[HN Gopher] The Prophet of Parking: A eulogy for the great Donal...
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The Prophet of Parking: A eulogy for the great Donald Shoup
Author : herbertl
Score : 309 points
Date : 2025-02-12 16:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.worksinprogress.news)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.worksinprogress.news)
| davidw wrote:
| Oregon eliminated burdensome parking regulations in most larger
| cities and: it's fine.
|
| Many home builders still add parking to new projects because
| there is market demand for it - and they are also competing for
| tenants or buyers against existing housing which has parking.
|
| But there is now the flexibility to do some projects without
| parking, which really helps at the affordable end of the
| spectrum, and is a good fit for more walkable locations.
|
| BTW, Nolan Gray, cited as the author, has a book out himself
| that's really approachable and good reading if you're interested
| in cities: https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Often "flexibility" simply becomes providing less parking to
| make room for more units on a given lot, effectively
| outsourcing to the surrounding community.
|
| I lived in an area that allowed "senior" developments for 55+
| people. As old people are all retired and so do not
| commute/drive, there were far fewer necessary parking spots and
| the development was deemed not to increase local traffic.
| Without the need to commute to work, upgrades to mass transit
| were deemed unnecessary. Total BS. All the care providers and
| visiting families ended up parking at the nearby mall. And
| retired people still drive. They don't commute to work but they
| don't sit still at home all day either. The whole pack of lies
| was simply a way to bypass parking regs and squeeze more condos
| onto the lot to the detriment of the surrounding community.
| davidw wrote:
| Malls usually have huge, empty parking lots, so it sounds
| like it's a win:
|
| More people got a home to live in that costs less, and some
| formerly squandered land was better utilized.
|
| And if you start doing other things like legalizing corner
| stores and neighborhood businesses, rather than designing
| everything for the automobile Uber alles, maybe some of those
| people will find they don't need a car.
|
| Also, policy changes almost never happen in one nice tidy
| package where you do all the things at once, like eliminating
| expensive and arbitrary parking rules, adding a bunch of
| transit, re-legalizing neighborhood commercial, right-sizing
| roads, etc... so there are going to be fits and starts and
| bumps along the way. Still worth doing though.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| To be fair, those mall parking lots were busy at one point
| in history.
| davidw wrote:
| Strong Towns had people take pictures on 'Black Friday'
| of mall parking lots, just to see. Many of them still had
| a ton of excess capacity.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I meant history like 1993, not history like several
| months ago.
| comte7092 wrote:
| So you make the street parking paid.
|
| It's insane that so much land is dedicated to giving people
| free space to store their personal vehicles.
|
| "But that's unfair!" People can take the bus.
|
| "But the bus service isn't good!" That's because no one uses
| the bus, if there's demand, supply will be added. The biggest
| determinant of transit use is the availability of parking.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Try working in care. Try doing home care for maybe five or
| six different elderly clients every day, each at a random
| location. If we want to support elderly people we need to
| provide for the poorly-paid care providers who must bounce
| around doing that support. Telling them to take the bus is
| about as effective as telling Amazon to abandon delivery
| vans in favor of bicycles.
| amrocha wrote:
| This edge case that you came up with warrants a car, but
| is that really the reality of most cars parking in any
| given community?
|
| And honestly, it's questionable whether it warrants a car
| too. In Tokyo it would be perfectly fine to do those
| trips by public transport. My biweekly cleaner gets
| around by train to all the places she works at. And local
| delivery companies all use bicycles for last mile
| delivery.
|
| Maybe that's not viable right now, but I think that's the
| point of Donald's advocacy. By not pricing parking
| correctly we provide perverse incentives as a society
| that lead us down a vicious cycle. Free parking means
| more cars means less transit ridership means we need more
| free parking, and repeat.
|
| This shapes our cities into places that prioritize cars
| over humans. High housing costs, air pollution, less
| mobility, less freedom.
|
| If you price parking appropriately, you get a virtuous
| cycle instead. Expensive parking means less driving means
| more transit ridership means more free parking slots
| means more room for other development, etc.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It is not an "edge case" in a development for 55+s. And,
| with the shifting economic, we will soon see a great many
| more seniors growing old in condos rather than detached
| houses.
| amrocha wrote:
| To be fair I don't know how often elderly care workers
| are going to 6 different locations in a single day, but
| it's hard to imagine it's a very common thing. If there's
| a large condo with lots of residents wouldn't it be more
| efficient to hire a permanent employee?
| davidw wrote:
| This is a great example of a specific problem with a
| specific solution that people use as an excuse to try and
| impose blanket, one-size-fits-all city-wide rules for
| automobile storage.
| andrepd wrote:
| Giving _viable alternatives to driving_ (be that
| cycleways or public transport) reduces traffic, and
| reducing traffic makes it easier for people that actually
| DO need to drive motor vehicles.
|
| >Telling them to take the bus is about as effective as
| telling Amazon to abandon delivery vans in favor of
| bicycles.
|
| Ironic that you bring this up as an absurd example, when
| this is exactly what happens in dense cities with good
| cycling infrastructure (Holland, Denmark, etc).
| komboozcha wrote:
| This must be why Europe just kills everyone over age 75,
| since it is impossible to support the elderly without
| 12-lane highways and subsidized gasoline.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > That's because no one uses the bus, if there's demand,
| supply will be added.
|
| You need to solve this problem _before_ you take away
| parking, not after. Otherwise people will never accept your
| proposal (and nor should they tbh, as there 's no guarantee
| that the promised supply will arrive). Right now people
| are, by and large, content with the status quo. In a
| democratic system of government, that means you need to
| convince them to change, and that won't happen unless you
| address their objections in advance.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| People parking cars on the street are simply freeloading
| off the taxes of people who don't do that. They should
| pay for what they are using, so they can make better
| choices.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| And people living without parking, but who still expect
| the services of plumbers, carpenters, pizza delivery,
| amazon vans, taxis, home care workers, not to mention
| emergency services, are also freeloaders. When such
| vehicles have to park on the street they block roads and
| pedestrian traffic.
|
| Some communities are starting to enforce against amazon
| trucks that park inappropriately on the street. They
| often force traffic into dangerous situations as everyone
| must skirt around them.
| c22 wrote:
| None of us are freeloaders. We all pay taxes and consume
| our own unique constellation of public resources. It's
| good that we're all different, concentration rarely ends
| well.
| matsemann wrote:
| People often say this when parking spots are being taken
| away, but when they try to placate it with having short
| time parking spots or paid parking (which would increase
| the likelihood of a pizza driver or handyman finding a
| free spot) they somehow aren't happy. As it turns out, it
| was never about those services, only about having free
| storage for their own car.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| To add, somehow in Europe you can have pedestrian zones
| with no street parking, and still people live there and
| everyone has functioning plumbing.
| amrocha wrote:
| Well, there's a lot of people in this thread not content
| with the status quo.
|
| The whole urbanism movement of the past decade is
| evidence of that I think.
|
| Moreover, even if a community is happy with free parking
| and expensive housing within that community, it doesn't
| mean that people outside that community are happy with
| it.
|
| I think it's a bit more complicated than people are happy
| with the status quo.
| uoaei wrote:
| This same logic applies for every single other proposal
| (charge money for on-street parking, etc.). Many people
| would not be able to afford to live where they already do
| if that change was done overnight.
| jhanschoo wrote:
| > You need to solve this problem before you take away
| parking, not after.
|
| Isn't pricing street parking the solution the parent
| comment proposed? It increases parking availability in
| the short term, while increasing demand for public
| transport.
| lmm wrote:
| > You need to solve this problem before you take away
| parking, not after.
|
| If you can't change anything then you can't change
| anything. Replacing parking spaces with bus lanes can be
| a huge improvement, but obviously you have to take the
| parking space away before you can put the bus lane in.
|
| > Right now people are, by and large, content with the
| status quo.
|
| Boomers might be. Young people who have no hope of ever
| owning a home anywhere where the jobs are aren't.
| friendzis wrote:
| > "But the bus service isn't good!" That's because no one
| uses the bus, if there's demand, supply will be added. The
| biggest determinant of transit use is the availability of
| parking.
|
| Public transport is not some enterprise, but rather public
| service. It's literally in the name. You flip the chicken
| and egg problem around with corporate bs: make public
| transport usable and use will skyrocket.
| komboozcha wrote:
| Funny how you consider less parking to be outsourcing, but
| you wouldn't consider free parking to be subsidizing.
| Curious.
| m463 wrote:
| There's gotta be some middle ground. I think of san francisco,
| where the streets are clogged with people circling the block
| and folks are double parked everywhere.
| joshlemer wrote:
| The solution, as Donald Shoup advocated, is to raise (or in
| some cases, lower, and in general, have it be dynamic)
| parking rates to market-clearing prices for parking spots
| such that there are is always one (but not too much more)
| free spot available on the block.
| immibis wrote:
| How does this benefit poor people who could barely afford
| their homes and can barely afford to commute to their job
| halfway across the city by car?
|
| If applied to an area that _already_ is only middle-class
| people, then sure.
|
| Or resident parking permits.
