12 ms·

Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

100 points by jseliger 5y ago

glial 5y ago
> Parking clouds people’s minds, shifting analytic faculties to a lower level. Some strongly support market prices — except for parking. Some strongly oppose subsidies — except for parking. I wonder if you could replace this with: "some people strongly support X - except in circumstances where it negatively affects them personally".
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  People do divide things up. There are some stuff they don't care much about paying, and some they care a lot.
bognition 5y ago
I can't help but think that many of our economic, social, and environmental issues stem from a culture of cars. Cars push out urban sprawl weakening economies of scale, cars take up a massive amount of expensive real-estate (roads and parking), cars produce a tremendous amount of pollution in addition the environmental impacts of the previous two points. At least in the US, I do not see a path forwards tho. The houses have been built and the people live where they live.
- 0_____0 5y ago
  It took decades of intentional development to go from a United States where every big city had a streetcar system and basically nobody had a car, to the suburban hellscapes that exist throughout the country today. It will take decades more to fix.
- chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
  The path forward is zoning changes. Make it legal to build small apartments in a neighborhood, make it legal to run a corner shop, etc. We can build walkable environments in suburban hellscapes if we tweak the laws.
  - jimbob45 5y ago
    I like this framing of the zoning issue much more than “build build build on every scrap of land you can get your hands on”. Ownership of land is really important for ensuring everyone in America is literally bought into the American Dream. Until you’re ready to buy a house, I feel no compunction forcing you into high-density housing in the meantime (paired with greatly increasing low-income mortgage assistance).
    - 0_____0 5y ago
      Where I live, lots of people own a unit in a multi-family house as either a condo or a co-op. Coming from California, I thought of housing as always being a SFH on .25ac or something like that, but for what you get in terms of quality of life, I would be very happy to own a co-op in a triple-decker in my neighborhood.
      - decafninja 5y ago
        I live in a midrise condo in the suburbs of NYC. One thing I've noticed is that similar condos in the area have not risen in price significantly (if at all) whereas SFHs have. Is this because of the pandemic that the demand of dense multi-family housing has stagnated while isolated SFHs have risen? The thought has crossed my mind the past two years where I've encountered more rude, aggressive, and hostile fellow residents in my building. Our building staff members have commented the same. Pleas from building management to mask up or avoid riding the elevator with other households go unheeded. Likewise pleas to not smoke in outdoor, but common areas (lounges, rooftops, etc.) go unheeded, and now add marijuana smell as a bonus. It's gotten to the point my wife and I specifically want to move to a SFH so that we don't have to deal with such people.
        0_____0 5y ago
        On the housing density spectrum there's a lot of room between 'unit in midrise condo' and SFH. I really like where I live. Boston metro, 6-unit building where I know almost all the tenants. Most of the rest of my neighborhood is 2 or 3 unit multifamily, and it really is a very pleasant density.
- Hokusai 5y ago
  It would be fixed because the car industry does not have anymore power to stop the improvements. Now, it's tech companies the ones that have the money to create a bad for humans landscape. Will the USA repeat the same mistake and let them create an unfit for society digital neighborhood, or has it learned that to take corporation interests above everything else create inefficient societies?
- dijonman2 5y ago
  There isn’t a single appropriate viewpoint, I think cars are amazing and I will never be giving mine up. I support those who want to trade theirs in, but don’t force that on me.
  - kar5pt 5y ago
    You think that because you live in a society that's been designed around cars. if that wasn't the case, you wouldn't need your car so much.
    - dijonman2 5y ago
      I’ve lived in major cities and went over a decade without a car. I won’t be going back.
  - zip1234 5y ago
    Cars are highly subsidized right now. I think it would be good for everyone, car lovers included, if all the externalities would be priced into car ownership. Noise, pollution, space taken up, and road damage should be priced into use of cars. Cars may be private property but they use ridiculous amounts of public space. Everyone can keep their car if they want, but the cost of car ownership should reflect the externalities. This could be done through tolls, annual registration fees based on noise, emissions, and usage or similar measures.
burlesona 5y ago
If this topic interests you, Strong Towns is a national non-profit working on parking reform as one of its top issues. The movement is growing, and there's a lot you can do to support it! Some relevant content: 1. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/11/20/the-many-costs-of-too-much-parking https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/11/20/the-many-cost... 2. https://www.strongtowns.org/parking https://www.strongtowns.org/parking
- davidw 5y ago
  They are great! Other groups worth looking at: * https://yimbyaction.org/2021/ https://yimbyaction.org/2021/ * https://parkingreform.org/ https://parkingreform.org/ It's possible to make progress: here in Bend, Oregon a recent code update removed some parking requirements for "middle housing"!
newaccount2021 5y ago
remove or charge for parking and people park on the street...no one is giving up their cars, all of the social engineering just ends up creating more problems in many Bay Area communities you will see cars as tightly aligned on both sides of residential streets as is physically possible...homeowners don't even have room to put out trash bins without blocking their own drives. and why? because apartment complexes and offices don't provide spaces for their users. so, people just clutter up the streets. win? any time there are measures to make parking inconvenient, you end up with annoying ordinances banning street parking...or "members only" local passes...or meter maids who exist to torment us all how can the government get us out of our cars when they otherwise encourage car use as broadly as possible?
- davidw 5y ago
  > all of the social engineering Do you mean forcing, by law, business and homebuilders to provision parking?
