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> Rational people quickly become emotional about parking ... Thinking about parking seems to take place in the reptilian cortex, the most primitive part of the

> 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 :-)
- treis 5y ago
  Paying for parking changes the calculus of life. It makes everything significantly more expensive and really puts a damper on membership type things. Like we've got a membership to the children's museum. But parking is ~$15 a time so we go far less frequently than we otherwise would. Economic arguments about freeloading are good and something I theoretically agree with. But in practice when the other option is 2 busses & 45 minutes you end up not going to as many places as you otherwise would.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    You're paying either way - the time you'd otherwise waste on finding a parking spot has a direct value, which makes 'free' parking even more costly than paid-for parking.
  - nonameiguess 5y ago
    To some extent, this is the very point of having these charges. They relieve congestion on scarce resources by ensuring the only people using it are the people who want it really badly and are willing to pay, in either time, money, or inconvenience.
    - tapas73 5y ago
      > this is the very point of having these charges. They relieve congestion Yes. >> ensuring the only people using it are the people who want it really badly Not necessarily. People using it could just have more money.
- lhorie 5y ago
  > For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages I think it's useful to consider that SF downtown parking is - in the grand scheme of things - an exception, not a norm. As it turns out, parking is free in most geographical locations. Even within SF, there's plenty of free street parking around areas like the Sunset or Potrero Hill for example, a mere 20 mins away from downtown core. Go another 15 mins further south and there's free parking at Home Depot, Costco, etc. Go further out to places like San Jose, and strip malls with abundant free parking dominate the landscape. IMHO it doesn't make sense to think parking space can be easily replaced with residential space. This has been a theme in places like downtown Toronto, where parking lots were literally getting turned into condo buildings. Without a supporting transportation strategy, all that ends up happening is overloaded roads because more residences equal more people, and people need transportation. Going back to Toronto, they're now apparently talking about expropriating businesses to make space for public transit expansion in the worst congested subway station (Ironically, several businesses were already displaced from a lot to build a high rise mix use condo building in this exact intersection some 5 years ago, and there's now another high rise in construction right across the street from it). I honestly wish them good luck with scaling public transit to match demand, as all forms of traffic there - including the subway - already get to pretty bad levels.
criddell 5y ago
If parking gets too expensive, I can imagine self-driving cars circling the block until the owner is ready to go.
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  Passing an enforceable law against that will be a lot easier, since the companies responsible for self-driving car algorithms can be bashed upside the head with it.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Send the car on an errand and have it come back, or even send it “home” and summon it later. (I’m deeply skeptical that we’ll have level 5 self-driving cars in my lifetime, but if we do, we won’t need to pay $50 in today’s money to park anywhere…)
    - jdminhbg 5y ago
      Even outside of "cheating" like this, self-driving would have a pretty significant impact on parking economics. You don't need to have parking spread throughout the city in convenient places, because you can send your car to the central parking depot while you're shopping and recall it when you're done.
      - criddell 5y ago
        I don't think sending a car on an errand is cheating in any way. In fact I think it's one of the great promises of self driving cars. People already do curbside pickup of groceries, dry cleaning, restaurant food, etc... There's no reason a person needs to be in that car.
      - vkou 5y ago
        This sounds wonderful, except for the part where your desire to avoid paying for parking is creating gridlock for everyone else, as your car drives around, creating traffic. [1] Since I'm not interested in paying the taxes necessary to double the amount of roads in town, and since I hate traffic, I'd rather just make what you describe illegal [2], just like how many other nuisances are illegal on public roadways. It should be pretty easy for legislatures to force vendors to disable self-driving summons/parking on public roads. [1] And no, even if the traffic you create is counterflow, we will still need more road capacity, and I'm not paying for it. Where I live, there is no 'counterflow' - traffic consistently sucks in both directions of travel. [2] Or toll you, preferably to the point where you'll find it more advantageous to just pay for parking.
celtain 5y ago
I was halfway through your comment and getting ready to tell you about this great solution call PayByPhone that's used for parking all around my city. Thanks for that :) However I would argue that charging sufficiently high prices for parking solves #1 too, the remaining difficulty would be finding cheap parking, not expensive parking.
analog31 5y ago
The university near my house uses a parking app that requires all sorts of permissions to install. So I think there needs to be a hard limit with teeth (e.g., auditing and stiff penalties) on collection and storage of personal data. Another idea is some kind of open API standard, where you can use the app of your choice in a particular locale, rather than being locked to a particular vendor. Then the apps can compete on which one has the best user experience, privacy, and so forth.