| davidw wrote:
| Part of what it allows is _more housing_ (something that
| places like San Fran fail miserably at) because it 's not
| constrained by having to provide 1.5 spots per bedroom or
| whatever arbitrary number.
|
| And more housing is what is needed to contain housing
| costs.
| vorador wrote:
| Most poor people don't own their house and often don't
| have a car - if you do own both you're middle class.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| That's true but I'm not really worried about them. I'm
| worried about the people who are doing everything right
| and about to not be poor. Increasing the cost of every
| rung of the ladder, like for example slogging out a
| shitty commute and parking situation for some time
| decreases the number of people who make it up the ladder.
| It's almost like a pseudo welfare cliff. Public policy
| should strive to avoid doing stuff like that.
|
| I'm of the opinion that when public goods are cheap
| enough to face shortages all the time the market economy
| steps up because better off people will spend more to
| save time/hassle.
|
| The problem is when things are expensive enough to kick
| out a lot of people, but not enough people actually
| alleviate shortage, which is basically how it currently
| goes with parking.
| komboozcha wrote:
| The market economy has solved none of these problems, and
| I suggest looking up just how socioeconomically mobile
| people in the US really are (it's not great).
| wat10000 wrote:
| Price parking at the market rate. Demand for other forms
| of transportation increase substantially. Provide it.
| Poor people can now take cheap buses and trains instead
| of expensive cars.
|
| If you're worried about the transition, subsidize other
| forms of transport and build that out first, but forcing
| poor people to own cars just to make it to work is not a
| good way to help them.
| rob74 wrote:
| Price parking at the market rate. Political competitor
| criticizes you for being an "eco-dictator" and promises a
| return to free parking. You lose the next election.
|
| Sorry for the cynicism, I'm actually _for_ increasing the
| price of parking, but recent political events have robbed
| me of any illusions that environmentally friendly
| policies have a future. When they have a choice between
| the environment and paying less money (short-term), most
| people will choose paying less money.
| lmm wrote:
| > Increasing the cost of every rung of the ladder, like
| for example slogging out a shitty commute and parking
| situation for some time decreases the number of people
| who make it up the ladder. It's almost like a pseudo
| welfare cliff.
|
| No, it's the opposite. A city built around everyone
| having a car makes car ownership a cliff. Normalising not
| having a car (and a reliable bus service - like the kind
| you get by turning street parking spaces into bus lanes -
| helps with that) makes the ladder gentler. If people are
| late for work because they couldn't find a parking spot
| just as often as people are late because the bus was late
| or didn't show, maybe there will be fewer horror stories
| of people getting fired because their car broke and they
| couldn't afford to get it fixed.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| > most poor people don't have a car
|
| Outside of maybe a couple urban areas like NYC, that's
| patently untrue in the United States. It would not
| surprise me if the poor frankly had more and
| older/rougher cars than their more wealthy counterparts.
| harryh wrote:
| The solution to poor people not having enough money is to
| give them more money (if you really want to help them).
|
| It's not to make random consumer goods like parking free
| for all. If you do this, most of the goods will be used
| by people who are not poor, so it's very inefficient at
| helping you achieve your goal of helping poor people.
|
| In addition, many poor people won't want the thing you
| are making free. In the case of parking that could be
| because they don't own a car, so this plan doesn't help a
| portion of the population you are trying to help. Even
| more inefficient!
|
| When people think we should have free parking to help the
| poor, it's mostly just status quo bias at work. Most
| people would never say that we should make bread free. Or
| that we should make milk free. Parking isn't any
| different.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| I know this probably doesn't add a lot to the
| conversation but for me it articulated and cleared some
| inconsistencies I was failing to square up in my mind.
| So, nice, thanks. Do you have any books or articles that
| helped you in your analysis, I wonder?
| harryh wrote:
| You're welcome!
|
| The topical book to recommend here is obviously The High
| Cost of Free Parking.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-
| Updated/dp/193...
| davidw wrote:
| It's quite a big book. Henry Grabar's book, mentioned
| elsewhere, is apparently more approachable.
| ryantgtg wrote:
| It's big, but it's very clearly written and you can
| likely understand the entire premise after a few
| chapters.
| sdwr wrote:
| You're missing the trade-off between time and money (and
| how it differs based on wealth).
|
| "Free for all" parking spaces allow you to trade your
| time (hunting a spot) for parking, the same way coupon-
| clipping trades time for a discount on food.
|
| You can say "eliminate coupons, all food should be at
| market price", but coupons really are an effective way of
| helping people. They segment the market by being too
| time-consuming for wealthy people to bother with, and are
| a job for people who don't have a higher-paying one.
| dnissley wrote:
| This is only true if you completely discount the very
| significant cost of owning a motor vehicle.
|
| The closest option to truly free continues to exist and
| has always existed: walking
| dml2135 wrote:
| And, unlike with food so much of the time, in this case
| the cheaper option is also healthier.
| 5040 wrote:
| You can trade your time for goods, but others might trade
| money for time. Something to think about maybe.
|
| _Free Shakespeare in the Park is a New York City civic
| tradition dating back to the 1950s. It is, as the name
| suggests, free to the public, but because Central Park's
| Delacorte Theater has a finite number of seats, tickets
| are given out on a first come, first served basis. Some
| folks, who either can't or don't want to stand in line to
| get tickets, have taken to employing line-standers to do
| the waiting for them. According to Sandel, the price for
| a line-stander in 2010 was "as much as $125 per ticket
| for the free performances"_
| wat10000 wrote:
| That's not why coupons exist, though, it's just a side
| effect. If coupons didn't exist and your goal was to help
| poor people eat, coupons would be a weird way to do it.
| sdwr wrote:
| Why is it weird? It's a lot like the 10c can and bottle
| levy. Ostensibly for recycling, but also gives homeless
| people a job. Sneaks under the radar of regular-sized
| market forces, and gives them some agency in their lives.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's pretty badly targeted. Lots of poor people don't
| have much time, and lots of better off people have lots
| of time and enjoy things like screwing around with
| coupons to get a discount. It also doesn't do much for
| extreme poverty. If you have no money, it doesn't matter
| if you can get a coupon for half off a loaf of bread or
| whatever, you still can't afford it. So you end up giving
| more help to people who need it less.
|
| If you want to help poor people buy food, give them money
| to buy food.
| harryh wrote:
| Let's go back to may example of bread and milk.
|
| Would argue for getting rid of SNAP and replacing it with
| a convoluted system where poor people could get free food
| but they had to spend hours hunting for just the right
| coupons to exchange? I would hope not. It might help the
| poor, but would be a really crappy way of doing so.
|
| Free parking certainly might help the poor a teensy bit.
| But it's an incredibly bad way of doing so that comes
| with all kind of other bad side effects.
|
| If helping the poor is our goal, that is not a good way
| of doing so. You're better off charging a market rate for
| parking and then taking that money and giving it to poor
| people.
| cratermoon wrote:
| > Would argue for getting rid of SNAP and replacing it
| with a convoluted system where poor people could get free
| food but they had to spend hours hunting for just the
| right coupons to exchange?
|
| Sounds almost exactly like the argument made here
| https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/citizen-
| coup...
| decimalenough wrote:
| > _a convoluted system where poor people could get free
| food but they had to spend hours hunting for just the
| right coupons to exchange_
|
| You've just described how rationing in Eastern Bloc
| countries worked.
| cratermoon wrote:
| > too time-consuming for wealthy people to bother with,
| and are a job for people who don't have a higher-paying
| one.
|
| What makes you think poor people have more free time than
| wealthy people?
| rob74 wrote:
| That makes a lot of sense, but (mostly conservative)
| politicians still criticize many innovations because of
| their supposed effect on the (more or less) poor. Recent
| example: the 2023 reform of the Gebaudeenergiegesetz
| (Building Energy Law) in Germany, which sought to promote
| energy efficient ways of heating and decrease heating
| using fossil fuels, was met with furious opposition
| (including a lot of disinformation) from the conservative
| press and parties because of the poor poor building
| owners who can't afford a heat pump (which is more
| expensive to install, but already has much lower
| operating costs, which are likely to become comparatively
| even better in the future).