  - newaccount2021 5y ago
    no, I mean the laws that mandate that they can only build a maximum of 80% of parking needed these laws aren't new...when Yahoo's "new" campus was built in 1999, only 8 parking spots per 10 employees were allowed to "encourage mass transit use" (lol)...so people just wasted hours driving around aimlessly
    - jjav 5y ago
      Yes, saw the same when my employers new campus in Santa Clara was built around the same timeframe. Parking was impossible, so people would drive around for a long time wasting fuel to find someone leaving. I settled on working from home the mornings and timing my arrival at lunchtime when spots were available. This of course left people coming back from lunch driving around for a long time. A huge waste.
- chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
  > no one is giving up their cars When you live in the downtown of a city, and parking at your apartment is $300/month, that's a strong incentive to give up your car
jnwatson 5y ago
I live in a planned high density office/shopping/residential development. When the developer switched to paid parking, there were literal protests: folks with signs. It absolutely gutted the shops. Foot traffic was way down. And now with COVID, we have dozens of empty storefronts. Consumers vote with their wallet, and lots of folks are dead set against paying for parking.
- samschooler 5y ago
  The problem with paid parking in the US is we need to supplement the perceived/actual scarcity with adequate alternatives. If parking is made paid because of demand, that is one thing, however if made as a deterrent to drive, that is another and alternatives should be thought about before plans for paid parking are made.
- ars 5y ago
  I'm the same way, if there's only paid parking, or a parking shortage, I just don't go there unless forced.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I definitely factor in the price of parking when deciding whether to shop at X vs Y location. There’s very little reason for me to go 3 miles into Boston to shop when I can go 3 miles in another direction and shop in a suburb with free and plentiful parking. I don’t see the problem; I get what I need and the people in Boston presumably get what they need. If a shopkeeper wants to cater to traffic that comes by car, they presumably set up shop in a suburb (where rents are cheaper anyway).
- chumich1 5y ago
  Who was paying for the parking before?
emptybits 5y ago
> Rational people quickly become emotional about parking ... Thinking about parking seems to take place in the reptilian cortex, the most primitive part of the brain responsible for snap judgments about urgent fight-or-flight issues, such as how to avoid being eaten. Lol. A bit melodramatic, but sure. Charge for it, yes, but give motorists a civilized experience when possible. Some of the emotion and impatience and anxiety can be reduced. IME, parking anxiety can come from 1) finding the expensive parking, 2) navigating in/out of it, 3) paying for it, and 4) worrying about it expiring. Technology can lighten some of that chore and people can get on with their business and pleasure. Self-navigating/parking cars might soon be helping with 1 & 2. Background: I cofounded PayByPhone with a goal of providing a civilized solution to 3 & 4.
- balls187 5y ago
  I use paybyphone on the reg. background: I'm friends with Kush.
- godot 5y ago
  I feel like that's not all of it; there is a certain expectation for parking to be free from many people and I feel like it's because the demand for parking can be drastically different in geographically nearby locations. For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages. But go less than 30 miles to east bay (far east or south east bay, not Oakland or Berkeley), parking is much more plentiful everywhere and the expectation for parking is free. If you live in the east bay and visit SF once in a while, you are coming from a daily life of the expectation of free parking to suddenly seeing signs for $20 a day, $50 a day, and so on. Without really consciously thinking about the economics and thinking, oh, it makes sense, because millions of people want to park in the city, it can definitely drive some emotional responses. If you live in SF and have thought about the economics and have accepted that parking is expensive, then the emotion and impatience and anxiety can be reduced/removed by the UX.
  - thatfrenchguy 5y ago
    > For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages. Funnily enough, when you live in SF, you find parking to be easy and mostly free :-)
devchix 5y ago
The core of this post is the linked article The Pseudoscience of Parking Requirements. The core of that article is three bullet points: • Remove off-street parking requirements. Developers and businesses can then decide how many parking spaces to provide for their customers. • Charge the right prices for on-street parking. The right prices are the lowest prices that will leave one or two open spaces on each block, so there will be no parking shortages. Prices will balance the demand and supply for on-street space. • Spend the parking revenue to improve public services on the metered streets. If everybody sees their meter money at work, the new public services can make demand-based prices for on-street parking politically popular. Given the mix-use urban buildings I've encountered recently, hotels from floor 1-5, offices from floor 6-10, condos up to the top (or something like that), street level shops, office space, I don't see how removing off-street parking requirements would address anything. If you have office workers you must allocate off-site parking space. You're still building for cars, cost of parking is subsidized by the employer or the business. The Tysons development in Northern Virginia is an example of this hell, it's attached to a giant mall and also near a metro (so there's commuter parking involved). I suppose the people who can afford this enclave will not need cars but most everyone else who visits must have one. Every time I go there I think I'm in a dystopian future where the swells live and work in shiny high towers and take futuristic transport to "the country" to take in the air and their children can pet goats. It's not a space for built for humans, at all, but I bet the architectural model looked great. Point (2), you have to make charging for parking frictionless. There's another development in Northern Virginia called Reston Town Center, they switched from free parking to paid with an app and that caused in an unexpected furor that hasn't died down yet, I think renters are still suing the developers over that. People may be willing to pay cash but making them pay with an app, and a crappy app at that, took them over the edge. Still don't know why you just can't pay with a swipe. Also, payment systems are vulnerable to theft. People who had a choice of driving there or not, decided to not. It's mixed with condos so the people who live there, shop there, but then you've only made an enclave, have you solved anything?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dpark 5y ago
