[burfog]

I drove around San Francisco for 3 hours looking for a free parking spot. I eventually found one, in an absurdly wealthy neighborhood. We stopped just to stop and rest for a bit, but obviously by that point we were not going to walk all the way to the restaurant I had intended to visit. They lost my business. I ate some old snacks out of the trunk of the car.

No wonder there are traffic problems. Lots more parking is needed.

BTW, self-driving will make this far worse for traffic, although better for the businesses. The car can just drive around while I visit the business.

[CalRobert]

That's... absurd. Did you spend that time looking for a free hotel as well? Or a free restaurant?

And if you think more parking fixes traffic I suggest you visit Los Angeles. Or even just San Jose.

[ars]

I think he means free as in available, not free as in no cost.

[burfog]

I mean no cost. Of course I'm not going to pay for parking.

Maybe you think it is normal to pay. I don't. I have paid a few times in over 2 decades of driving a car. I can mostly remember them because I'm still angry:

I paid to park in Boston in 2001, near the courthouse. I sort of paid at a park-and-ride place for an airport, but that included a bus ride. I got parking stickers for a couple colleges. I paid the "parking fee" at the Air and Space Museum Annex in Virginia, which is really a cheating way to charge admission.

I think that's it.

The problem is that some people are willing to patronize places without free parking. If people didn't do that, we'd all have free parking.

[lambdadmitry]

Amazing that some people value their time THAT cheap. Seriously, a couple bucks for 3 hours? Do you want to work for me?

[CalRobert]

I'm nearly certain he meanh no cost. Sf has instituted market rate street parking in some places and also has a number of garages where I've generally had no trouble finding a space, provided I paid.

[arctangos]

When I have a problem getting a framework or library to do the thing it’s meant to do, my first instinct isn’t to debug it and submit a PR, but to look at my strategy and figure out where I’m going wrong.

In this case, maybe SF is trying to send you a signal: you probably shouldn’t be driving in it.

If you can’t change you strategy, then consider changing frameworks: LA historically has had extremely high parking minimums, though that does present its own challenges.

[burfog]

I almost didn't drive. It's a good thing I got the rental car though. The BART that I would have taken from the airport was down due to a strike. One of the days of my visit I tried to get around without the car, and that was a disaster:

MUNI stop locations above ground are not announced or lighted, and you can't just count because the vehicle only halts if a person asks it to do so. The bus routes are confusing; I went the wrong way and ended up in a terrifying neighborhood. When things got busy, there was no way to board the cable car. Due to holiday crowds (people who might want service!) most of the system (MUNI, buses, cable cars... everything in the northern half of the city) got shut down for the evening. Later I missed a bus because it stopped on the other corner instead of at the bus stop, and that was the last one so I had to walk several miles in a rather scary city.

I suppose SF is sending a signal: you probably shouldn't go there.

[lsc]

What's interesting here is that I won't drive in SF. I will drive in LA (I'll try to avoid it, but I can be talked into it.) so you are partly right... I mean, the traffic is equivalently bad. (well, LA traffic is much worse at night. SF traffic only compares during the day) but in LA, I can usually count on a parking spot, in SF, it's much harder (even if you are willing to pay, my experience is that just getting off the street and onto the place where the valet can get into your car is a bit of an adventure in SF.)

But I won't walk in LA; I mean, I'll show up without a car and uber everywhere, or I'll rent a car, but you need a car to get around in LA.

But... that's the thing; In SF, it doesn't matter that the traffic is terrible, because I won't drive. In LA, you always feel how terrible the traffic is because you can't really avoid driving.

That's the thing; you need a car in LA but not in SF; I mean, sure, the transit sucks in SF, the transit might even be better in LA, but the city really isn't that big; you can walk most everywhere. In LA, that's hard. LA is big. A lot of that big is parking; LA has a big office tower, then like a city block of parking right there. It's crazy. (I once visited a friend without a car in the days before uber; We went from his place near LAX to Langers deli (that's the other reason why I need to move to new york, I love pastrami) It took us like four hours to just get there using public transit. (It was worth it. Oh my that Pastrami was good) - really from then until he moved I'd rent a car when I went.

Personally, this is one of the things I like more about SF than LA. I like walking a lot more than I like driving, and really, I think driving is a low-density transport medium; what are cars good for? cars are good for getting people to different places. When you are in low density areas, each person is going to a very different destination. In high density areas? a lot of people are going to essentially the same place, so shared vehicles, trains or the like, are a much better answer.

It's a choice. If you build your cities to be comfortable for cars, they won't be comfortable for pedestrians, and vis a vis.

I've been thinking about this lately. I mean, I live in silicon valley; essentially in dense suburbs. I want it to be much denser; I want it to be dense enough to be walkable. But my neighbors don't; Maybe that means I should move to new york? I mean, why is my opinion any more right than theirs? It's cheaper there, too. Though, I hear they get up earlier than I'd like.