[jnty]

Without wishing to sound flippant, as a society we've developed a mechanism to control the allocation of scarce resources - pricing. It sounds a lot like the parking you're describing is extremely underpriced, both in the demand/supply sense (demand is outstripping supply) and in the externalities sense (impacts to tourism, issues like air quality caused by traffic hunting for a space, walkability death spiral etc.)

For such a capitalist country as the US, the die-hard attachment to free or overcheap parking is really odd.

[maxsilver]

> For such a capitalist country as the US, the die-hard attachment to free or overcheap parking is really odd.

The US is also a country defined by an extreme attention to individual freedom and personal liberty. It's practically a meme that "Americans love Freedom" (using the American definition of 'Freedom'). Limiting parking in any way is, in practice, a very real limitation on a person's freedom to exist and/or move about.

This is why parking is given such high attention. Obviously not every single American drives (and I'm not justifying this response, just attempting to explain it) but when you limit roads/parking, you are effectively telling the vast majority of Americans that they should never be allowed somewhere, and they react accordingly.

You can think of this as like the American version of how France has major protests/riots whenever their leadership does something really bad/unpopular against the citizens.

[oftenwrong]

That is how many Americans view it. They do not see that freedom to drive everywhere and park for free is at odds with other freedoms, such as the freedom of not needing to spend a large amount of money on a car and fuel.

[maxsilver]

> Freedom to drive everywhere and park for free is at odds with other freedoms

It's not. People want to create a narrative that there is a tension between them, one or the other. (Urbanists hate cars because they hate cars, so they want to define every argument as requiring a hatred of cars to make any progress on anything else, to suit their religious beliefs. Every blog post on StrongTowns is a good example of this).

But you can always do both well, we just choose not to.

Chicago Loop, while not perfect or ideal, is a great example of how an urban environment could look that serves all well. It is dense, highly walkable, highly transit oriented. But it also still has a strong network of freeways and has an entire underground network of roads and tunnels for cars to pour into/out of (where they can peacefully exist just a few feet above/below walkability and transit, without ever hurting any of it). As those cars electrify, all noise and pollution problems are slowly but steadily disappearing.

In many ways, it is the closest to an American city ideal. Which I would define as a place where it is 100% convenient to use any transportation method you wish, at any time you wish, with as few-to-no restrictions as possible.

[candu]

> Urbanists hate cars because they hate cars

There's a great 99% Invisible episode that's relevant here:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern...

That's right - before cars became the de facto way to get around, they were compared to Moloch. Any "hate" modern urbanists might have for the car has nothing on early 20th-century posters featuring death, cape billowing, riding a demonic-looking car as it mows down hapless children.

I'd say, more accurately, that urbanists are investigating out what the balance of harm vs. benefit is here so they can propose ways to bring back some user-friendliness to our rights-of-way. They're revisiting the assumption that cars, rather than people, should be the primary focus in designing cities.

Put another way: IMHO, cars represent a local maximum in transportation outcomes. There's a lot that's great about them: independence, mobility, ease of use supported by robust infrastructure. There's a lot that isn't so great: long commute times, pollution, noise, sedentary lifestyles, urban sprawl, collisions causing death or injury. I fully expect humanity will outlive the car, just like it's outlived any number of other transportation methods, and it's in our collective best interest to start thinking about what that means.

[burfog]

Cars make commutes shorter. Long commute times are caused by two things. One is the insistence on working in megacities. The other is the impediments to people moving closer to where they work: zoning, property tax resets, two-income families.

Cars reduce noise compared to subways squealing and rattling, compared to commuter rail horns blasting, and compared to the big engines of diesel buses.

[arctangos]

> Cars reduce noise compared to subways squealing and rattling, compared to commuter rail horns blasting, and compared to the big engines of diesel buses.

As a US citizen living in Germany, I have to disagree. I live one very quiet residential block from a nationwide major rail artery and do not hear or feel the trains. Noisy, squeaky, rattling, rail horn blasting trains are a choice made by underfunded, weak, and poorly organized governments and transportation organizations. In the US, it is only that way because the US has chosen to prioritize cars over all other means of transportation.

