8 ms·

You do realize that this app meant the city is not charging enough (market rate) for parking right?

by ugexe 12y ago

untog 12y ago
But is it in the public interest to charge market rate? That's the issue here. Should poorer people in SF be unable to park anywhere? Is that a good use of public resources?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- _delirium 12y ago
  Fwiw, SF is actually moving to market-rate pricing for meters and garages, with a pilot in a subset of spaces currently underway: http://sfpark.org/ http://sfpark.org/
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- gfodor 12y ago
  If the issue is fairness, there are two things people generally have they can give up: time and money. Right now finding parking is based on random chance. A better system, if we decide time is the thing people pay with, would involve people having to wait a pre-determined amount of time before they can take ownership of a parking spot, which would increase as demand did and vice versa. Additionally this duration could be determined by the amount of time they spend in the spot. The status quo is obviously broken. The question is if there is an easy and effective way to improve fairness.
  - judk 12y ago
    Forcing people to waste time is just wasteful. Everyone should pay, and certain desrving people (however that is decided) can get financial support or nontransferable credits (bit these have practical challenges)
    - gfodor 12y ago
      It wouldn't be a matter of wasting time, it would be a manner of a person having to plan ahead before parking. If you want to park in a busy neighborhood, you may find that you can't actually do so for several hours, if others ahead of you in line have reserved those spaces. This is completely fair since everyone is treated equally, there is no 'wasted time' in this system that wouldn't have been wasted in the current system provided the spots are maximally full at all times. The current system results in some people getting lucky, others driving around in circles trying to find a spot, and others completely giving up. All of that time is being wasted. Beyond that the folks driving around are congesting the roadways, resulting in additional negative effects on the overall efficiency of allocating parking. The main issue with designing a reservation based system is how efficient it is with regards to spots being continually filled, along with the constraint that it be considered fair by all participants. It seems like a design challenge but the current greedy algorithm probably sets the bar pretty low. It would be interesting to simulate.
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  Attempts to artificially control prices for a scarce asset in the names of protecting equality will always fail. Prices will inevitably rise to their market level, the only difference is whether the owner of the good (the city) will reap the full benefit of the transaction, or whether the fruits will be split between (initially) secondary sellers and (later) law enforcement efforts. The most important effect is that the incentives that might have favoured innovation to improve the efficiency of the use of the good and offer affordable alternatives are distorted in favour of incentives which favour unscrupulous competition for arbitrage gains.
  - curmudgeon224 12y ago
    Well - ignoring the fact that city maintained street parking is a public resource - I believe you are ignoring the cost of time (of the person searching for parking) in your analysis which, in effect, creates a perfect market equilibrium....or something.
    - jasonisalive 12y ago
      A scarce resource is a scarce resource. It doesn't matter what intentions it was made with, or what rhetoric is used to justify a clearly defective pricing strategy.
    - judk 12y ago
      time spent looking for parking is waste, aka deadweigt lost. Better to transfer money (zero sum) than waste time (negative sum)
  - taybin 12y ago
    [Citation Needed]
asdfologist 12y ago
Should the city start charging market rate for schools, parks, and libraries?
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  Why not?
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Libraries are a form of insurance against the societal costs of illiteracy, which is related to crime. http://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/if-you-want-to-see-the-sharing-economy-go-to-the-library/ http://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/if-you-wa... --- Though the library may appear to be free, the truth is quite different; it is not that the library borrower is getting things for free, it is that they have already paid. Libraries are the result of a community pooling resources (often gathered through taxes) for the funding and purchasing of materials that are then made available to all members of that community. ... Just as a community invests in infrastructure like roads, bridges and water management systems – a community invests in a library. Libraries, if you will, represent educational and intellectual infrastructure. A recognition that just as a road makes it easier to reach your destination, so too does access to information enable one to complete a journey of another sort. ... what occurs in a library is the development and maintenance through the economy of a genuine structure for sharing. Numerous people contribute a little and from this are able to get a lot, but the value they extract from their investment is not in the form of a sack of money with a dollar sign on it, but a larger social value. It is a value that would be diminished by turning it simply into a profit-generating scheme. ---
    - jasonisalive 12y ago
      Well that's very rousing, but only someone working for a chronically underfunded and at-risk institution would feel the need to write such flowery prose. If I was a rich taxpayer whose money was on the line I don't think I would be convinced.
joe_the_user 12y ago
* SF has a large number of private parking garages. Anyone willing to pay market rate can use them. The city is choosing to charge the rate that it finds most useful. * The existence of the app in no way demonstrates that the city doesn't charge market rate. The people who "sell" their parking spaces in the app don't have the same cost structure as the city since, among other things, they don't actually own these parking spaces and are simply engaging in a scam.
- ugexe 12y ago
  Are these factual statements or conjecture? Someone else stated the city is working in charging market rate in some areas, which doesn't mesh with the statement that the city is currently charging what is most useful for them
  - joe_the_user 12y ago
    Of course the city is charging what they feel is most useful to them, for whatever reasons they choose. The statement is true virtually by definition. The city may not be charging you think is most to it, but hey, the city probably isn't concerned with what lone hackers somewhere think, why should it be.
evanb 12y ago
Related 99% Invisible episode: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-08-99-free-parking/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-08-99-free-par...
- judk 12y ago
  Classic book: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking.html?id=WBe3AAAAIAAJ http://books.google.com/books/about/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Pa...