jurassic 5y ago
I think non-residential street parking, paid or not, should probably be illegal. Or at least eye-wateringly expensive and limited to a few minutes at a time (e.g. food pickups). I say this as someone who drives regularly. The lack of visibility street parking creates in densely developed areas is a major safety hazard for all. Cyclists can get doored, drivers have diminished environmental awareness of things such as pedestrians emerging unexpectedly between two cars (perhaps to get to their own car, or just jaywalking), parked cars blocking visibility of oncoming traffic for motorists trying to turn, etc. None of it good. For residential street parking, I guess it should be up to those communities to decide what they want. The town where I live has outlawed overnight street parking which prevents people turning single-family homes into overcrowded communal living situations like you see in many parts of California. It makes the streets very safe and pleasant for walkers and kids on bikes, but also works against housing density which I recognize as problematic. I support density, but not density with cars; we need a lot of investment in transportation alternatives.
- criddell 5y ago
  > we need a lot of investment in transportation alternatives. Some small changes can have a pretty minimal investment. The city of Austin lets motorcycles use street parking for free.
  - forty 5y ago
    I live in the Paris, France area, and I think most people here that are not themselves driving such things are hoping that motorized two wheel vehicle gets outlawed. I'm not sure why, but people driving those seem to completely ignore driving laws (red lights, stop sign, lanes, etc) which makes them very dangerous and annoying. Not to mention the noise (for those which are not electric)
    - criddell 5y ago
      In Austin, motorcycles generally follow the same rules as cars. The two wheeled vehicles that seem to annoy most people are bicycles and for the reasons you state (except noise).
vondur 5y ago
I like how the Japanese do it. No street parking. If you purchase a car, you have to prove that you have parking for it. The parking spot can be on your property or a rental spot, but it had to be accounted for.
newaccount74 5y ago
I think the best way to do it is to make short term parking free (under 30 minutes or so), and to charge for long term parking. This ensures that there are parking spaces available for people running errands or people who transport heavy things, while at the same time making it less attractive for commuters or residents to block parking spaces all day long.
- jabbany 5y ago
  In practice people do this all the time already because there's no perfect enforcement. Plenty of people will risk parking in "no parking" / "permit only" spaces if they expect to only be away for a short duration (<30 mins).
  - newaccount74 5y ago
    That's true. But I was also thinking that long term parking should be expensive -- when long term parking is cheap, you won't find a space. The worst places in the city to park are streets where residents are allowed to park free / cheap. There's almost never a free spot! I lived in a street like that, and it was really annoying. Visitors / people running errands wouldn't find a spot, and residents wouldn't find a spot either. Once I found a good spot I tried to avoid using my car because I wouldn't find such a good parking spot when I returned -- oh the absurdity.
    - jabbany 5y ago
      Hmm, many parking starved cities I've lived in tend to have permit systems in the especially bad areas that (1) only allow residents to acquire permits and (2) have ramping cost structures (like $0-$10/mo for the first permit per household, ramping to something really high like $100/mo for like the third). It's also pretty common for apartment complexes to have a "loading only" spot in front of a building for deliveries and moving etc. Also most cities tend to have restrictions for free street parking like "no more than 72hrs in a spot". Although I suspect this is to discourage RVs...
knolan 5y ago
We’ve a massive problem here in Western Europe (UK and Ireland) with people parking on the footpath (sidewalk). They’ll put all four wheels up blocking the passage all pedestrians rather than use their driveway or a legal space. Unfortunately there is little to no enforcement.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Apparently nowhere it is as much of a problem as in Russia. Stop a Douchebag has two entire Youtube channels (with shockingly frequent releases) to film people driving (often quite recklessly) and parking on the sidewalks of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebag https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebag https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebagWorld https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebagWorld
  - knolan 5y ago
    I’ve watched several of these now. What’s incredible is how they expose the entitlement of those illegally parking and how quickly they lie and exaggerate rather that admit fault. It’s exactly how it unfolds here when some driver nearly kills me on my bike reacts.
jabbany 5y ago
The problem with paid parking at least in North America is that many/most cities are designed so that you need a car to get around -- driving is a necessity not a luxury. This makes paid parking feel like a tax rather than a service. Contrast that to, say, a dense city like Tokyo or Beijing where parking is both scarce and almost always comes at a cost. There is much less backlash, because you can get to pretty much everywhere just using public transit. In this case, people accept that point-to-point driving is a luxury -- you're choosing convenience so it's natural that that would come at a cost.
- paxys 5y ago
  Sure parking is a "tax", the same way the car payment, insurance, annual registration, maintenance, repairs, tolls, gas are all taxes. If someone can be expected to pay for all of this, why not parking as well?
  - jabbany 5y ago
    Implying people are happy to pay those things...? There's just as much drama about all of those things as there is for parking. Have you seen how much people complain every time registration fees, insurance costs or gas prices increase? Heck, the federal gas tax in the US has not been increased since 1993 because people are so sensitive about stuff like this...
- ctdonath 5y ago