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >If you do this, most of the goods will be used by people
| who are not poor,
|
| Why does it seem as though some people believe there is
| an infinite supply of rich people?
|
| Income disparity is so great that the cost of parking is
| irrelevant to the mythical army of rich people waiting
| off to the side for parking prices to come down.
|
| I'm not even in the 99%, I'm in the 97% and I don't give
| a fuck about parking. I'm driving downtown to buy a $600
| Barbour jacket from Orvis. I don't care about $20 for
| parking and I'm not coming downtown more often if parking
| is $0.
|
| >Most people would never say that we should make bread
| free. Or that we should make milk free.
|
| If you are poor milk and bread should 100% be free.
|
| Support for SNAP (food stamps) routinely and consistently
| polls at >70%.
|
| People who assert what you just did are in the extreme
| minority.
| tikhonj wrote:
| SNAP doesn't make food free in the sense of free parking,
| it _gives money to poor people to buy food_. The
| equivalent for parking would be market-rate parking with
| means-tested parking vouchers, which would be a much,
| _much_ better solution than what we have now.
| harryh wrote:
| Making milk and bread free for everyone != making milk
| and bread free for poor people by giving them SNAP.
|
| The former is bad, for all the reasons I described. The
| latter is good!
| joshlemer wrote:
| It benefits the poor by allocating resources as
| efficiently as possible. If there is someone who is poor
| enough that they need help from society/the government,
| it would be much more effective to transfer money
| directly to the, rather than very very poorly (probably
| regressively in fact) target that help by having the
| public subsidize parking on their block.
|
| They would rather have the $100 in efficient
| redistribution rather than the government spend $100 so
| that they can benefit by $1.
| spamizbad wrote:
| You can't means-test a parking space. You could, in
| theory, set parking prices based on the value of the land
| its by.
| lmm wrote:
| You can means-test a parking permit. It's dumb, but some
| cities do.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Rather than implementing all these complex and weird
| rules, you can just ensure everyone has enough money to
| afford the essentials.
| jonstewart wrote:
| One of the ways it benefits them is by reducing traffic
| congestion so buses can get through. A significant amount
| of traffic in parking-contested areas is from cars
| looking for parking.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| That's a necessity, but I'd also add legalizing
| construction of dedicated parking structures in more
| places. Land is at a premium in any desirable place and
| street parking is a lot less efficient usage of that than a
| multi-level parking structure. As a driver I also prefer
| them. Circling around blocks is a waste of time and
| annoying and my car is safer in a dedicated building that
| typically has some cameras
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This is not really because parking lots are not legalized
| (they are, and in fact are often required) but because
| structured parking is so expensive to build; $25-35k per
| space in an above ground garage and $35-50k per space
| underground. https://dcplm.com/blog/cost-of-building-a-
| parking-garage/
|
| The only place I'm aware of that bans new parking garages
| in the US is Manhattan, which has a general parking cap;
| but providing enough spaces for the actual car travel
| demand to Manhattan would necessitate leveling the whole
| island and then some, so the policy is there to get
| people to stop driving to a narrow, congested island.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I am pretty sure that most areas here in Portland
| affected by the shortage of parking aren't zoned to allow
| building a parking structure. I haven't looked this up
| though. Edit: It's not downtown here that has this
| problem, but smaller, hip neighborhoods where you have a
| shopping street surrounded by an ocean of SFHs
|
| If high cost is the issue, it seems like people are
| complaining about lack of parking but don't want it
| enough to pay the real, unsubsidized price. So why should
| everyone else pay for them?
| lmm wrote:
| > it seems like people are complaining about lack of
| parking but don't want it enough to pay the real,
| unsubsidized price.
|
| That's exactly what it is. The normalization of "free"
| street parking does a lot of damage here.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| > $25-35k per space
|
| Seems unreasonably high.
| davidw wrote:
| It's about right from what I've seen. "The high cost of
| free parking" isn't just an ironic title.
|
| https://cityobservatory.org/the-price-of-parking/ - and
| this is from before the pandemic.
| bbradley406 wrote:
| You might think so at first glance, but if you multiply a
| regular parking space (9' x 18', 162 sq ft) by the median
| price per sq ft of a normal house ($244) you get $36288.
| Obviously these figures are specific to the US, but cars
| take up more space than you think, either because we're
| usually inside them or because we're just used to it.
|
| For a whole parking garage you need many large I-beams,
| tons of concrete, frequently elevators are added, etc.
| Not surprising builders opt out of including them when
| they can.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| A parking garage also needs a gigantic ramp since cars
| don't really use stairs.
| davidw wrote:
| Cars are about as healthy as Daleks are for cities.
| throwup238 wrote:
| At least here in California the big driver is Prop 13.
| The flat parking lots all over Los Angeles have been
| owned by the same people for decades, usually since the
| 70s or earlier, so they're paying a few thousand bucks in
| property tax while absolute raking in cash - they can
| usually meet their obligations with a _week_ of revenue
| and the constant cash flow is a guaranteed lever for
| credit and loans. Selling or redeveloping the lots would
| trigger a reassessment, so the owners just keep them as
| the cash cow they are.
|
| I have a friend who inherited three such lots in downtown
| ($$$) and he lives very comfortably off just that revenue
| because their _old_ assessments totaled under a million
| so they never got reassessed (though the rules have
| become far less generous with Prop 19).
| dashundchen wrote:
| A good very argument for a taxing the value of the land
| instead of the improvements/building.
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| All my homies are georgists
| tga_d wrote:
| I've also heard that it's popular as a literal cash-heavy
| business. This allows it to be used for manipulating tax
| filings, in both directions: laundering other income, or
| under-reporting profits.
| donavanm wrote:
| Im in Sydney AU and parking spots are more like 50-100k.
| In the city center, or desirable suburbs you might see
| $150-200k. The city has also restricted parking permits
| to 1/residential address, and eliminated them for
| businesses.
|
| This has all been more-or-leas fine, with residential
| prices factoring in parking, and multi-tenant
| developments pulling in density via car stackers and the
| like. Oh, and a pretty functional transit system, of
| course.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| Boston also has a longstanding parking space freeze
| downtown.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.boston.gov/departments/environment/air-
| pollution...
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| When I last worked in Boston (decades ago... pre Big
| Dig), I shared a spot with a coworker (we alternated
| days) that was $600 a month for parking (total).
| boogieknite wrote:
| my solution is to look both ways before flipping the
| windshield wipers up on a double parked villain
| emmelaich wrote:
| The other part is to make public transport more appealing.
| n4r9 wrote:
| And cheaper! A roundtrip 10 min bus ride into town costs
| my family PS6. That's more expensive than driving in and
| parking for 3-4 hours.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Is there at least seats available? As shouldn't public
| transport too be market clearing. So price should be high
| enough that there is always empty room in busses and the
| busses fully pay for themselves.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Usually yeah. London has buses every 10 mins on most
| routes. It can get very crowded at rush hour or school
| run time though. Several groups (OAPs, kids, disabled
| people...) get discounted or free bus passes which I
| wouldn't want to change.
|
| Don't get me wrong - London public transport is
| _fantastic_. Extensive, frequent, convenient, and multi-
| modal. But the pricing is quite static so that people who
| use it for short inner-city journeys lose out a bit.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| Yes, the system developed as it did for a reason, some of
| the more obscure being: + entrenched rent-seekers
| controlling properties in cities (it's almost axiomatic)
| + centralized transportation systems being subject to
| political and labor capture-- the main purpose is not
| great customer service + red tape in urban areas for
| everything + market forces created last-resort poor
| quality housing in cities + the car vs transit battle is
| winner-take-all at a neighborhood level, and transit does
| not compete properly on a metro or regional level, nor is
| the park-and-ride system fully competitive + car-
| compatible density negates transit density + different
| ownership model for rolling stock leads to over-
| investment for cars and under-investment for transit (you
| buy the car you personally can afford and it sits idle
| while you ride the subway car your grandparents'
| generation was willing to pay for collectively )
| ericmay wrote:
| I think you are right and this is one of my issues with
| busses in most American cities. Basically, it's just
| going to be viewed as a worse version of your car. You
| have to create a categorical change and that's best
| achieved with rail, biking, and walking which can't be
| replicated by cars or busses. This doesn't mean we
| shouldn't have bus routes or anything, that's not great
| either, but we need to break the habit of hopping on/in
| motor vehicles if we want to see change.
|
| But also, we need to actually _fund_ public
| transportation. In most states the amount of funding
| allocated toward non-car infrastructure amounts to a
| rounding error.
|
| So what can be done?
|
| Write to your representatives at your city, county, and
| state level. When your state's department of
| transportation issues surveys or maps for feedback make
| sure to give feedback! If there are other opportunities
| where your local leaders are engaging with the public
| just mention you'd like to see better transit and walking
| infrastructure to reduce cost for taxpayers and increase
| quality of life. Ask for a meeting. Ask for explanations.
| Ask questions and keep asking questions.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Of course, the backlash to that will be "so parking is only
| for the rich?"
|
| Same as when we built express highways and priced the tolls
| to demand - see the complaints about "Lexus lanes".
|
| Capitalism is still the least-bad way of allocating a
| scarce resource, but of course those who get priced out
| will be unhappy.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| The rich use helicopters...
| xnx wrote:
| I wonder if Waymo will get big enough in San Francisco to
| affect this.
| gopalv wrote:
| > Waymo will get big enough in San Francisco to affect this
|
| SF public transportation is "good enough" that owning a car
| in SF is already a decision outside of pure transportation
| needs.
|
| I lived in SoMA for 2+ years without a car using ZipCar
| occasionally to drive to SouthBay, which was cheaper than
| the car payment, insurance and the parking fee put
| together. Plus my commute was to Palo Alto which was neat
| because every Caltrain out of SF stopped in PA in the
| mornings, I used the bullets both ways every day.
|
| Bicycles got me and my partner everywhere, faster and more
| conveniently (including in a bus or BART). We even went by
| to Napa on the ferry with bikes on it (once the Vine Trail
| cycle path connects all the way to Vallejo, I want to do it
| again - for now you can put your bike on a bus from
| Vallejo, no problem).
|
| The Lyft would be used for the Costco runs or to lug things
| out of Tech Shop back home, when working on something
| bulkier.