You do realize that this app meant the city is not charging enough (market rate) for parking right?

by ugexe 12y ago

You do realize that this app meant the city is not charging enough (market rate) for parking right?

untog 12y ago

But is it in the public interest to charge market rate? That's the issue here. Should poorer people in SF be unable to park anywhere? Is that a good use of public resources?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
_delirium 12y ago
Fwiw, SF is actually moving to market-rate pricing for meters and garages, with a pilot in a subset of spaces currently underway: http://sfpark.org/ http://sfpark.org/
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
gfodor 12y ago
If the issue is fairness, there are two things people generally have they can give up: time and money. Right now finding parking is based on random chance. A better system, if we decide time is the thing people pay with, would involve people having to wait a pre-determined amount of time before they can take ownership of a parking spot, which would increase as demand did and vice versa. Additionally this duration could be determined by the amount of time they spend in the spot. The status quo is obviously broken. The question is if there is an easy and effective way to improve fairness.
- judk 12y ago
  Forcing people to waste time is just wasteful. Everyone should pay, and certain desrving people (however that is decided) can get financial support or nontransferable credits (bit these have practical challenges)
  - gfodor 12y ago
    It wouldn't be a matter of wasting time, it would be a manner of a person having to plan ahead before parking. If you want to park in a busy neighborhood, you may find that you can't actually do so for several hours, if others ahead of you in line have reserved those spaces. This is completely fair since everyone is treated equally, there is no 'wasted time' in this system that wouldn't have been wasted in the current system provided the spots are maximally full at all times. The current system results in some people getting lucky, others driving around in circles trying to find a spot, and others completely giving up. All of that time is being wasted. Beyond that the folks driving around are congesting the roadways, resulting in additional negative effects on the overall efficiency of allocating parking. The main issue with designing a reservation based system is how efficient it is with regards to spots being continually filled, along with the constraint that it be considered fair by all participants. It seems like a design challenge but the current greedy algorithm probably sets the bar pretty low. It would be interesting to simulate.
jasonisalive 12y ago
Attempts to artificially control prices for a scarce asset in the names of protecting equality will always fail. Prices will inevitably rise to their market level, the only difference is whether the owner of the good (the city) will reap the full benefit of the transaction, or whether the fruits will be split between (initially) secondary sellers and (later) law enforcement efforts. The most important effect is that the incentives that might have favoured innovation to improve the efficiency of the use of the good and offer affordable alternatives are distorted in favour of incentives which favour unscrupulous competition for arbitrage gains.
- curmudgeon224 12y ago
  Well - ignoring the fact that city maintained street parking is a public resource - I believe you are ignoring the cost of time (of the person searching for parking) in your analysis which, in effect, creates a perfect market equilibrium....or something.
  - jasonisalive 12y ago
    A scarce resource is a scarce resource. It doesn't matter what intentions it was made with, or what rhetoric is used to justify a clearly defective pricing strategy.
  - judk 12y ago
    time spent looking for parking is waste, aka deadweigt lost. Better to transfer money (zero sum) than waste time (negative sum)
- taybin 12y ago
  [Citation Needed]

asdfologist 12y ago

Should the city start charging market rate for schools, parks, and libraries?

jasonisalive 12y ago
Why not?
- walterbell 12y ago
  Libraries are a form of insurance against the societal costs of illiteracy, which is related to crime. http://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/if-you-want-to-see-the-sharing-economy-go-to-the-library/ http://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/if-you-wa... --- Though the library may appear to be free, the truth is quite different; it is not that the library borrower is getting things for free, it is that they have already paid. Libraries are the result of a community pooling resources (often gathered through taxes) for the funding and purchasing of materials that are then made available to all members of that community. ... Just as a community invests in infrastructure like roads, bridges and water management systems – a community invests in a library. Libraries, if you will, represent educational and intellectual infrastructure. A recognition that just as a road makes it easier to reach your destination, so too does access to information enable one to complete a journey of another sort. ... what occurs in a library is the development and maintenance through the economy of a genuine structure for sharing. Numerous people contribute a little and from this are able to get a lot, but the value they extract from their investment is not in the form of a sack of money with a dollar sign on it, but a larger social value. It is a value that would be diminished by turning it simply into a profit-generating scheme. ---
  - jasonisalive 12y ago
    Well that's very rousing, but only someone working for a chronically underfunded and at-risk institution would feel the need to write such flowery prose. If I was a rich taxpayer whose money was on the line I don't think I would be convinced.

joe_the_user 12y ago

* SF has a large number of private parking garages. Anyone willing to pay market rate can use them. The city is choosing to charge the rate that it finds most useful. * The existence of the app in no way demonstrates that the city doesn't charge market rate. The people who "sell" their parking spaces in the app don't have the same cost structure as the city since, among other things, they don't actually own these parking spaces and are simply engaging in a scam.

ugexe 12y ago
Are these factual statements or conjecture? Someone else stated the city is working in charging market rate in some areas, which doesn't mesh with the statement that the city is currently charging what is most useful for them
- joe_the_user 12y ago
  Of course the city is charging what they feel is most useful to them, for whatever reasons they choose. The statement is true virtually by definition. The city may not be charging you think is most to it, but hey, the city probably isn't concerned with what lone hackers somewhere think, why should it be.

evanb 12y ago

Related 99% Invisible episode: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-08-99-free-parking/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-08-99-free-par...

judk 12y ago
Classic book: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking.html?id=WBe3AAAAIAAJ http://books.google.com/books/about/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Pa...