  Is the public transit free? If not, then it’s friction hindering being there, adding baseline cost just to be there. Having added cost, I’m expecting commensurate payoff for being there. I’m apt to just peruse/enjoy if no cost to be there (and likely spend on a whim), but if it’s $10 just to be there then I’m expecting to spend >$100 on something - and I’m likely to balk at that, and not go at all.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Paid parking is generally very expensive. There is a reason WalMart has free parking: over the life of the parking lot it doesn't cost them much, so they can afford to take it out of their profits.
nostromo 5y ago
People supporting "new urbanism" -- a camp I was in until pretty recently -- should come look around downtown Seattle and see how it's working out. Our downtown is a grim wasteland. Shoppers, workers and residents have voted with their feet -- and they voted to avoid downtown. And it's not just Covid. The suburbs are booming. Walkable areas (most with free parking) in the 'burbs have new stores opening and have crowds of people eating, shopping, and enjoying life. Houses are in high-demand, while apartments near the core of the city are easy to find. I say all this to say that maybe we should pause and reconsider new urbanism. The push to remove cars (less parking, more expensive parking, removing lanes, "road diets") isn't making our cities better, it's pushing people away. Strong Towns told us this would make our city better, but all evidence points to our cities getting markedly worse.
- userbinator 5y ago
  HN seems to have a radical anti-car faction, which is probably why you're being downvoted, but I agree. Turning cities into the equivalent atmosphere of a factory farm is a disturbing trend which seems to mainly come from one side of the political spectrum, the same one that's also anti-car.
- rory 5y ago
  The lack of a subway system can't help here. How reasonable is it to live without a car in Seattle?
  - celtain 5y ago
    It's pretty easy for a childless adult who works downtown and can afford to live in one of the more central neighborhoods of Seattle, and still workable in certain neighborhoods further out that have walkable amenities and good transit connections. If you're willing and able to get occasional rental cars/ride shares then it's absolutely trivial. It's not easy for a lot of other people though. Rent in those neighborhoods is too expensive for most, and while you can take kids around by transit or by bike (and I certainly encourage people to do that when it's convenient), you'd have to be a pretty dedicated urbanist to do that for all your trips.
- 5y ago
ctdonath 5y ago
Think: why am I parking there? Who benefits? Will added friction hinder? How does charging enhance that benefit, making me want to pay vs avoid? We’re in the age of COVID, discovering the benefits of not going places, and creating new options not to. Charging for parking makes me reconsider going there at all, raising the cost and hassle - more likely to go elsewhere, stay home and do remotely, or forego the activity. Low-cost or low-planning activities don’t happen if parking sets minimum cost to >$0; random purchases will be passed up. If I do pay for parking, I expect convenience, security, and ease for the act. I’m less likely to visit a local city precisely because parking will at least double my cost getting there (gas); I’d rather spend that $ going somewhere farther, more interesting and free parking. Want more business? Figure out how to make it cheaper for me to be there: reduce friction, make parking free and easy.
donatj 5y ago
> Rational people quickly become emotional about parking, and staunch conservatives turn into ardent communists I don't follow the reasoning. Conservatives are against taxes, right? How is not wanting a tax on parking, something that is naturally free, "communist"?
- celtain 5y ago
  Parking isn't "naturally free". You're using a scarce resource, land, which typically isn't given away for free in a capitalist system. Parking spots are often small enough, used for short enough periods of time, or in places with low enough land prices that it's not worth charging for them, but people often continue to insist that parking should be free even when those descriptions no longer apply.
  - donatj 5y ago
    What I mean by "naturally free" is that if I was alone on earth, I could park anywhere, for free, without having to work for it. Gold? I'd have to dig it up, I'd have to smelt it; a lot of work there, not naturally free. Parking? It's a free resource. The "scarcity" is largely manufactured. Go to Google earth, take the street view dude, plunk it randomly anywhere in the central United States - and there will almost certainly be untapped free parking space as far as the eye can see.
    - celtain 5y ago
      That's certainly an interesting perspective. To help me understand your viewpoint, do you think unimproved land should be free in general? If a parking spot is paved, does it become more reasonable to charge for it?
beebmam 5y ago
You can always ride a bike :)
jacobmartin 5y ago
I live outside Boston just barely out where walking to the subway is infeasible (30min walk). But, it's only $2 or $7 to park at the T station and take the train in. This is a win-win for me, if I feel the desire/need to go into Boston. I don't have to worry about paying exorbitantly for a parking garage (or finding a parallel parking space and then parallel parking), and it isn't terribly inconvenient, even with a 2-year-old.
alkonaut 5y ago
Increase city parking until there is always available space on every street. Use the parking money to subsidize mass transit and parking (and construction of it) near mass transit.
tuddman 5y ago
As a longtime NYC resident with a vehicle, I experienced first-hand the unending frustration and anger amongst drivers over parking. I saw literal fights break out; windows smashed; I myself grew tired and weary of circling the block looking for on-street parking in and around Manhattan and Brooklyn... only to see someone take a spot that I'd been desperately circling for, looking, hoping, praying I'd find. "If only I'd KNOWN they were leaving?!?!?!?" So, to solve the problem for myself, I built BTON: https://bton.app/ https://bton.app/ you signal that you're leaving... someone comes and hands you a bton - you can use it to find your next spot; BTONs also have floating value to incentivize the spot leaver. Its free and in the App Stores; Again - I built it for a problem I directly and repeatedly experienced (trying to find parking in NYC). Would love to hear your feedback.
diebeforei485 5y ago
If most people get there by car, then yeah parking should be free or close to it. But if a lot of people get there by walk, bike, or transit - it makes no sense for parking to be free, especially if street parking can be replaced by outdoor (truly outdoor, with air flowing freely) dining.

