[andrepd]

Absolutely. Next time you see a free parking spot mentally calculate the rent of ~10m² on that part of the city to understand how much of a subsidy that is. Then multiply by 50 parking spots in a street. Then think how many thousands there are all over the city...

[finikytou]

do you have free parking? cities are making money out of parking spots. a lot of money. so much than one would say they have an incentive to reduce parking space to increase price and reduce expenses

[PaulRobinson]

Cities and councils should not be making decisions based on how to raise revenue.

They should be making decisions based on how to improve quality of life for residents.

Parking should exist where public transport is not a viable option. Ideally the work to make public transport an option should be prioritised over the work to making parking exist.

Cities and councils can make money from public transport too, it'll work out OK revenue-wise, and quality of life improvements can be considerable.

[PaulHoule]

Practically in a city like Ithaca NY there are stores like Wal-Mart that have oceans of free parking about a mile from the Ithaca Commons which is a pedestrian mall surrounded by parking meters and concrete corkscrews that cost about $1 an hour. Years ago local shops could stamp your parking ticket and give you a few hour for buying something but the city decided it couldn’t afford it.

That $1 isn’t much, but many believe the Commons can’t compete on that basis and shoppers will avoid the Commons and go to stores on the commercial strip instead, it doesn’t help that the Commons doesn’t have a diversity of shopping, instead it has some gift stores, a legal cannabis dispensary that is just about to reopen after being closed for some reason, numerous head shops, a bookstore, and numerous CBD stores that I think sell real weed in a back room.

[sideshowb]

I don't think it's fair to consider Wal-Mart's parking free from a societal perspective. Presumably they pay for it and absorb the cost into your grocery bill.

[blitzar]

Free parking sounds like government over-reach, communism even. We should leave it to the market to take care of.

[CydeWeys]

> Cities and councils should not be making decisions based on how to raise revenue.

... although if they were, the price of parking would be way higher. The optimal price for parking is a time-and-day-dependent price set high enough that around 10% of spots everywhere in the city are free at any given time, so that people who need parking can generally find it conveniently nearby to where they're going.

[jjav]

> set high enough that around 10% of spots everywhere in the city are free at any given time, so that people who need parking can generally find it conveniently nearby to where they're going

OTOH, if there is always that much space available (and presumably there didn't used to be before the price hikes) then it is evidence that a lot of people have chosen to go elsewhere because parking became too expensive.

Can the location compete with that "elsewhere"? If it is a unique location with unique reasons to visit, probably yes. But if it is the typical old downtown with stores competing with the strip mall with similar stores but free parking, probably not.

I've seen the depressing cycle of multiple vibrant downtown cores become abandoned after parking meters came in. I very much prefer a strong active downtown core even if finding parking is a pain, to one that is mostly all boarded up and abandoned but there's plenty of paid parking.

[CydeWeys]

There's not that much free space available. It's a maximum of 10%. Almost everyone who was ever going to be able to go here is able to do so, they're just paying more for the privilege and they aren't wasting as much time driving around creating traffic trying to find parking.

[jjav]

Let's say there are 500 parking spots. With free parking and a vibrant area, all spots are taken and there are N people circling around looking for parking. Not sure what N is but let's say 50 (seems reasonable).

If after the price increase there are 10% (50) parking spots open, that means at least a 100 people went elsewhere (20%). That's a pretty significant drop in business to the local stores.

And speculation aside, I've seen this happen in two downtowns I frequented. Parking meters were installed, people went elsewhere, the vibrant downtown died and was boarded up and abandoned. And it's not just a transfer of business to a different location, but a loss of cultural significance. Because the old downtown had artists and musicians who no longer have a place at the strip mall. The stores moved, but the culture was lost.

[retinaros]

parking costs over 200euros a day in Paris. the city also is on the board of private parking companies…. conflict of interest is high, corruption is also knocking at the door. greenwashing is the new criminal activity for suits

[andrepd]

Yeah, any sane person looks at Paris and their first thought is "hmm, this needs more cars".

[retinaros]

what is the relation. no one ever talked about more cars. I a merely asking why the mayor office is at the board of private parking companies getting paid for that while at the same time removing public parking space.