[cozzyd]

Yes and parking in the loop is blissfully expensive, encouraging suburbanites to take the train in.

[bigpicture]

> Yes and parking in the loop is blissfully expensive, encouraging suburbanites to take the train in.

At least they have the option of using a functioning train system!

You can see the locations in which street parking is meter-based and how much it costs [1]. It is very much a demand-based scheme and I think that many people see it as ideal.

The map doesn't show how parking is handled in residential areas though [2]. If demand exceeds supply, a numbered residential parking zone is implemented and only those who prove that the live inside the zone can buy the number sticker that goes in the window of your car and allows you to park on the street in that zone ($25 per year). Those residents are also the only people that can buy 24-hour visitor parking passes for guests ($0.53 per pass).

[1] http://map.chicagometers.com/

[2] http://smartchicago.github.io/zone-parking/

[CalRobert]

By this logic I should get free hotel rooms when I visit places.

[maxsilver]

You effectively do, in that we pay for lots of private spaces for the general public to use. This is the same logic that makes Public Libraries free to all, even if you aren't a resident of that city or state. Public Restrooms, too, and so on.

If your argument is that we should have stronger public housing, to mimic public parking and/or for consistency sake -- I agree 100%.

[EpicEng]

Please tell me where to find these free hotels. What a sucker I've been paying for rooms my entire life.

[lazerpants]

Most Wal-Marts will allow you to park a vehicle overnight and sleep in it, so, essentially a free hotel room. Alternatively, most cities have shelters, you could look into staying in one of them.

[coraltime]

maxsilver was not claiming that cities currently offer free hotel rooms as you're implying, but rather that cities already provide adjacent services---suggesting that free hotel rooms might not be a totally crazy idea---and that in general we ought to have stronger public housing. Do you disagree? Why?

[barrow-rider]

Everyone notices the pay parking in the US because everyone drives.

[CalRobert]

1) Not everyone drives.

2) They notice it because they're used to getting it for free. Do people notice pay-renting in the US because everyone needs to sleep somewhere? Or do we just understand that using land comes with a cost?

It shouldn't cost less to give a place to sleep to a car than to a person.

[EpicEng]

>It shouldn't cost less to give a place to sleep to a car than to a person

Really? It shouldn't? Beyond the obvious fact that people in the US _need_ cars (it's not an option for most), parking space costs far less to build and maintain than does a home.

[CalRobert]

Why do they need cars?

because you can't walk to things.

Why can't you walk to things?

Because they're so far apart.

Why are they so far apart?

Because a) parking minimums mean more land is given to parking than the actual amenity, and b) zoning forces single-use and density maximums

Why do people want parking minimums and zoning restrictions like that?

Because it's annoying to drive through high density.

Why do they need cars?

on and on and on

It's not an option because we built an entire country for 2 ton beings that need 30 feet to move in a circle, rather than humans. Can ants walk across Manhattan?

Seriously, look at your standard US "shopping center" and it's almost entirely parking. The lots dwarf the actual buildings.

[EpicEng]

If I accept your entire premise (I don't, I think there are a lot of cases you're missing here), I still don't see how you come up with a solution. You're going into the history of how we got here, but it doesn't matter to the person who just needs a parking space. They're already here and they cannot afford a parking spot that costs as much as their mortgage.

I agree that we have done a putiful job in providing public transportation and designing cities around the notion that reducing cars is a good thing, but to argue that a parking spot should cost as much as rent is ludicrous. It is completely impractical and will never happen.

[cozzyd]

I don't own a car (like the majority of people who live in my apartment building). A parking spot (including alley space required for egress) takes up 50% of the space of my apartment.

[eherot]

Arguably people need a home more than they need a car even in the most extreme cases.

[lazerpants]

> even in the most extreme cases

Not true. A car can function as a home, but not vice versa, so in extreme cases this is almost unilaterally untrue.