100 points by jseliger 5y ago

> Parking clouds people’s minds, shifting analytic faculties to a lower level. Some strongly support market prices — except for parking. Some strongly oppose subsidies — except for parking. I wonder if you could replace this with: "some people strongly support X - except in circumstances where it negatively affects them personally".

marcosdumay 5y ago
People do divide things up. There are some stuff they don't care much about paying, and some they care a lot.

bognition 5y ago

I can't help but think that many of our economic, social, and environmental issues stem from a culture of cars. Cars push out urban sprawl weakening economies of scale, cars take up a massive amount of expensive real-estate (roads and parking), cars produce a tremendous amount of pollution in addition the environmental impacts of the previous two points. At least in the US, I do not see a path forwards tho. The houses have been built and the people live where they live.

0_____0 5y ago
It took decades of intentional development to go from a United States where every big city had a streetcar system and basically nobody had a car, to the suburban hellscapes that exist throughout the country today. It will take decades more to fix.
chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
The path forward is zoning changes. Make it legal to build small apartments in a neighborhood, make it legal to run a corner shop, etc. We can build walkable environments in suburban hellscapes if we tweak the laws.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  I like this framing of the zoning issue much more than “build build build on every scrap of land you can get your hands on”. Ownership of land is really important for ensuring everyone in America is literally bought into the American Dream. Until you’re ready to buy a house, I feel no compunction forcing you into high-density housing in the meantime (paired with greatly increasing low-income mortgage assistance).
  - 0_____0 5y ago
    Where I live, lots of people own a unit in a multi-family house as either a condo or a co-op. Coming from California, I thought of housing as always being a SFH on .25ac or something like that, but for what you get in terms of quality of life, I would be very happy to own a co-op in a triple-decker in my neighborhood.
    - decafninja 5y ago
      I live in a midrise condo in the suburbs of NYC. One thing I've noticed is that similar condos in the area have not risen in price significantly (if at all) whereas SFHs have. Is this because of the pandemic that the demand of dense multi-family housing has stagnated while isolated SFHs have risen? The thought has crossed my mind the past two years where I've encountered more rude, aggressive, and hostile fellow residents in my building. Our building staff members have commented the same. Pleas from building management to mask up or avoid riding the elevator with other households go unheeded. Likewise pleas to not smoke in outdoor, but common areas (lounges, rooftops, etc.) go unheeded, and now add marijuana smell as a bonus. It's gotten to the point my wife and I specifically want to move to a SFH so that we don't have to deal with such people.
      - 0_____0 5y ago
        On the housing density spectrum there's a lot of room between 'unit in midrise condo' and SFH. I really like where I live. Boston metro, 6-unit building where I know almost all the tenants. Most of the rest of my neighborhood is 2 or 3 unit multifamily, and it really is a very pleasant density.
Hokusai 5y ago
It would be fixed because the car industry does not have anymore power to stop the improvements. Now, it's tech companies the ones that have the money to create a bad for humans landscape. Will the USA repeat the same mistake and let them create an unfit for society digital neighborhood, or has it learned that to take corporation interests above everything else create inefficient societies?
dijonman2 5y ago
There isn’t a single appropriate viewpoint, I think cars are amazing and I will never be giving mine up. I support those who want to trade theirs in, but don’t force that on me.
- kar5pt 5y ago
  You think that because you live in a society that's been designed around cars. if that wasn't the case, you wouldn't need your car so much.
  - dijonman2 5y ago
    I’ve lived in major cities and went over a decade without a car. I won’t be going back.
- zip1234 5y ago
  Cars are highly subsidized right now. I think it would be good for everyone, car lovers included, if all the externalities would be priced into car ownership. Noise, pollution, space taken up, and road damage should be priced into use of cars. Cars may be private property but they use ridiculous amounts of public space. Everyone can keep their car if they want, but the cost of car ownership should reflect the externalities. This could be done through tolls, annual registration fees based on noise, emissions, and usage or similar measures.

burlesona 5y ago

If this topic interests you, Strong Towns is a national non-profit working on parking reform as one of its top issues. The movement is growing, and there's a lot you can do to support it! Some relevant content: 1. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/11/20/the-many-costs-of-too-much-parking https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/11/20/the-many-cost... 2. https://www.strongtowns.org/parking https://www.strongtowns.org/parking

davidw 5y ago
They are great! Other groups worth looking at: * https://yimbyaction.org/2021/ https://yimbyaction.org/2021/ * https://parkingreform.org/ https://parkingreform.org/ It's possible to make progress: here in Bend, Oregon a recent code update removed some parking requirements for "middle housing"!

newaccount2021 5y ago

remove or charge for parking and people park on the street...no one is giving up their cars, all of the social engineering just ends up creating more problems in many Bay Area communities you will see cars as tightly aligned on both sides of residential streets as is physically possible...homeowners don't even have room to put out trash bins without blocking their own drives. and why? because apartment complexes and offices don't provide spaces for their users. so, people just clutter up the streets. win? any time there are measures to make parking inconvenient, you end up with annoying ordinances banning street parking...or "members only" local passes...or meter maids who exist to torment us all how can the government get us out of our cars when they otherwise encourage car use as broadly as possible?

