[brenns10]

Two hour parking (I'm guessing it's free, but it doesn't really matter) is the result of such a mind-numbingly obvious market inefficiency. Street parking is being given away for free, or at incredibly cheap prices, so of course demand is high and drivers visiting businesses can't find spots. So the city tries to disrupt demand by placing these artificial time limits, in the hope that it will allow visitors to park more easily. The obvious answer is to just charge market rate for street parking, and there will almost always be a few spots available. And anybody willing to pay market rate for 8 hours of street parking is welcome to.

To top it off, time limits are so stupid to enforce, as you say. It's easy to enforce meters, or paid parking with plates on a block. "If paid and not in red zone, ok, else, ticket." But instead cities have to come up with these "creative" (read: broken) systems for catching people who park too long.

edit: and same applies for weekends: charge market rate then too!

[maccard]

> The obvious answer is to just charge market rate for street parking, and there will almost always be a few spots available

So only the rich can drive and park? FWIW, my city charges £6.70/hour for parking and it's still impossible to find a spot.

> To top it off, time limits are so stupid to enforce, as you say. It's easy to enforce meters, or paid parking with plates on a block. "If paid and not in red zone, ok, else, ticket." But instead cities have to come up with these "creative" (read: broken) systems for catching people who park too long.

The limits on parking in many places are to encourage/force other means of transport for work.

[CalRobert]

If it's impossible to find a spot, you could benefit from higher prices for parking which ensure a spot is available when you need one.

And we use prices to allocate scarce resources for everything. "But first the revolution" is a classic stalling tactic to prevent meaningful change.

[firebat45]

>So only the rich can drive and park? FWIW, my city charges £6.70/hour for parking and it's still impossible to find a spot.

Are you arguing that cars (along with all associated costs like fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc) be provided free of charge to every person?

If there's no spots available at the current price, then the current price is too low. There are costs associated with vehicle ownership and usage, and you are welcome to find alternatives if you do not want to pay them.

I work at a hospital and people always lament that they wish the on-site parking was free so they didn't have to park several blocks away. I don't know why they don't realize that if the parking was free, it would be packed full 24/7.

[maccard]

> Are you arguing that cars (along with all associated costs like fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc) be provided free of charge to every person?

You're putting words in my mouth here, nowhere have I suggested anything like that. Please at least argue in good faith.

> If there's no spots available at the current price, then the current price is too low

You're making an assumption that the only variable is the cost of parking, and that the desire of the system is to ensure maximum utilisation. It's not. The desire of the system is to stop people driving into city centres and parking their cars there while they work

[brenns10]

> So only the rich can drive and park? FWIW, my city charges £6.70/hour for parking and it's still impossible to find a spot.

I definitely understand that parking can be a major expense, but I do believe that if the cost of parking is the tipping point (and not the cost of fuel, insurance, registration, repairs/maintenance, and likely regular car payments w/ interest...), then it's a symptom of a larger problem. Car ownership is by definition expensive, and the better approach is to work on making it unnecessary for people to own a car, rather than deciding that we have to further subsidize the car and fossil fuel industry by giving away/underpricing parking.

And yes, I'm definitely sympathetic to the fact that in many places, it's just necessary to own the car in order to live life. But market priced parking is actually part of the incremental solution to change that: it is cheaper to enforce and brings in more revenue which can be directly used to solve those problems, by improving public transit and infrastructure for alternatives to cars. Or it can go to tax rebates/incentives to use these alternatives.