finding metered street parking in the most congested parts of Manhattan? I guess it's possible but wouldn't you waste more in gas circling all day?
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      >$20 an hour on the east coast? Sounds pretty par for the course for a parking garage in an upscale part of Boston or DC with a minimum charge. For convention centers, hospital clinics and other "people who have to come from far away must come directly here and they are likely to have a situation whereby public transit is impractical" type destinations $20 would be cheap.
foobarian 6y ago
What free parking. You mean the one where you have to circle a block for an hour until someone leaves. It's so bad, now when I drive through Manhattan and see an open free parking spot I get a twitch urge to park there immediately. Even though my destination is in Queens...
- scrose 6y ago
  There’s an estimated 190,000 on-street parking spaces in Manhattan, with an estimated 3 million parking on street spaces in NYC total[0]. The primary issue is not a lack of parking. Cars don’t scale in dense urban environments. [0] https://toomanycars.nyc/ https://toomanycars.nyc/
  - vonmoltke 6y ago
    > There’s an estimated 190,000 on-street parking spaces in Manhattan How many of those are free, since that was the claim? Nothing in Midtown is free, for instance.
    - scrose 6y ago
      There's no recent official counts, but the latest data I could find looks like it's about 82,000, citywide[0]. That number is 10 years old, so there is definitely a little room for error. But if the estimated total of on street parking spaces in NYC is at 3M, that puts metered parking at just 2-3% of the total on street spaces citywide. If you were to double or triple that number(which is unlikely), that still means the vast majority of parking in NYC is absolutely free of charge. That 3M number also doesn't take into account all of the 'No standing', 'No parking', sidewalks or bike lanes which have been repurposed into parking by people with parking placards, PBA cards, or whatever other miscellaneous artifacts allow drivers to leave their cars wherever they want with impunity[1]. What I find amazing is that people have an expectation of being able to bring a several thousand pound object that is bigger than many NYer's kitchens, into one of the densest parts of the country that is served 24/7 by public transit and for-hire vehicles, and store it for free. Even tourists with tiny suitcases have to pay to store their suitcase somewhere. [0] https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2011/03/22/new-york-has-81875-metered-parking-spaces-and-millions-of-free-ones/ https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2011/03/22/new-york-has-81875-me... [1] https://twitter.com/placardabuse https://twitter.com/placardabuse
thebean11 6y ago
A whole lot of it has permanently been converted to restaurant seating. One good thing that came from covid.
OldHand2018 6y ago
> Now can we remove the free street parking from Manhattan? Yes, they absolutely should. Here in Chicago, a residential street parking permit costs $25 per year per car and allows you to park in a specific zone near your residence. 24-hour permits for visitors are sold in sheets that end up costing just slightly more than 50 cents each. The program more or less brings in revenue to pay for itself but makes getting street parking much more fair.
- dmurray 6y ago
  50c per week or 50c per day is pretty much free by Manhattan standards. Market rate should probably be around 100 times that cost.
  - OldHand2018 6y ago
    It's pretty much free by Chicago standards too. That's not the point. You can only get the parking stickers if you live nearby! Oh, I forgot to mention that you cannot buy more then 45 of the 24-hour passes per 30-day period. And that's per address, so if you have roommates or a spouse their purchases are all aggregated together.

Good. Now can we remove the free street parking from Manhattan?

by cletus 6y ago

Good. Now can we remove the free street parking from Manhattan?

dybber 6y ago

Free? Sounds like socialism! In the center of Copenhagen it's $4-6/hour.

