4 ms·

Why is it better to unbundle them? I don't see why a business or person would want the extra hassle of paying for parking separately. Like paying for event park

Why is it better to unbundle them? I don't see why a business or person would want the extra hassle of paying for parking separately. Like paying for event parking is one thing but paying to shop at a store is beyond silly. What is next paying to use the drive through?

Eelongate 5y ago
> Why is it better to unbundle them? Better... for who? I don't know if it's better for either business or society, but it's better for me because I walk to the grocery store and never take my car. If the price of parking is unbundled from the price of food, then I don't have to pay for something I'm not using.
- djbusby 5y ago
  You hardly do anyway - these costs are aggregated in with existing costs (labor being the largest) across 1000s of products and 10000s of transactions.
  - Eelongate 5y ago
    If my share of the cost is insignificant, then car drivers shouldn't be too bent out of shape about me not having to pay it.
    - djbusby 5y ago
      The point is that is costs more to calculate the pennies difference than the sum of the pennies
- throwaway55421 5y ago
  If it's walkable then the car drivers are paying more than they should because rent is bundled in to the prices. There's no free lunch either way here.
  - Ma8ee 5y ago
    That argument doesn't make sense. The car drivers choose themselves to drive to this particular store where you have to pay a premium for the store's location. If they feel punished by having to pay more for a centrally located store even though they have a car and could drive to a less centrally located store, then by all means, they should do that. It's somewhat amazing how entitled many car drivers feel to be able to use up space and not having to pay rent for it.
    - throwaway55421 5y ago
      I agree that the better solution would be to just scrap the parking. I don't think urban parking makes sense (other than parking in/outside of homes).
  - Eelongate 5y ago
    If it's walkable, the car drivers have made their choice and can pay for it. If they don't like the price, they can walk instead. Or, use their cars to drive a few more miles to a grocery store with more agreeable parking. There are more than a dozen Trader Joe's in LA, surely one of them has agreeable parking terms. And that's not counting all the other grocery stores in town. You should look up the specific Trader Joe's the article is talking about on google maps. It's smack in the middle of Hollywood, within walking distance of numerous businesses and tourist attractions. Expecting free parking in that neighborhood is completely unreasonable.
paulgb 5y ago
There's actually a whole (fairly thick) book pretty much entirely about this question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking The gist is that we use more parking than would be societally optimal because it's “free”, which really just means that non-drivers subsidize drivers. It would be like if every restaurant were expected to be all-you-can-eat: we'd societally consume more food than was optimal.
taneq 5y ago
Because when we unbundle prices like this, the base ‘unbundled’ cost is mysteriously never quite low enough to compensate for the extra costs and everyone ends up paying more in both money and convenience.
op00to 5y ago
I don’t drive much, I’d rather not pay to subsidize others when I bike or walk to the market.

Eelongate 5y ago

> Why is it better to unbundle them? Better... for who? I don't know if it's better for either business or society, but it's better for me because I walk to the grocery store and never take my car. If the price of parking is unbundled from the price of food, then I don't have to pay for something I'm not using.

djbusby 5y ago
You hardly do anyway - these costs are aggregated in with existing costs (labor being the largest) across 1000s of products and 10000s of transactions.
- Eelongate 5y ago
  If my share of the cost is insignificant, then car drivers shouldn't be too bent out of shape about me not having to pay it.
  - djbusby 5y ago
    The point is that is costs more to calculate the pennies difference than the sum of the pennies
throwaway55421 5y ago
If it's walkable then the car drivers are paying more than they should because rent is bundled in to the prices. There's no free lunch either way here.
- Ma8ee 5y ago
  That argument doesn't make sense. The car drivers choose themselves to drive to this particular store where you have to pay a premium for the store's location. If they feel punished by having to pay more for a centrally located store even though they have a car and could drive to a less centrally located store, then by all means, they should do that. It's somewhat amazing how entitled many car drivers feel to be able to use up space and not having to pay rent for it.
  - throwaway55421 5y ago
    I agree that the better solution would be to just scrap the parking. I don't think urban parking makes sense (other than parking in/outside of homes).
- Eelongate 5y ago
  If it's walkable, the car drivers have made their choice and can pay for it. If they don't like the price, they can walk instead. Or, use their cars to drive a few more miles to a grocery store with more agreeable parking. There are more than a dozen Trader Joe's in LA, surely one of them has agreeable parking terms. And that's not counting all the other grocery stores in town. You should look up the specific Trader Joe's the article is talking about on google maps. It's smack in the middle of Hollywood, within walking distance of numerous businesses and tourist attractions. Expecting free parking in that neighborhood is completely unreasonable.

paulgb 5y ago

There's actually a whole (fairly thick) book pretty much entirely about this question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking The gist is that we use more parking than would be societally optimal because it's “free”, which really just means that non-drivers subsidize drivers. It would be like if every restaurant were expected to be all-you-can-eat: we'd societally consume more food than was optimal.

taneq 5y ago

Because when we unbundle prices like this, the base ‘unbundled’ cost is mysteriously never quite low enough to compensate for the extra costs and everyone ends up paying more in both money and convenience.

op00to 5y ago

I don’t drive much, I’d rather not pay to subsidize others when I bike or walk to the market.