davidw 5y ago
> all of the social engineering Do you mean forcing, by law, business and homebuilders to provision parking?
- newaccount2021 5y ago
  no, I mean the laws that mandate that they can only build a maximum of 80% of parking needed these laws aren't new...when Yahoo's "new" campus was built in 1999, only 8 parking spots per 10 employees were allowed to "encourage mass transit use" (lol)...so people just wasted hours driving around aimlessly
  - jjav 5y ago
    Yes, saw the same when my employers new campus in Santa Clara was built around the same timeframe. Parking was impossible, so people would drive around for a long time wasting fuel to find someone leaving. I settled on working from home the mornings and timing my arrival at lunchtime when spots were available. This of course left people coming back from lunch driving around for a long time. A huge waste.
chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
> no one is giving up their cars When you live in the downtown of a city, and parking at your apartment is $300/month, that's a strong incentive to give up your car

jnwatson 5y ago

I live in a planned high density office/shopping/residential development. When the developer switched to paid parking, there were literal protests: folks with signs. It absolutely gutted the shops. Foot traffic was way down. And now with COVID, we have dozens of empty storefronts. Consumers vote with their wallet, and lots of folks are dead set against paying for parking.

samschooler 5y ago
The problem with paid parking in the US is we need to supplement the perceived/actual scarcity with adequate alternatives. If parking is made paid because of demand, that is one thing, however if made as a deterrent to drive, that is another and alternatives should be thought about before plans for paid parking are made.
ars 5y ago
I'm the same way, if there's only paid parking, or a parking shortage, I just don't go there unless forced.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I definitely factor in the price of parking when deciding whether to shop at X vs Y location. There’s very little reason for me to go 3 miles into Boston to shop when I can go 3 miles in another direction and shop in a suburb with free and plentiful parking. I don’t see the problem; I get what I need and the people in Boston presumably get what they need. If a shopkeeper wants to cater to traffic that comes by car, they presumably set up shop in a suburb (where rents are cheaper anyway).
chumich1 5y ago
Who was paying for the parking before?

emptybits 5y ago

> Rational people quickly become emotional about parking ... Thinking about parking seems to take place in the reptilian cortex, the most primitive part of the brain responsible for snap judgments about urgent fight-or-flight issues, such as how to avoid being eaten. Lol. A bit melodramatic, but sure. Charge for it, yes, but give motorists a civilized experience when possible. Some of the emotion and impatience and anxiety can be reduced. IME, parking anxiety can come from 1) finding the expensive parking, 2) navigating in/out of it, 3) paying for it, and 4) worrying about it expiring. Technology can lighten some of that chore and people can get on with their business and pleasure. Self-navigating/parking cars might soon be helping with 1 & 2. Background: I cofounded PayByPhone with a goal of providing a civilized solution to 3 & 4.

balls187 5y ago
I use paybyphone on the reg. background: I'm friends with Kush.
godot 5y ago
I feel like that's not all of it; there is a certain expectation for parking to be free from many people and I feel like it's because the demand for parking can be drastically different in geographically nearby locations. For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages. But go less than 30 miles to east bay (far east or south east bay, not Oakland or Berkeley), parking is much more plentiful everywhere and the expectation for parking is free. If you live in the east bay and visit SF once in a while, you are coming from a daily life of the expectation of free parking to suddenly seeing signs for $20 a day, $50 a day, and so on. Without really consciously thinking about the economics and thinking, oh, it makes sense, because millions of people want to park in the city, it can definitely drive some emotional responses. If you live in SF and have thought about the economics and have accepted that parking is expensive, then the emotion and impatience and anxiety can be reduced/removed by the UX.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  > For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages. Funnily enough, when you live in SF, you find parking to be easy and mostly free :-)

devchix 5y ago

The core of this post is the linked article The Pseudoscience of Parking Requirements. The core of that article is three bullet points: • Remove off-street parking requirements. Developers and businesses can then decide how many parking spaces to provide for their customers. • Charge the right prices for on-street parking. The right prices are the lowest prices that will leave one or two open spaces on each block, so there will be no parking shortages. Prices will balance the demand and supply for on-street space. • Spend the parking revenue to improve public services on the metered streets. If everybody sees their meter money at work, the new public services can make demand-based prices for on-street parking politically popular. Given the mix-use urban buildings I've encountered recently, hotels from floor 1-5, offices from floor 6-10, condos up to the top (or something like that), street level shops, office space, I don't see how removing off-street parking requirements would address anything. If you have office workers you must allocate off-site parking space. You're still building for cars, cost of parking is subsidized by the employer or the business. The Tysons development in Northern Virginia is an example of this hell, it's attached to a giant mall and also near a metro (so there's commuter parking involved). I suppose the people who can afford this enclave will not need cars but most everyone else who visits must have one. Every time I go there I think I'm in a dystopian future where the swells live and work in shiny high towers and take futuristic transport to "the country" to take in the air and their children can pet goats. It's not a space for built for humans, at all, but I bet the architectural model looked great. Point (2), you have to make charging for parking frictionless. There's another development in Northern Virginia called Reston Town Center, they switched from free parking to paid with an app and that caused in an unexpected furor that hasn't died down yet, I think renters are still suing the developers over that. People may be willing to pay cash but making them pay with an app, and a crappy app at that, took them over the edge. Still don't know why you just can't pay with a swipe. Also, payment systems are vulnerable to theft. People who had a choice of driving there or not, decided to not. It's mixed with condos so the people who live there, shop there, but then you've only made an enclave, have you solved anything?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dpark 5y ago