kspacewalk2 6y ago
Which is probably still a huge bargain/subsidy considering how valuable that space in major city centres is.
- jaclaz 6y ago
  Unless my math is way off: 30 days x 12 h/day x 5 US$/h= 1,800 US$ month x 12 = 21,600 US$/year Typical rent 5% of value. 21,600/0.05= 432,000 Size of a parking spot 5x2.5 m = 12.5 sqm, let's make it 15. 432,000/15= 28,800 US$/sqm Cost of a house in Copenhagen (centre): https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Copenhagen https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Copenhagen 47,555.60 kr = +/- 7,500 US$/sqm
  - yokaze 6y ago
    > Cost of a house in Copenhagen (centre) That is for an apartment, not a full house of multiple storeys. If you have four storeys (counting the ground-floor), then interestingly the costs would be roughly on par. I am not sure, how many storeys the houses are supposed to have in Copenhagen.
    - jaclaz 6y ago
      Sure it is for an apartment, no matter the stories, it is a "living unit", the comparison is between 1 sqm of something that is covered by a roof, surrounded by walls, etc, and in which you can live and 1 sqm of asphalt/parking space. There is NO market in the world AFAIK where 1 sqm is considered multi-storey, a house that is 100 sqm in plan and is 2 storeys is a 200 sqm one.
      - degrews 6y ago
        Sure, but the comment above is talking about "how valuable that space in major city centres is". The opportunity cost of 1 sqm of street parking space is not 1 sqm of "living unit", but 1 sqm of land. If 1 sqm of apartment is worth $7.5K/month, and average building height is 4 stories, that suggests 1 sqm of land is worth approximately 4 * 7.5 = $30K/month (minus value of the building).
        jaclaz 6y ago
        Oww, come on, why stop at 4 storeys? 16 will be 4 times that. My note was not about "opportunity cost", it was about the (extremely high) "rent" that a parking space at 5 US$/hour represents compared to its cost. If you buy a 50-55 sqm apartment/flat/living unit in Copenhagen, you spend roughly 400,000 $, you can possibly rent it for 5%/year, i.e. around 20,000 $/year. If you can manage to extort 5 $ /hour (for 12 hours/day) for a parking space which is 1/4th of area (and is not a building) you get more or less the same.
- buran77 6y ago
  If the city charged you based on the value of the land you use, you'd go bankrupt after a picnic in the park. Cities offer plenty of things "for free" (payed by taxes and other sources of income) and you benefit from a lot of those also as pedestrian or cyclist. Drawing the line at drivers seems a bit self centered. I have the feeling you consider most of what you do to be worthy of gratuity. Bycicle lanes and parking still cost to build and maintain but you get them for no additional explicit cost. Ironically (car) road tax pays for some of that.
Octoth0rpe 6y ago
Oh my, that's shockingly cheap from my perspective. In the downtown core of much of the east cost US, you're looking at $20+ for a minimum period of 3 hours. On the other hand, in my small city in the midwest during my adult life parking has gone from $.50/hour to $1.60/hour, and people have been outraged by each incremental increase. Edit: noted that $20+ is often for multiple hours, but you regularly can't buy a single hour for $7, you're stuck paying a min of $20 upfront.
- scrose 6y ago
  $20 an hour on the east coast? Where? The only place I can imagine that is in a parking garage, not on the street. Even the most congested parts of Manhattan that actually charge for parking don’t cost nearly that much, and that’s when they do actually charge for street storage.
  - Octoth0rpe 6y ago
    I am referring to parking garages, apologies. My experiences are mostly NYC (Manhattan, midtown and lower) and Boston's back bay, though in fairness, many places are $25-$35 for multiple hours, which is much cheaper per hour, but pretty annoying if you only need the spot for 20 minutes.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    Finding metered street parking in the most congested parts of Manhattan? I guess it's possible but wouldn't you waste more in gas circling all day?
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >$20 an hour on the east coast? Sounds pretty par for the course for a parking garage in an upscale part of Boston or DC with a minimum charge. For convention centers, hospital clinics and other "people who have to come from far away must come directly here and they are likely to have a situation whereby public transit is impractical" type destinations $20 would be cheap.

foobarian 6y ago

What free parking. You mean the one where you have to circle a block for an hour until someone leaves. It's so bad, now when I drive through Manhattan and see an open free parking spot I get a twitch urge to park there immediately. Even though my destination is in Queens...

scrose 6y ago
There’s an estimated 190,000 on-street parking spaces in Manhattan, with an estimated 3 million parking on street spaces in NYC total[0]. The primary issue is not a lack of parking. Cars don’t scale in dense urban environments. [0] https://toomanycars.nyc/ https://toomanycars.nyc/
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  > There’s an estimated 190,000 on-street parking spaces in Manhattan How many of those are free, since that was the claim? Nothing in Midtown is free, for instance.
  - scrose 6y ago
    There's no recent official counts, but the latest data I could find looks like it's about 82,000, citywide[0]. That number is 10 years old, so there is definitely a little room for error. But if the estimated total of on street parking spaces in NYC is at 3M, that puts metered parking at just 2-3% of the total on street spaces citywide. If you were to double or triple that number(which is unlikely), that still means the vast majority of parking in NYC is absolutely free of charge. That 3M number also doesn't take into account all of the 'No standing', 'No parking', sidewalks or bike lanes which have been repurposed into parking by people with parking placards, PBA cards, or whatever other miscellaneous artifacts allow drivers to leave their cars wherever they want with impunity[1]. What I find amazing is that people have an expectation of being able to bring a several thousand pound object that is bigger than many NYer's kitchens, into one of the densest parts of the country that is served 24/7 by public transit and for-hire vehicles, and store it for free. Even tourists with tiny suitcases have to pay to store their suitcase somewhere. [0] https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2011/03/22/new-york-has-81875-metered-parking-spaces-and-millions-of-free-ones/ https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2011/03/22/new-york-has-81875-me... [1] https://twitter.com/placardabuse https://twitter.com/placardabuse

thebean11 6y ago

A whole lot of it has permanently been converted to restaurant seating. One good thing that came from covid.

OldHand2018 6y ago

> Now can we remove the free street parking from Manhattan? Yes, they absolutely should. Here in Chicago, a residential street parking permit costs $25 per year per car and allows you to park in a specific zone near your residence. 24-hour permits for visitors are sold in sheets that end up costing just slightly more than 50 cents each. The program more or less brings in revenue to pay for itself but makes getting street parking much more fair.

dmurray 6y ago
50c per week or 50c per day is pretty much free by Manhattan standards. Market rate should probably be around 100 times that cost.
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  It's pretty much free by Chicago standards too. That's not the point. You can only get the parking stickers if you live nearby! Oh, I forgot to mention that you cannot buy more then 45 of the 24-hour passes per 30-day period. And that's per address, so if you have roommates or a spouse their purchases are all aggregated together.