|
| Then I had a kid + moved to Mission bay which was still
| great for my Caltrain commute, but the kid changed the way
| I could just grab an Uber. There was no travelling light
| anymore.
|
| I struggled to use a cab because we had to drag stroller
| car-seat everywhere we went with the kid and often even
| when didn't have the kid, because you'd pick them up on the
| way back.
|
| The car was bought, even though it was a bad deal
| financially simply because it offered a fixed set of
| storage items we always had.
|
| Even getting from location to location, the car was the
| slower option, it didn't make any sense except to serve as
| a home base for all things you needed to have with you.
| trhway wrote:
| yep. People railing against cars are usually the younger
| ones without kids, pets, etc. So they don't understand
| the value of the car from their own experience, nor able
| to put themselves into the shoes of others due to that
| egoism of the youth (i've naturally been there myself :).
| davidw wrote:
| I'm a nearly 50 year old dude and cars are awful
| _because_ I have kids and want to leave them a better
| city and planet.
|
| They are massive sources of CO2 right now.
|
| Even electric cars produce a lot of particulate matter
| from tires.
|
| They crowd out housing and businesses when we require
| their needs be addressed first and foremost.
|
| It's not so much a matter of a binary choice either for
| most people. You can use a car less and still have one
| for that occasional hiking trip or something.
| trhway wrote:
| Do you have a car? If you don't - respect for putting
| money where you mouth is. If you do - what is the point
| of your glorious virtue signaling statement when your
| actions confirm what I said?
| mperham wrote:
| Jesus https://i.kym-
| cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/036/647/Scr...
| trhway wrote:
| >Jesus
|
| Not surprisingly that you mentioned it, preaching and
| enforcing virtues - let's get rid of the cars - upon
| others while enjoying the opposite vice yourself -
| driving a car - is at the core of the Christianity.
| daedrdev wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| I feel like you are really running against the spirit of
| HN with this comment.
| daedrdev wrote:
| And electric cars still produce a lot of CO2 in
| manufacturing, to the point that though an electric car
| is a reduction in CO2, its on the same order of magnitude
| of an gas car for regular usage.
| epistasis wrote:
| That's not true at all. There's a bit more CO2 during
| manufacture, at the moment, but a single year of driving
| and the EV has caught up to a gas car on emissions. Given
| that lifetime of cars is multiple decades now, the
| savings are huge for EVs.
| daedrdev wrote:
| https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric-emissions
|
| I think I overstated my case, its not as bad as I
| thought.
| andrepd wrote:
| Much the contrary. Like another post has said, I don't
| want to leave as inheritance to my kids a polluted planet
| and cities _stuffed_ with dangerous cars.
|
| But it's not only that. Quality of life is _precisely_
| the kids being able to just cycle to school and sports
| with their friends, rather than being stuck on the back
| of an SUV in traffic for hours every day, being driven
| around by their parents.
|
| I have lived in places where the former lifestyle is
| available and where the latter is mandated. There is NO
| QUESTION which one is better. That's why I'm working to
| campaign very hard for this to be a reality where I live
| in ~10 years time :)
| trhway wrote:
| You describe my childhood in USSR. I don't see it
| repeating at any meaningful scale. I do dream though,
| while slowly working on human carrying electric VTOL,
| that we'll get to the world with residential
| neighborhoods kind of like golf-courses - a lot of green
| space with minimum paved paths for short hops (and last
| mile various cargo) on electric "golf-carts"/etc. while
| electrically-VTOL-ing to any destination farther than
| 5-10 miles.
| jabl wrote:
| Parents driving kids to school and hobbies seem to be an
| almost uniquely American obsession. I live in an affluent
| not-USA country and my kids go to school and hobbies by
| walking/bike/bus. If I had to chauffeur them around all
| the time my quality of life would go way down.
| andrepd wrote:
| Car dependency is definitely not a US specific thing,
| sadly.
| jabl wrote:
| Of course not, didn't mean to imply that. But the US
| seems to take it to 11.
| andrepd wrote:
| Don't take this the wrong way but I definitely think it's
| "peak hn" to consider that building 1m wide cycle paths
| is somehow just an _impossible_ thing to have, so much so
| that you see some weird scifi vision of flying cars as
| being easier than that.
| the_snooze wrote:
| If anything, cars (and the necessary infrastructure for
| cars) severely limit the independence of children and
| senior citizens. Children often can't get to school
| without their parents driving them. And seniors become
| homebound and isolated sooner when they're no longer able
| to drive themselves to the grocery store and their
| friends.
| trhway wrote:
| >seniors become homebound and isolated sooner when
| they're no longer able to drive themselves to the grocery
| store
|
| large supermarkets (naturally can't be just in every
| small neighborhood) -> efficiency and lower costs. What
| is the point of local (thus small and high priced) store
| that a senior can walk to, yet can't afford to shop at?
| rafram wrote:
| Small stores can be perfectly affordable. National Co+op
| Grocers lets local coops buy from UNFI at a national bulk
| rate, just like the giant chains can. I shop at a member
| store and usually pay less than I would at one of the big
| chains.
| tm-infringement wrote:
| This is simply your gut feeling, smaller (and cheap)
| supermarkets are common basically everywhere outside
| North America. Chile which is in no way rich or some
| urbanist paradise is a specific counterexample, prices
| only go up with specialist stores (e.g Whole Foods
| equivalents) or small business of the size of a parking
| spot in someones home, think like NYC bodegas.
|
| Cars are expensive, the total domination of personal cars
| is only possible if you are a rich country. Much like
| gout.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| You are partly correct to note that local markets are
| often not economical, but the reasons for that are
| precisely low density, car dependence and restrictive
| zoning.
|
| For a local market to be economical it needs a catchment
| area containing enough customers.
|
| Once customers start driving they prefer to drive a bit
| longer to go to a mega market or mall with good parking
| options, i.e. not a local market.
|
| Local markets thus have a catchment area that is defined
| mostly by walking and biking.
|
| (Not having a lot of parking can also help to make local
| markets more economical)
|
| Some important conditions for local markets are then:
|
| 1. Zoning needs to allow the shop to be very close to
| residential areas, and with only few parking spaces.
|
| 2. Residential density needs to be high enough to have a
| large number of customers within walking or biking
| distance.
|
| 3. Walking and biking should be sufficiently safe and
| pleasant.
|
| It is easy to see the why there are few local markets in
| suburban North America, but they are very common in urban
| places all over the world, as well as in thoughtfully
| designed and slightly denser suburbs in many countries.
| ProcNetDev wrote:
| Having kids radicalized me against cars more not less.
| Cars kill kids. Suburban isolates kids from their friends
| and in person activities.
| amrocha wrote:
| Donald's book The High Cost of Free Parking is about this!
| Really great read, highly recommended.
|
| Rest in peace.
| andrepd wrote:
| The only solution to traffic is _viable alternatives to
| driving_. Not more parking, not more lanes, not more parking
| lots, nor more highways, not wider roads. It 's viable
| alternatives to driving.
| komboozcha wrote:
| Aye. Can't have your cake (car) and eat (drive) it, too.
| You just get 40 years of pussyfooting around the problem
| and making it worse.
| maxwellg wrote:
| Shoup wrote a LOT about how charging too little for parking
| leads to everyone using it, which makes parking worse for
| everyone involved. San Francisco charges about $50c a day for
| residential street parking in areas that have a parking
| permit zone - which is decided on a block by block basis.
| Most street parking in SF is completely free.
|
| Raise prices even slightly, and people's behaviors will
| adjust accordingly. I have a friend who street parked two
| cars until he moved to a different neighborhood and had to
| start paying for permits. Now he just keeps his commuter and
| leaves his overlander in the suburbs.
| jeffbee wrote:
| In the case of San Francisco it is a state law that limits
| cities to charging only as much as it costs to administer
| the program. San Francisco cannot have responsive
| residential parking under state law.
| screye wrote:
| California loves kneecapping itself.
|
| I guess the solution would be to make these spots 2/4 hr
| parking, instead of permanent overnight parking for all.
| Or remove parking all together and make it easy to build
| private parking lots.
|
| SF's lack of grade separated transport outside the narrow
| BART corridor also makes it hard to convince people out
| of driving. Buses and trams aren't acceptable
| alternatives for a city as rich and dynamic as SF.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I think they can be more creative. Hire an administrator
| of residential parking and pay them $100 million. Also
| have a special 100% marginal income tax for city
| employees earning over a million.
| yonran wrote:
| No, according to this article by Chris Elmendorf and
| Darien Shanske https://www.spur.org/news/2020-12-18/how-
| solve-transit-budge..., Proposition 218, 26, and the
| California Vehicle Code probably do not prohibit market
| pricing of residential parking permits as endorsed by
| Donald Shoup, since street parking is not just a fee-
| based service, but city-owned land that the city has the
| right to rent at market rate. San Francisco just hasn't
| tried.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Speaking of having not tried, that legal theory could be
| right but it's novel. On the one hand you have
| Elmendorf's hypothesis, and on the other you have every
| city attorney in the state.
| Sloowms wrote:
| What does administer the program mean in this case? Does
| it include the maintenance? It could also include the
| property tax the city pays itself for the valuable land
| that is being kept available.