jurassic 5y ago

I think non-residential street parking, paid or not, should probably be illegal. Or at least eye-wateringly expensive and limited to a few minutes at a time (e.g. food pickups). I say this as someone who drives regularly. The lack of visibility street parking creates in densely developed areas is a major safety hazard for all. Cyclists can get doored, drivers have diminished environmental awareness of things such as pedestrians emerging unexpectedly between two cars (perhaps to get to their own car, or just jaywalking), parked cars blocking visibility of oncoming traffic for motorists trying to turn, etc. None of it good. For residential street parking, I guess it should be up to those communities to decide what they want. The town where I live has outlawed overnight street parking which prevents people turning single-family homes into overcrowded communal living situations like you see in many parts of California. It makes the streets very safe and pleasant for walkers and kids on bikes, but also works against housing density which I recognize as problematic. I support density, but not density with cars; we need a lot of investment in transportation alternatives.

criddell 5y ago
> we need a lot of investment in transportation alternatives. Some small changes can have a pretty minimal investment. The city of Austin lets motorcycles use street parking for free.
- forty 5y ago
  I live in the Paris, France area, and I think most people here that are not themselves driving such things are hoping that motorized two wheel vehicle gets outlawed. I'm not sure why, but people driving those seem to completely ignore driving laws (red lights, stop sign, lanes, etc) which makes them very dangerous and annoying. Not to mention the noise (for those which are not electric)
  - criddell 5y ago
    In Austin, motorcycles generally follow the same rules as cars. The two wheeled vehicles that seem to annoy most people are bicycles and for the reasons you state (except noise).

vondur 5y ago

I like how the Japanese do it. No street parking. If you purchase a car, you have to prove that you have parking for it. The parking spot can be on your property or a rental spot, but it had to be accounted for.

newaccount74 5y ago

I think the best way to do it is to make short term parking free (under 30 minutes or so), and to charge for long term parking. This ensures that there are parking spaces available for people running errands or people who transport heavy things, while at the same time making it less attractive for commuters or residents to block parking spaces all day long.

jabbany 5y ago
In practice people do this all the time already because there's no perfect enforcement. Plenty of people will risk parking in "no parking" / "permit only" spaces if they expect to only be away for a short duration (<30 mins).
- newaccount74 5y ago
  That's true. But I was also thinking that long term parking should be expensive -- when long term parking is cheap, you won't find a space. The worst places in the city to park are streets where residents are allowed to park free / cheap. There's almost never a free spot! I lived in a street like that, and it was really annoying. Visitors / people running errands wouldn't find a spot, and residents wouldn't find a spot either. Once I found a good spot I tried to avoid using my car because I wouldn't find such a good parking spot when I returned -- oh the absurdity.
  - jabbany 5y ago
    Hmm, many parking starved cities I've lived in tend to have permit systems in the especially bad areas that (1) only allow residents to acquire permits and (2) have ramping cost structures (like $0-$10/mo for the first permit per household, ramping to something really high like $100/mo for like the third). It's also pretty common for apartment complexes to have a "loading only" spot in front of a building for deliveries and moving etc. Also most cities tend to have restrictions for free street parking like "no more than 72hrs in a spot". Although I suspect this is to discourage RVs...

knolan 5y ago

We’ve a massive problem here in Western Europe (UK and Ireland) with people parking on the footpath (sidewalk). They’ll put all four wheels up blocking the passage all pedestrians rather than use their driveway or a legal space. Unfortunately there is little to no enforcement.

Hamuko 5y ago
Apparently nowhere it is as much of a problem as in Russia. Stop a Douchebag has two entire Youtube channels (with shockingly frequent releases) to film people driving (often quite recklessly) and parking on the sidewalks of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebag https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebag https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebagWorld https://www.youtube.com/c/StopaDouchebagWorld
- knolan 5y ago
  I’ve watched several of these now. What’s incredible is how they expose the entitlement of those illegally parking and how quickly they lie and exaggerate rather that admit fault. It’s exactly how it unfolds here when some driver nearly kills me on my bike reacts.

jabbany 5y ago

The problem with paid parking at least in North America is that many/most cities are designed so that you need a car to get around -- driving is a necessity not a luxury. This makes paid parking feel like a tax rather than a service. Contrast that to, say, a dense city like Tokyo or Beijing where parking is both scarce and almost always comes at a cost. There is much less backlash, because you can get to pretty much everywhere just using public transit. In this case, people accept that point-to-point driving is a luxury -- you're choosing convenience so it's natural that that would come at a cost.

paxys 5y ago
Sure parking is a "tax", the same way the car payment, insurance, annual registration, maintenance, repairs, tolls, gas are all taxes. If someone can be expected to pay for all of this, why not parking as well?
- jabbany 5y ago
  Implying people are happy to pay those things...? There's just as much drama about all of those things as there is for parking. Have you seen how much people complain every time registration fees, insurance costs or gas prices increase? Heck, the federal gas tax in the US has not been increased since 1993 because people are so sensitive about stuff like this...
ctdonath 5y ago
Is the public transit free? If not, then it’s friction hindering being there, adding baseline cost just to be there. Having added cost, I’m expecting commensurate payoff for being there. I’m apt to just peruse/enjoy if no cost to be there (and likely spend on a whim), but if it’s $10 just to be there then I’m expecting to spend >$100 on something - and I’m likely to balk at that, and not go at all.
bluGill 5y ago
Paid parking is generally very expensive. There is a reason WalMart has free parking: over the life of the parking lot it doesn't cost them much, so they can afford to take it out of their profits.

