> I'm not sure why you can park a car on the street for hours for free, but not, say, a picnictable with a BBQ, a folding tablesaw, a telescope, a pop-up bookst

> I'm not sure why you can park a car on the street for hours for free, but not, say, a picnictable with a BBQ, a folding tablesaw, a telescope, a pop-up bookstore, a film projector, and so on. I mean, the traditional answer is pretty clear. Roads are public transportation infrastructure. Parking cars (and bikes and scooters) is allowed, because cars move the public around. All these other things are not transportation for the public. People think of parking spots along the streets as "landed property", but they're not, they're more like the overhead bins in a bus or plane. But also, from a practical sense, no one cares about public transportation anymore, so you actually can now park random crap in the street, anytime you'd like? At least in Michigan, restaurants routinely do the "park a picnic table with a BBQ on the side of the road" thing all the time (see https://www.giffelswebster.com/dining-platforms-and-parklets-in-parking-spaces/ https://www.giffelswebster.com/dining-platforms-and-parklets...) -- many of which still persist since COVID assistance ended. And residential/commercial construction workers routinely do get to block off street parking for a tablesaw or any other construction usage at job sites all the time.