| jltsiren wrote:
| There are no good solutions for existing neighborhoods with
| street parking. In new or completely redeveloped
| neighborhoods, you can make the streets narrower, the lots
| larger, and the property owners responsible for parking. But
| street parking in existing neighborhoods doesn't scale. If
| the neighborhood is getting more dense with gradual
| redevelopment, every solution to street parking is going to
| feel unfair to one group or another.
|
| You could issue street parking permits to the residents of
| the old properties but not of the new ones. Or you could
| adjust the prices of the permits to achieve the desired
| occupancy rate. Or you could keep parking free, fine
| improperly parked cars, and let the residents decide for
| themselves if the car is worth the inconvenience of finding
| parking.
| wussboy wrote:
| Or you could provide meaningful alternatives to driving,
| which is my preferred solution but has a whole different
| set of problems (mostly zoning-related).
| lmm wrote:
| It's not enough. Driving is always the better option for
| an individual, even in cities with great public
| transport, so you need a bit of stick as well as the
| carrot.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I hear takes like this all the time but it's just not
| true. Even without high parking costs the time and
| frustration expenditure of driving rules out that option
| for a huge fraction of trips.
| lmm wrote:
| > You could issue street parking permits to the residents
| of the old properties but not of the new ones.
|
| London does this and it works well. New buildings have to
| be zero parking, there's some grumbling but residents of a
| new apartment block don't feel so bad when they lose
| something they never had - they know from the day they move
| in that they won't have parking, so if that's going to
| screw them over then they don't move there in the first
| place. And then you gradually reclaim the parking spaces as
| the area is developed.
| ProcNetDev wrote:
| You should actually read Donald's book this is very well
| covered.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| Might be worth taking a drive through formerly "suburb"
| neighborhoods that are now a battle royal for street parking
| thanks to high density units with zero parking.
|
| I mean, it is portland, and they will do it wrong no matter
| what, but still; if you expect the people we've been mass
| producing to handle this well going forward, I've got bad news
| for you.
| davidw wrote:
| People are the "big rocks" in cities. Housing and businesses
| for people is more important than storing automobiles.
|
| If there's not enough free street parking, charge more.
| That's part of what Shoup talked about.
| mperham wrote:
| Portland's problem is that they aren't charging enough (or at
| all) for curb parking.
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| If a city offers land for free, what incentive is there to
| pay for building parking on your property?
|
| Free is always going to outcompete non-free. The answer is to
| get rid of free on street parking.
| komboozcha wrote:
| If only there were other ways to get around in high-density
| areas that didn't necessitate a private vehicle. Could we all
| brainstorm some ideas?
| pkulak wrote:
| Near my house in Portland a 6-unit complex just went up on a
| lot that was vacant for at least a decade prior. Three blocks
| from there they are building at least twice as many units on
| what was an abandoned church and parking lot. Neither project
| provides any parking, and the units are cheap. Something like
| 320k for a brand new 1000 sq-ft build. It's so amazing.
| davidw wrote:
| That's awesome! And, given current prices, a great
| opportunity for someone to own a home they otherwise might
| not have been able to.
|
| Here's an article about some of the other things happening:
| https://www.sightline.org/2023/06/30/parking-mandates-are-
| va...
| noja wrote:
| Does Portland have good public transport?
| 0_____0 wrote:
| It's spread out but I found the bus system very usable when
| I visited.
| pkulak wrote:
| Hit and miss. Good for North America, horrible compared to
| Europe. Where these are located, it's a bit of a train
| desert, but the bus system is pretty good. There are three
| lines within short walking distance, and they go to pretty
| good destinations, and trains.
|
| But on the other end, there's still street parking, and
| it's plentiful. I'd say Portland is a good 1-car city, if
| you're a family. Lot's of stuff is one bus away, but you
| definitely get into situations where some appointment is
| 1:30 away by bus, 20 minutes by car, so it's nice to have
| options. If I was a bachelor, I'd be fine with no car, and
| using a bike or cab when needed.
| friendzis wrote:
| HN on USian real estate / urban development: this experiment
| has been running for two weeks and it's fine.
|
| Also HN on USian real estate / urban development: everyone
| prefers this district developed two hundred years ago, because
| it was not fine.
| throw0101c wrote:
| Shoup passed away on February 6:
|
| * https://parkingreform.org/donald-shoup/
|
| * https://cal.streetsblog.org/2025/02/08/streetsblog-mourns-th...
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43004881
|
| His book:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking
|
| * EconTalk podcast episode:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sgmw3jQcyc
| dkarl wrote:
| > Nor are minimum parking requirements even needed: developers
| have the knowledge and incentives to provide the appropriate
| amount of off-street parking. If a developer builds too little
| parking, she will struggle to attract tenants and command lower
| rents.
|
| This isn't entirely true. In cities where parking requirements
| are eliminated, many new businesses move into locations that
| would have previously been illegal, showing that many commercial
| tenants view parking requirements as excessive.
|
| In my city, judging by public comment, support for parking
| requirements comes not from business owners or developers but
| from voters who fear a lack of parking at the businesses they
| frequent and who fear that parking for nearby businesses or
| apartment buildings will overflow into their neighborhood (the
| horror.)
| triceratops wrote:
| > from voters who fear a lack of parking at the businesses they
| frequent
|
| IOW they want a handout from the city (free parking) to support
| their lifestyles.
| Spivak wrote:
| To a cheesy jingle tune: _public services paid by taxes aren
| 't handouts_.
|
| I don't know why this has caught on so strongly online that
| like water and gas hookups, electric, roads, and trash/yard
| waste pickups to single-family homes aren't supporting a
| specific lifestyle but public parking? Those evil
| suburbanites ruining everything. My hometown Columbus and the
| policy of mandatory parking is still working out great. New
| developments are building more parking than required of them
| and they're the hip trendy areas. The only places in the city
| where it's an issue is in and around "The Short North" where
| you can't fit any more parking and they moved to an app based
| pay system everyone hates. Whenever I'm home and want to go
| out with friends it's much easier to hit up Bridge Park or
| Franklinton because they have massive garages.
| triceratops wrote:
| _Free_ public parking is a handout. I use it myself, I love
| it, I circle the block multiple times for a free space than
| pay for parking. But it is a handout.
|
| Forcing private businesses to have parking, even if they
| make a business decision to not have it, is a tax on those
| businesses. And on all the businesses that would have been
| viable without that tax.
|
| I have no issue with paid public parking. It needs to
| exist.
|
| Or if we love free public services so much, we can talk
| about why public transport isn't free.
| Spivak wrote:
| Does attaching a cost really make a meaningful
| difference? I'm paying for my trash pickup even though
| I'm not directly billed for it. The point if charging for
| public parking is more a rationing mechanism than a moral
| imperative. I think it's annoying to shoulder the cost on
| businesses which is why it's in practice being shouldered
| on the developers who get money from the state so large-
| scale I think it evens out.
|
| I think public transport should be free, keeping on the
| Columbus track I have no idea why COTA even bothers to
| charge. They instituted a monthly price-cap that's at
| most $62/mo and (or at most $31 _plus_ 50% reduction on
| the per-fare cost if you 're broke). And while not an
| insignificant amount of money to the riders it's bottom-
| of-the-bag chip dust to COTA itself. Oh no, more people
| might use the nearly empty busses, the horror.
| timerol wrote:
| Yes, because people respond to incentives. A few dollars
| a month for parking is enough for people to junk their
| broken cars instead of leaving them on the street. A few
| dollars a day is enough to make people reconsider getting
| a second car. A few dollars an hour is enough to make
| people carpool and limit their stay.
|
| The point of charging for parking is not just to collect
| funds, it's to make sure parking is available.
| carmogger wrote:
| You need water and heat to survive; you can have a
| functional city without everyone having three SUVs. Thanks
| for coming to my talk.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _This isn 't entirely true. In cities where parking
| requirements are eliminated, many new businesses move into
| locations that would have previously been illegal, showing that
| many commercial tenants view parking requirements as
| excessive._
|
| That's the entire point though. The parking requirements _are_
| excessive. The businesses _do_ know better. You 're agreeing
| with the article.
| dkarl wrote:
| I don't disagree with much in the article, but I disagree
| with the implication that parking requirements are, or ever
| were, designed to meet the needs of businesses and business
| owners. They aren't. They're driven by voters who want
| businesses to have more parking than business owners would
| pay for, given the choice.
|
| It's an important distinction because of the way arguments
| over parking play out. If parking requirements are engineered
| to match the needs of businesses and business owners, then as
| the article states, they aren't "needed," but also it can be
| argued that there's little harm in mandating what
| conscientious business owners do anyway, and preventing
| outliers from causing problems.
|
| The article does that in its own way by attacking the
| research behind parking requirements, but it fails to take
| the next step and point out the obvious: the research would
| be a lot more solid if anyone believed that it mattered. Even
| if it started out weak by necessity, it would have been
| improved and updated over the decades if anybody cared. But
| there's literally no connection and nobody who cares about a
| connection.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >They're driven by voters who want businesses to have more
| parking than business owners would pay for, given the
| choice.
