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Developers are typically required to include on street parking in their developments before the right-of-way is deeded over to the public. There's rarely any p
by beerandt 5y ago
Developers are typically required to include on street parking in their developments before the right-of-way is deeded over to the public.
There's rarely any public subsidies for parking. That's largely a myth. It's paid for in the price of the development by the developer (and is usual a government or zoning requirement).
- bluGill 5y agoThat is still a public subsidy as the city is expected to maintain that on street parking.
- beerandt 5y agoNo- it's part of the consideration in exchange for the developer generating increased tax revenue and dedicating the right of way to the city. If that weren't the case, the developer would likely keep the parking and streets privately held. Which is something that you do see more and more of these days.
- beerandt 5y agoAdditionally, we've decided as a society that providing public access and right-of-way to private property is a somewhat fundamental function of government. Providing streets without places to stop or park would be like building interstates without exits. But the analogy would be if someone built the intestate and exits, and the government subsequently closed your exit. Does it matter if the street, but not the on-street parking, is made public right-of-way? Would it be equally acceptable for the government to repurpose off-street parking or parking garages?
- alistairSH 5y agoIn brand new developments, that might be true. But, the state eventually ends up paying for maintenance of those spaces. In older urban areas, that parking has costs in terms of re-developing the roadway for alternative transit. And in both cases, that land could be better allocated to economically productive use. And that's just on-street parking. There are also per-unit or per-sqft requirements for off-street parking that generally over-allocate space for cars. Either way, we've created a market failure, in the sense that we over-allocate space (regardless of who pays for maintenance of that space) for parking.
- beerandt 5y agoEvery development was new at some point. The space for parking wasn't public until the developer signed it over. And maintenance costs money, but the increased tax revenue from the development more than offsets that. Which is why the city/ state is willing to accept maintenance responsibility for it as part of the dedication. >that land could be better allocated to economically productive use. Maybe, but it's not what it was deeded for. But you actually see a lot of this nowadays, where the development doesn't dedicate the right of way to the public and assumes its own maintenance costs, specifically because they don't want to lose long term control over how the land is used. If people keep seeing public on-street parking as a free lunch to turn into mass transit or bike lanes, you'll start seeing more and more private street developments.