nostromo 5y ago

People supporting "new urbanism" -- a camp I was in until pretty recently -- should come look around downtown Seattle and see how it's working out. Our downtown is a grim wasteland. Shoppers, workers and residents have voted with their feet -- and they voted to avoid downtown. And it's not just Covid. The suburbs are booming. Walkable areas (most with free parking) in the 'burbs have new stores opening and have crowds of people eating, shopping, and enjoying life. Houses are in high-demand, while apartments near the core of the city are easy to find. I say all this to say that maybe we should pause and reconsider new urbanism. The push to remove cars (less parking, more expensive parking, removing lanes, "road diets") isn't making our cities better, it's pushing people away. Strong Towns told us this would make our city better, but all evidence points to our cities getting markedly worse.

userbinator 5y ago
HN seems to have a radical anti-car faction, which is probably why you're being downvoted, but I agree. Turning cities into the equivalent atmosphere of a factory farm is a disturbing trend which seems to mainly come from one side of the political spectrum, the same one that's also anti-car.
rory 5y ago
The lack of a subway system can't help here. How reasonable is it to live without a car in Seattle?
- celtain 5y ago
  It's pretty easy for a childless adult who works downtown and can afford to live in one of the more central neighborhoods of Seattle, and still workable in certain neighborhoods further out that have walkable amenities and good transit connections. If you're willing and able to get occasional rental cars/ride shares then it's absolutely trivial. It's not easy for a lot of other people though. Rent in those neighborhoods is too expensive for most, and while you can take kids around by transit or by bike (and I certainly encourage people to do that when it's convenient), you'd have to be a pretty dedicated urbanist to do that for all your trips.
5y ago

ctdonath 5y ago

Think: why am I parking there? Who benefits? Will added friction hinder? How does charging enhance that benefit, making me want to pay vs avoid? We’re in the age of COVID, discovering the benefits of not going places, and creating new options not to. Charging for parking makes me reconsider going there at all, raising the cost and hassle - more likely to go elsewhere, stay home and do remotely, or forego the activity. Low-cost or low-planning activities don’t happen if parking sets minimum cost to >$0; random purchases will be passed up. If I do pay for parking, I expect convenience, security, and ease for the act. I’m less likely to visit a local city precisely because parking will at least double my cost getting there (gas); I’d rather spend that $ going somewhere farther, more interesting and free parking. Want more business? Figure out how to make it cheaper for me to be there: reduce friction, make parking free and easy.

donatj 5y ago

> Rational people quickly become emotional about parking, and staunch conservatives turn into ardent communists I don't follow the reasoning. Conservatives are against taxes, right? How is not wanting a tax on parking, something that is naturally free, "communist"?

celtain 5y ago
Parking isn't "naturally free". You're using a scarce resource, land, which typically isn't given away for free in a capitalist system. Parking spots are often small enough, used for short enough periods of time, or in places with low enough land prices that it's not worth charging for them, but people often continue to insist that parking should be free even when those descriptions no longer apply.
- donatj 5y ago
  What I mean by "naturally free" is that if I was alone on earth, I could park anywhere, for free, without having to work for it. Gold? I'd have to dig it up, I'd have to smelt it; a lot of work there, not naturally free. Parking? It's a free resource. The "scarcity" is largely manufactured. Go to Google earth, take the street view dude, plunk it randomly anywhere in the central United States - and there will almost certainly be untapped free parking space as far as the eye can see.
  - celtain 5y ago
    That's certainly an interesting perspective. To help me understand your viewpoint, do you think unimproved land should be free in general? If a parking spot is paved, does it become more reasonable to charge for it?

beebmam 5y ago

You can always ride a bike :)

jacobmartin 5y ago

I live outside Boston just barely out where walking to the subway is infeasible (30min walk). But, it's only $2 or $7 to park at the T station and take the train in. This is a win-win for me, if I feel the desire/need to go into Boston. I don't have to worry about paying exorbitantly for a parking garage (or finding a parallel parking space and then parallel parking), and it isn't terribly inconvenient, even with a 2-year-old.

alkonaut 5y ago

Increase city parking until there is always available space on every street. Use the parking money to subsidize mass transit and parking (and construction of it) near mass transit.

tuddman 5y ago

As a longtime NYC resident with a vehicle, I experienced first-hand the unending frustration and anger amongst drivers over parking. I saw literal fights break out; windows smashed; I myself grew tired and weary of circling the block looking for on-street parking in and around Manhattan and Brooklyn... only to see someone take a spot that I'd been desperately circling for, looking, hoping, praying I'd find. "If only I'd KNOWN they were leaving?!?!?!?" So, to solve the problem for myself, I built BTON: https://bton.app/ https://bton.app/ you signal that you're leaving... someone comes and hands you a bton - you can use it to find your next spot; BTONs also have floating value to incentivize the spot leaver. Its free and in the App Stores; Again - I built it for a problem I directly and repeatedly experienced (trying to find parking in NYC). Would love to hear your feedback.

diebeforei485 5y ago

If most people get there by car, then yeah parking should be free or close to it. But if a lot of people get there by walk, bike, or transit - it makes no sense for parking to be free, especially if street parking can be replaced by outdoor (truly outdoor, with air flowing freely) dining.