|
| And even then it's only the vocal minority. Nobody who
| doesn't have an axe to grind shows up to the zoning
| committee meeting on such an item.
|
| A huge amount of specific policy winds up being driven by
| Karens and NIMBYs who will vote for anything that drives up
| cost because it tends to drive out everything that isn't
| Startbucks or similar.
|
| You'll have some policy and the number everyone thinks is
| fine is X but the Karens get to screeching and the number
| goes up to 12 because the people who were ok with 8 are
| also ok with Y but the Karens wouldn't settle for less.
| dkarl wrote:
| Not quite, because parking requirements is one of the few
| issues that is high profile enough that voters remember
| it when it comes time to vote for city council. The
| people who vote in city council elections are a small
| minority, but they're a much bigger group than the
| dedicated and/or crazy folks who show up at meetings.
| rcpt wrote:
| Around me the public comment is often from business owners who
| want to drive to work and park for free.
| regnull wrote:
| > One survey of the literature suggests that drivers in the
| typical American city spend an average of eight minutes looking
| for parking at the end of each trip.
|
| Maybe it's just me, but this doesn't sound realistic at all. If
| there is a place where I would spend eight minutes looking for
| parking, I would rather not go. And that's average, meaning some
| people spending twice as much? 16 minutes to look for parking?
| Who would do that?
| Arainach wrote:
| Consider how many people wait in line or drive a few miles
| further for "cheaper gas" without ever thinking of the value of
| their time, or the cost of gas and wear and tear on their
| vehicles they spend doing so, and that may make this theory
| more plausible for you.
|
| EDIT: An even better comparison is the number of people who
| will sit in a parking lot waiting for someone to vacate a spot
| rather than parking in plentiful available spots another 50-100
| meters away
| pests wrote:
| I don't agree with your edit.
|
| In my area it's freezing cold most of the year. I don't think
| it's unreasonable to wait a minute or two for a spot instead
| of literally walking an extra two football fields in harsh
| weather. Increased fall risk, etc.
| carmogger wrote:
| No such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Seriously,
| 10,000 years of human history without cars and you're
| complaining about a little wind. Get a decent hat; most of
| the country would be absolutely fine.
| pests wrote:
| Not complaining. Just other people might have other needs
| that or they might be in a rush or maybe they would
| rather be warm at home enjoying their hobbies opposed to
| trudging 200 meters through through feet of snow. For
| why? To not wait for two minutes? Are we really so
| impatient that waiting for 2 minutes is somehow seen as a
| waste?
| Arainach wrote:
| Waiting for 2 minutes, idling an engine pumping
| hydrocarbons into the air, because you won't walk a few
| minutes (often a shorter walk in time than the time
| you're waiting) is absolutely lazy and a waste.
|
| People with legitimate handicaps are the minority of
| cases (and are eligible for handicap placards entitling
| them to spaces closer to the entrance), and winter is a
| strawman. The majority are fully mobile people on summer
| days in a Walmart or Costco parking lot waiting minutes
| in a car to save fewer minutes on foot.
|
| I grew up in the midwest when it snowed every winter and
| the number of times there was _actually_ enough ice on
| the ground to be significantly more risky walking than on
| the dryest summer day was at most a few times a year. The
| areas that get snow know how to plan for snow and ice -
| especially businesses who don 't want to get sued by
| litigious people.
| pests wrote:
| Yet the Edge I drive turns off if you idle for more than
| 5 seconds. How is your first sentence relevant?
|
| Sometimes people are in a rush or have somewhere to be.
| It's okay to not walk everywhere. You might cal it lazy,
| I might cal it efficient.
| Arainach wrote:
| >It's okay to not walk everywhere.
|
| The cardiovascular health of Americans strongly suggests
| this is not true.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I just straight up refuse to drive into the nearest big city. I
| will happily take public transit[0] rather than spend 10
| minutes looking for a place to pay $20/hr to park. And I'm the
| only one in my social circle like this. Everyone else will just
| spend the time in the money, even if they could have, for
| example, parked for free at a commuter rail lot and ridden in
| for $5.
|
| [0] which I acknowledge I'm lucky to have
| potato3732842 wrote:
| It's not. It's obviously BS. You'd have to be traveling
| somewhere pretty specific at high demand times, fairly
| frequently spending 15+min or occasionally spending an hour or
| more to get an 8min AVERAGE. That such a situation applies to a
| statistically relevant amount of people simply doesn't pass the
| sniff test.
|
| That said, the inclusion of such BS doesn't really affect the
| overall point of the article.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| I remember my vacation in Spain, 20-30 minutes circling around
| for parking spot each time. Total madness, I'd rather pick
| different place, had I known that.
| hibikir wrote:
| If you spend any time driving in a vacation to Spain,
| something went wrong.
|
| I spend 6 weeks there last summer. I never drove, and our
| only cab was to the airport
| jerlam wrote:
| > If there is a place where I would spend eight minutes looking
| for parking, I would rather not go.
|
| What happens when that place is your own home?
|
| Do you routinely cancel necessary appointments or meetings with
| friends because you cannot find parking?
|
| Eight minutes sounds excessive, but I don't think it's as
| uncommon as people think. Sitting at a traffic light or
| circling a single city block can take five minutes. There are
| paid parking structures which take ten minutes to enter, find a
| space, park, and then exit the structure.
| toast0 wrote:
| I've lived in places where I wouldn't be able to park if I
| drove home late at night. In that case, I wouldn't drive to
| events where I would arrive home late at night. And since
| public transportation tends to be poor late at night, that
| would mean either I'd carpool or not go.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| I bought a truck and now I just park on the grass in those
| situations. Terrible solution, but functional in this city
| :/
| wonder_er wrote:
| This is why I love having my moped. Easy, abundant parking.
| Door to door travel.
|
| I virtually always have a more convenient parking spot than
| the best car parking spot, and it's always available,
| always free, bc my scooter takes 6 square feet to park, or
| less, and is freakishly maneuverable.
|
| Ppl think it's a strange choice, but I think that sentiment
| says more about them than me.
| matsemann wrote:
| Yeah, lots of people underestimate that part of the trip.
| Google says the trip takes 5 minutes, so in the heads of many
| that means it's 5 minutes total. But door to door it's
| probably the double.
|
| I have a mall 10 minutes biking away. "Why bike when it's
| only a 5 minute drive?", well, because I've locked my bike at
| the entrance while you're still circling for parking, and
| then you have a walk to get inside. And my biking is
| consistent, but driving at the wrong time suddenly takes 20
| minutes home due to rush.
| shpongled wrote:
| I believe it. I have seen people circle parking lots multiple
| times or sit parked in the middle of the road waiting for a
| spot to open up rather than just drive another 5 minutes
| farther away and then walk.
|
| I lived in a neighborhood ~5 years ago where I didn't have a
| dedicated parking space. I generally had to park a 10-15 minute
| walk away from where I lived. Many people would rather just
| circle for 15 minutes instead.
| bombcar wrote:
| If you parked 15 minutes away, and they circled for 15
| minutes, they came out ahead - because they would have a
| short walk back to their car, you'd have a 15 minute one.
|
| People like convenience, they don't like being reminded they
| often have to pay for it.
|
| For example, people are willing to pay more for a dedicated
| parking space than they are to pay per use - even if they're
| basically the same.
| carmogger wrote:
| And this is why so many Americans are obese with mobility
| problems. Instead of walking an extra quarter mile, they'll
| circle the block for an hour.
| asdff wrote:
| This gets pushed to a ridiculous degree at costco. They
| actually cause congestion waiting three deep in the rows for
| one spot to open up. Meanwhile I will skirt around them, park
| immediately in the ample available parking around the back
| where the employees take their smoke breaks, and walk right
| into the store probably while they still wait and stew.
| niemandhier wrote:
| Unfortunately some cities forget to provide alternatives:
|
| If you drop parking lot requirements you need to provide people
| with access to a mode of transportation.
| bobtheborg wrote:
| Nope. The article is much more like "if you drop parking lot
| requirements, you need to demand price parking so there are
| always a couple of spots available, drivers have incentives to
| leave, etc."
| niemandhier wrote:
| That holds for shopping and recreational areas.
|
| In residential areas it does not work so well.
|
| The backbone of society is provided by moderately paid
| people: Health workers, construction workers, police
| officers, factory workers.
|
| We must enable these people to get to work. The solution so
| far was: enable them to own a car.
|
| We can choose to let the market handle that: people probably
| will negotiate for higher salaries if cost of living goes up,
| higher salaries will drive prices and the spiral continues.
| rcpt wrote:
| No you don't.
|
| Parking can exist just fine. The only ask is that the person
| parking their car pays for it (instead of everyone else
| paying).
| muttonhead wrote:
| Removing parking requirements doesn't ban parking, it just lets
| the market / builder / business owner decide how much parking
| to provide, instead of wildly over-estimated minimums.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > In another city, nunneries must provide one parking space for
| every 10 nuns. What happened to church vans?
|
| Mocking this doesn't make sense. Ten nuns can fit into one van
| which takes up one parking spot. The van has to go somewhere.