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 :-)
treis 5y ago
Paying for parking changes the calculus of life. It makes everything significantly more expensive and really puts a damper on membership type things. Like we've got a membership to the children's museum. But parking is ~$15 a time so we go far less frequently than we otherwise would. Economic arguments about freeloading are good and something I theoretically agree with. But in practice when the other option is 2 busses & 45 minutes you end up not going to as many places as you otherwise would.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  You're paying either way - the time you'd otherwise waste on finding a parking spot has a direct value, which makes 'free' parking even more costly than paid-for parking.
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  To some extent, this is the very point of having these charges. They relieve congestion on scarce resources by ensuring the only people using it are the people who want it really badly and are willing to pay, in either time, money, or inconvenience.
  - tapas73 5y ago
    > this is the very point of having these charges. They relieve congestion Yes. >> ensuring the only people using it are the people who want it really badly Not necessarily. People using it could just have more money.
lhorie 5y ago
> For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages I think it's useful to consider that SF downtown parking is - in the grand scheme of things - an exception, not a norm. As it turns out, parking is free in most geographical locations. Even within SF, there's plenty of free street parking around areas like the Sunset or Potrero Hill for example, a mere 20 mins away from downtown core. Go another 15 mins further south and there's free parking at Home Depot, Costco, etc. Go further out to places like San Jose, and strip malls with abundant free parking dominate the landscape. IMHO it doesn't make sense to think parking space can be easily replaced with residential space. This has been a theme in places like downtown Toronto, where parking lots were literally getting turned into condo buildings. Without a supporting transportation strategy, all that ends up happening is overloaded roads because more residences equal more people, and people need transportation. Going back to Toronto, they're now apparently talking about expropriating businesses to make space for public transit expansion in the worst congested subway station (Ironically, several businesses were already displaced from a lot to build a high rise mix use condo building in this exact intersection some 5 years ago, and there's now another high rise in construction right across the street from it). I honestly wish them good luck with scaling public transit to match demand, as all forms of traffic there - including the subway - already get to pretty bad levels.

criddell 5y ago

If parking gets too expensive, I can imagine self-driving cars circling the block until the owner is ready to go.

kspacewalk2 5y ago
Passing an enforceable law against that will be a lot easier, since the companies responsible for self-driving car algorithms can be bashed upside the head with it.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Send the car on an errand and have it come back, or even send it “home” and summon it later. (I’m deeply skeptical that we’ll have level 5 self-driving cars in my lifetime, but if we do, we won’t need to pay $50 in today’s money to park anywhere…)
  - jdminhbg 5y ago
    Even outside of "cheating" like this, self-driving would have a pretty significant impact on parking economics. You don't need to have parking spread throughout the city in convenient places, because you can send your car to the central parking depot while you're shopping and recall it when you're done.
    - criddell 5y ago
      I don't think sending a car on an errand is cheating in any way. In fact I think it's one of the great promises of self driving cars. People already do curbside pickup of groceries, dry cleaning, restaurant food, etc... There's no reason a person needs to be in that car.
    - vkou 5y ago
      This sounds wonderful, except for the part where your desire to avoid paying for parking is creating gridlock for everyone else, as your car drives around, creating traffic. [1] Since I'm not interested in paying the taxes necessary to double the amount of roads in town, and since I hate traffic, I'd rather just make what you describe illegal [2], just like how many other nuisances are illegal on public roadways. It should be pretty easy for legislatures to force vendors to disable self-driving summons/parking on public roads. [1] And no, even if the traffic you create is counterflow, we will still need more road capacity, and I'm not paying for it. Where I live, there is no 'counterflow' - traffic consistently sucks in both directions of travel. [2] Or toll you, preferably to the point where you'll find it more advantageous to just pay for parking.

celtain 5y ago

I was halfway through your comment and getting ready to tell you about this great solution call PayByPhone that's used for parking all around my city. Thanks for that :) However I would argue that charging sufficiently high prices for parking solves #1 too, the remaining difficulty would be finding cheap parking, not expensive parking.

analog31 5y ago

The university near my house uses a parking app that requires all sorts of permissions to install. So I think there needs to be a hard limit with teeth (e.g., auditing and stiff penalties) on collection and storage of personal data. Another idea is some kind of open API standard, where you can use the app of your choice in a particular locale, rather than being locked to a particular vendor. Then the apps can compete on which one has the best user experience, privacy, and so forth.