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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
by 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 agoSure 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 agoImplying 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 agoIs 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 agoPaid 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.
- jabbany 5y agoActually, the reason WalMart has free parking is because it is always placed far from where people live so everyone has to drive there, and because everybody has to drive they all have to park eventually. Then, to accommodate all this parking cheaply, the stores will have to be placed on cheap land which is far away from residential areas and you get a vicious cycle... The notion that parking is somehow a necessity is only really because of crappy public transit and sprawling cities. In a dense city with good transit options, point-to-point driving wouldn't even be among the top options for getting places to begin with.