| dudinax wrote:
| Imagine an eleven-nun nunnery. One nun gets to stay home, or
| else the nunnery makes special arrangements for the day. Point
| of the article is that the nunnery should decide for themselves
| whether to have one parking space or two.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| This one's hilarious because it's such a non-issue. I refuse to
| believe there are American cities with enough nunnery
| construction that parking regulations to address overcrowding
| has become a priority for local planners. It's probably just
| the result of someone picking a number for every structure
| covered in some regulatory definition that happened to include
| nunneries.
| bombcar wrote:
| Both that one and the gym one are obvious "exceptions with a
| rough analogue" - the nunnery is allowed _less_ parking than
| would normally be required _because_ of the assumption of
| communal living (the same reason one vehicle per household
| makes more sense than one vehicle per driver when dealing
| with residential units).
|
| And gyms are unlikely to make deeper pools, but longer/wider
| ones, which _would_ support more customers.
|
| And when the regulations were written down, you'd only need
| _one_ nunnery in development or existing or foreseen to make
| the exception appear.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Ah, well if it was humor it was lost on me. Oh well.
| maxwellg wrote:
| The High Cost of Free Parking is a wonderful book and I would
| recommend it to anyone. Parking - and car-centric development -
| shapes our day to day lives in tremendously powerful ways.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| America is a bit strange with its excessive reliance on on-street
| parking. If you really want to reduce car traffic in a city,
| getting rid of on-street parking (or adding metered on street
| parking) would be the way to do that after getting rid parking
| requirements, cities could do it gradually, replacing a line of
| street parking with bike lanes or better pedestrian access.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| There are also large swaths of America where not paying for
| parking is done on principle. I live in SoCal, and the paid
| public parking lots were (until recently) free for an hour,
| then $1.50 per hour after that. I would see things like a BMW
| 7-series circling the blocks looking for a free spot on the
| street.
|
| I ran the math and the lease on a 7-series at the time was
| nearly $1.50/hour!
| ge96 wrote:
| If I go into a city I try not to drive/use Uber.
|
| On the other side of that doing driving gigs (delivery) I
| avoid driving in a city because can't find a place to
| park/don't want to get towed.
| asdff wrote:
| What is crazy about socal is that it's also price insensitive
| to that sort of behavioral shifting one might expect from
| more expensive parking. These days, good luck parking around
| weho without just throwing your hands in the air and paying a
| valet $40 thanks to the byzantine web of local permit zones
| that has emerged in recent years, mostly in mid city and the
| west side for now. It hasn't lessened the amount of people
| going down santa monica blvd or anything, and people
| certainly aren't taking a bus to a $40 plate dinner. Just
| hurts the subset of people who have to get out there for
| whatever reason and can't easily stomach a valet hit in
| stride.
| Apes wrote:
| I really liked Shoup's book. It contains a lot of practical
| advice what causes issues with parking, lays out bad designs that
| promote parking issues, talks through how to resolve these
| issues, and even covers how to sell it in a way that encourages
| people to buy into it.
|
| > San Francisco formally adopted demand-based pricing for curb
| parking in 2017.
|
| > The result was a rare win for San Francisco governance: We know
| from pilot areas that implementing demand-based pricing reduced
| congestion and parking citations while speeding up transit and
| increasing overall sales tax revenue. The program is now widely
| regarded as a model for parking management.
|
| The SFpark program was by all accounts a huge success, and the
| areas where it was implemented feel a lot better off - you can
| actually find parking when you need it, and traffic isn't as bad
| there. I would love to see it put in place in the Sunset and
| Richmond - those areas are almost entirely free parking, and have
| the worst parking in the city.
| gadders wrote:
| In the UK, councils often raise parking costs for high street on-
| street parking and car parks they own. Customers then vote with
| their feet (or wheels) and shop at out of town mega-supermarkets
| where the parking is free.
|
| The councils then complain that their high street is dying.
| lostdog wrote:
| Are the parking lots at the high street full or empty? That's
| the easiest way to understand if they've got the price right.
| switch007 wrote:
| Councils do tend to be pretty conservative at raising prices
| and seem to get it right in my experience
|
| My village is just about to introduce paid parking and I
| don't predict it'll lead to empty car parks. It just means
| those who don't want to pay will park further out and walk.
| Plenty of people willing to pay. Similar story all over the
| UK
|
| People like to blame car parking on the death of the high
| street but to me it seems online shopping, rents and business
| rates are far more contributors to it
| potato3732842 wrote:
| That's just a roundabout wealth transfer from local business
| owners to the government.
|
| Kinda funny how the council is behaving like a medieval lord
| raising taxes but without the ability to tie people to the land
| it doesn't work all that well.
| matsemann wrote:
| How many customers does a street parking outside a business
| really provide? 1 customer an hour? And how many will park
| there and go somewhere else not even visiting the store with
| the curb parking?
|
| Cars don't visit shops, people do. From the amount of visitors
| a store in a street sees, vanishingly little of them comes from
| the few parking spots outside. Metro, buses, cycling however
| brings loads.
|
| Personally I avoid the shopping streets with car traffic. Feels
| hostile and noisy. I go to the shops in pedestrian areas.
| asdff wrote:
| It all comes down to local demographics. In many car centric
| areas, car drivers make up maybe 85% or higher of the
| workforce. And of that 15% of the workforce that doesn't get
| around via a car, they might be making something close to the
| federal poverty line. In other words, for some of these
| downtown businesses if you make it unattractive for drivers,
| you really do dry them out and force them out of business.
| The guy making $15k a year riding the bus isn't interested in
| your $15 sandwich for lunch. You are gone and whats going to
| appear in your wake is probably a place where someone making
| $15k a year could afford for a couple dollar lunch, probably
| something like a 7/11 or a mcdonalds.
|
| In other places, people who use transit or bike around on
| average might be much higher income and could support
| different sort of businesses.
| zelos wrote:
| In my UK village, which has plenty of free off street parking
| 2 minutes walk from the high street, people will park on the
| street outside the shops even if it means interfering with
| traffic or parking on the pavement. People really hate to
| walk.
| tim333 wrote:
| In the town where I sometimes live, Harpenden, England, which
| has had free parking since cars were invented, there is
| currently a battle going on between the council that wants to
| introduce parking charges and the residents who don't want it.
| It's almost entirely about more money for the council.
| languagehacker wrote:
| For folks who don't want to read a tome like The High Cost of
| Free Parking, give Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar a shot. It's a
| lot of the same content, but punchier with a lot fewer facts and
| figures making much the same point.
| xnx wrote:
| Between "ride -share", delivery services (including Amazon), and
| self-driving vehicles, we're likely to experience a glut of
| parking space in the next 10 years.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The city I live in (Ostrava) still has some gaps in downtown
| blocks caused by _WWII bombing_.
|
| One of the problems with filling them in? Burdensome parking
| regulations. Super-absurd, given that the public transport in
| Ostrava is considered one of the Czechia's best, and Czechia has,
| globally taken, very good public transport overall.
|
| In December 2024, parking regulations were significantly drawn
| down (to 16 per cent of the original), and there is hope that
| developers will finally start to build in the gaps. There are
| already some projects on paper.
| iambateman wrote:
| I read the high cost of free parking last year and it permanently
| changed how I see the world.
|
| In particular...the book shows how supply and demand still
| affects behavior, even when we don't culturally like to believe
| that it does.
|
| If you have a say in the parking decisions in your city...please
| read the book. And if not, try to set the parking cost so there
| is, on average, one free space per block. Your city will be a
| better place if you do!
|
| Thanks professor Shoup...rest in peace.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| When I moved to the Portland area, I was amazed by how convenient
| the public transportation system was. During my two years there,
| I drove my car fewer than 50 times.
|
| Yet, nearly every native Portlander I met thought I was crazy for
| relying on public transit. Many looked down on those who used it.
|
| I had moved from the Caribbean, where public transportation was
| nonexistent, and traffic and parking were a constant nightmare.
| To me, Portland's transit system felt like a game-changer--but
| locals didn't seem to see it that way.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| Who hated on the MAX? Other than it being a cattle car pre-
| covid and shutting down at like 10 or 11 everyone I knew liked
| it; There were more and more issues with the homeless, sure,
| but I don't know many portlanders who'd admit that was why they
| didn't like it.
| immibis wrote:
| I think there's some kind of filter bubble effect going on.
| And a little classism. People who use public transit like it
| and think everyone likes it, and people who never use it hate
| it and think everyone hates it. My ex-boss never used public
| transit despite living right next to a train stop, because he
| was rich and trains are for poor people. He probably didn't
| know that's how I got to the office Christmas party (in that
| area).
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| Perhaps, but from my experience, everyone in downtown PDX
| circa ~2015 rode the max to some degree. I am the least
| public transit friendly person in the world and even I rode
| it and loved it.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I left the area in October 2010, so maybe public transit
| became more popular after I was gone. I owned a home in
| SW Portland, about a 15-minute walk from the MAX station.
| That's a perfectly reasonable distance, even in the cold
| or rain.
|
| I never knew where my neighbors worked, but I never saw
| them walking to or parking at the MAX station. None of my
| coworkers used it either.
|
| For me, though, it was invaluable especially when I
| wanted to go out for a few drinks. And since it only ran
| until 10 or 11, it was the perfect excuse for not staying
| out too late.
| nayuki wrote:
| > moved from the Caribbean, where public transportation was
| nonexistent, and traffic and parking were a constant nightmare
|
| Not Just Bikes did a great rant on the carbrain of The Bahamas:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdz6FeQLuHQ
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I was in the V.I for almost 10 years. They have the safari
| system set up but it only runs on the tourist routes. So
| you're out of luck unless you lived on one of the two main
| routes that had the safaris.
|
| When the ports were full of cruise ships, you could expect to
| spend 45+ minutes getting from Charlotte Amalie to Red Hook.
| Sometimes I spent an hour going from Charlotte Amalie to
| Havensight. That was only a distance of about 2 miles.
|
| The V.I is extremely corrupt and the taxi unions there have a
| great deal of influence. That's why the public transportation
| never improved while I lived there.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| yeah, whenever the Cruise ship was in port I just walked
| everywhere on St. Thomas. You aren't going anywhere anyways
| soperj wrote:
| I visited Portland, and ended up using the public transit every
| day there. I can't say that about many US cities I've been to.
| cobertos wrote:
| Ending minimum parking requirements and paying for parking seem
| sound after reading this.
|
| However...
|
| I'm skeptical of demand-based parking pricing after a local
| entertainment company started using it. $5-$100 for parking
| depending on how close the lot is to the venue moderated by big
| TV screens on each lot.
|
| Proper demand measurement requires data and insight. Closeness to
| venue is a reasonable proxy for demand. But what if we could
| price the lot based on who's playing at the venue? An artist with
| wealthier clientele requires it's patrons pay more for parking?
| What if it could use your personal music tastes to upcharge? Or
| perhaps you used the cheap $5 lot for a different destination,
| should there be an upcharge then? The end game of demand-based
| parking, or any demand-based pricing results in more data
| extraction, for better insights, to extract exactly the highest
| amount of money each person is willing to pay. It gives power to
| those with the best data and puts more effort (labor/money) into
| figuring out better ways to get that data.
| recursive wrote:
| > I'm skeptical of demand-based parking pricing after a local
| entertainment company started using it. $5-$100 for parking
| depending on how close the lot is to the venue moderated by big
| TV screens on each lot.
|
| So what's wrong with this? I think most people would opt for
| the $5. If that's the case, that's where people would park. As
| incentivized by the parking structure. I don't see a problem.
| The lot operator can change their algorithm, and parking
| consumers will respond according to their value curve.
| cobertos wrote:
| There are only so many lots within a few blocks of this
| venue. Most are owned by the single company. Parking price is
| not known ahead of time. The full price (including parking)
| of attending the event isn't know until you arrive, after a
| long drive into the city. Sure $5 is fine, but it's demand-
| based. There's nothing that prevents them from making the
| price floor $50 for a large name artist, and attendees would
| be caught in a lurch. The whole operation rubs me the wrong
| way.
| asdff wrote:
| And the demand pricing always skews one way: to the parking
| operator. The old daily price is now the new baseline and
| it only moves up from there. You know your lot will be full
| during the big game, so might as well extort them I guess
| is what they are teaching in business schools these days.
| Disturbing times ahead.
| recursive wrote:
| If your parking lot is full, then that still means that
| all the people who came later won't be able to park.
| Raising the price excludes a different set, but it's not
| immediately obvious to me which one is better.
| asdff wrote:
| Because it leads to quieting other forms of entertainment in
| the form of overall higher parking fees sapping up limited
| disposable income. Turns out, people go to fewer concerts
| when their outlay is $300, and then there are fewer concerts
| scheduled, and fewer local venues, and then fewer concerts
| that aren't $300 ticket arena fillers because that is all
| that is left of the market after its been hollowed out
| through perverse incentives.
| recursive wrote:
| If your thesis is true, then there are also fewer people
| paying for parking. When the parking lot owners notice
| this, they will probably lower prices.
| worik wrote:
| > When a good is unpriced, we naturally overconsume it. In pure
| economics terms, the demand for a good at a price of zero nearly
| always exceeds the supply
|
| No.
|
| In this case we are talking cars. They are expensive items and
| there are many incentives not to have more than you need.
|
| I get annoyed at mindless application of Econ 101 nostrums.
|
| His basic idea is correct, especially as density in cities gets
| higher, but it is not because of the "tragedy of the commons"
| recursive wrote:
| Cars are expensive. And they're even more expensive when you
| have to pay for parking.
|
| The total cost of ownership of a car includes the cost to
| operate it, including parking if that costs anything. If the
| parking cost component is "artificially" reduced or eliminated,
| the rest of the argument states.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Every publication in America is lionizing Shoup except here on HN
| a lot of confident Dunnings and Krugers are sure that they know
| more about the economics of parking, and they are ready to inform
| us.
| paganel wrote:
| So this is the guy I have to swear at for the very regression tax
| of paid parking. I would say some strong words against him, but
| then he's already dead, and the damage he has caused is already
| done. At least the gentrifying middle-classes are happy.
| nayuki wrote:
| Every aspect of owning and driving a car is regressive on the
| poor. https://cityobservatory.org/ten-things-more-inequitable-
| that...
| wonder_er wrote:
| It's funny (and sad) to me that people who are familiar with
| congestion-solving pricing schemes for something like AWS
| services act so unable to see parking and road networks as
| containing the same dynamics.
|
| I'm working on solving the problem because my life is actively
| being ruined by mismanaged parking.
|
| I think low enough of my own skills and capacities, and yet.
|
| https://josh.works/parking
|
| Unfortunately 'parking' is just a component of a larger mobility
| network that, in America, is mismanaged to better accomplish
| ethnic cleansing. I _wish_ I were kidding, I wish I were wrong.
|
| A book has been written titled: 'the slaughter of cities: urban
| renewal as ethnic cleansing'
|
| It sorta ruined my ability to function as peacefully as before in
| segments of society common in the greater united states.
|
| Edit: the 2nd of Donald shoup's 3 part fix was 'spend all
| collected money on the curb where it's collected'.
|
| This piece, mixed with the proper clearing price for maintaining
| a 10% availability of parking spaces means parking could possibly
| provide for really substantial and beautiful upgrades to the
| area.
|
| Feels like lots of times the conversation forgets that beautiful
| things will be added if parking gets managed rightly.
| ipdashc wrote:
| > congestion-solving pricing schemes for something like AWS
| services act so unable to see parking and road networks as
| containing the same dynamics
|
| While I do see the irony, I think one of the differences is
| that nobody _needs_ AWS, but a lot of poor or lower-middle-
| class people in America have no realistic choice but to drive
| to places. I 'm not against paid parking, but like you said,
| there is something funny (and sad) about the solution
| effectively being "reduce demand for parking, unless you're
| rich enough to not care".
| wonder_er wrote:
| The solution isn't to reduce the demand for parking.
|
| It's to dynamically price the parking high enough that there
| is always ten percent of the parking available.
|
| When there is less or no demand, the price would fall.
|
| Just like AWS services that guarantee certain availability
| _all the time_. Sometimes the moment by moment utilization
| cost can go quite high to accommodate, and it 's not to make
| aws rich, it's to mediate the demand.
|
| Shoup's parking fix would benefit the regular person far more
| directly than AWS does.
| raybb wrote:
| Your parking blog post is pretty good and I noticed that you
| have a substack that hasn't been posted on in a while. How did
| it go running a substack about parking and what made you decide
| to stop?
|
| For context, I recently started
| https://urbanismnow.substack.com/ to bring you the best ideas
| from around the world to inspire action where you (c)are. It's
| been about a month and it's more work than expected but I think
| the opportunity to bring people together is pretty high.
| wonder_er wrote:
| The substack was for me to scratch an itch. It's so I can
| write then link to what I've written when talking with
| others.
|
| I hang out with a lot more city planning and city engineering
| ppl than some, and it stirs up so many thoughts.
|
| I've got more coming soon on the substack. Specifically about
| a totally new thing called 'coning'.
|
| Gonna be good.
|
| I long ago committed to never committing to a publishing
| schedule. I wrote when it's easy, often enough it is.
|
| I like your stuff!
|
| An under appreciated part of cities in America is how much
| some ppl in America _hated_ others, and how widely shared
| that belief was.
|
| That hate lives in today in a dozen ways that cannot be seen
| if one is committed to believing that this kind of hate was
| done by backwards, old fashioned people.
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| My favorite excerpt, where rationale overcomes ideology:
|
| > Indeed, Shoup worked hard to make his ideas palatable across
| the political spectrum. Are you a conservative? People should pay
| for the services they consume. Are you a progressive? All this
| unnecessary driving can't be good for the environment. Are you a
| libertarian? Clearly, the solution to scarcity is prices and
| markets. Are you a socialist? Let's stop privatizing the public
| realm by turning it into a free parking lot. As a result, the
| typical shoupista gathering is an oasis of peaceful coexistence.
| mattmcknight wrote:
| Shoup did point out that we often don't charge enough for
| parking, which impedes the construction of things like parking
| lots and garages, because the free space is distorting the
| market. However, blindly advocating for less parking is not
| always the right answer either. There is often some sense in
| requiring parking to be built in cases where people want to free
| ride on parking created by others.
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