[eru]

> Cities and councils should not be making decisions based on how to raise revenue.

Why not?

> They should be making decisions based on how to improve quality of life for residents.

Residents can use money to purchase goods and services to improve their quality of life.

> Parking should exist where public transport is not a viable option.

And the market can provide parking at market-prices. (And, cities and councils can perhaps also offer parking at market prices on their properties.)

[bratwurst3000]

> Residents can use money to purchase goods and services to improve their quality of life.

i live in a city with pollution problem. where can i buy this clean air to improve the quality of my life?

[ipaddr]

Air filters are a fairly common purchase to increase this.

[eru]

You might want to look up Coasian Bargaining.

[PaulRobinson]

You have a fundamentally different model of the social contract to me. We're unlikely to ever agree. However...

I believe that relying on individual purchasing power ("utility"), to improve the average quality of life is an experiment (often referred to as "Reganism" or "Thatcherism"), that after 40+ years of trialling has shown to be net negative to social mobility, overall net happiness and other factors important to me as a UK middle-class (this isn't the same as what middle-class means in the US), citizen with a significantly-above median income for my age, social background and other predictive factors, as compared to natural experiments in free market economies where such trials did not take place (most of Northern Europe), in the same time frame.

The core problem with free markets being used as a mechanism to settle all societies ills is that theory ignores natural monopolies. You can't have a car parking space and a children's park in the same place: you must make a choice. And if you choose based on economic utility, the outcome with the direct revenue will allow a realised "win" over that which has indirect or non-utility rewards such as "happy, well-adjusted, children who have learned to be nice to each other".

If you believe in the right wing view of economics without taking into account the lack of natural monopolies, you and I are unfortunately going to be so far apart from being able to find common ground we might just be wasting each others' time.

If you do understand the nature of a natural monopoly from a land use to utility company infrastructure, then you'll realise that when you follow the thread that car parking at market prices denies other monopoly uses of that land, that residents can't influence that through purchasing decisions, and that cities and councils would be failing in their duty to provide an equitable and comfortable city/town in which to exist by making decisions about monopoly situations purely based on revenue potential.

[ipaddr]

You can't have a car parking space and a children's park in the same place: you must make a choice.

They also provide utility. If you remove parking spaces near a children's park less children can/will visit. You need a balance.

[ciceryadam]

Tell me you are an American, without telling me you are an American.

You can reach a children's park on foot or by taking public transportation, so ideally there's no need for a parking lot right next to it.

[eru]

What social contract? That's a convenient fiction, but no one ever agreed to any social contract anywhere.

My adopted home of Singapore goes a lot harder on private initiative than Thatcher and Reagan ever dreamed off. And thanks to that, and some other factors, they went from third world to first world (or arguably zeroth world) in less than a generation.

> The core problem with free markets being used as a mechanism to settle all societies ills is that theory ignores natural monopolies. You can't have a car parking space and a children's park in the same place: you must make a choice.

You might want to read up on how https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

What you are describing here has nothing to do with a 'natural monopoly'.

Funny enough, most places in the US have outrageous mandatory minimum parking space requirements. A free market would most likely provide less street parking. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_mandates and especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking

Revenue means people are willing to pay for something, something they value. So it's not the be-and-end-all for how to run your city, but it's better than many other ways political decisions are made. (And better than whatever political decision procedure leads to mandatory minimum parking requirements, IMHO.)

[tremon]

The fact that you didn't explicitly opt-in to it before you were born does not mean there is no implicit social contract between you and your fellow citizens.

[shswkna]

Without trying to ridicule you, asking “what social contract?” In this kind of discussion is like a first year university student asking “what’s a fraction?” in first year maths classes.

An entire section of philosophy is built on this question alone, and why there is such a thing as a social contract.

[rstuart4133]

> What social contract? That's a convenient fiction, but no one ever agreed to any social contract anywhere. My adopted home of Singapore goes a lot harder on private initiative than Thatcher and Reagan ever dreamed off.

Do you chew gum when you are at home in Singapore? No, you don't, because it's illegal. Did you agree to that, were even you given a choice? No, of course not.

Singapore is more authoritarian than most liberal democracies. That means you do as your told. That's the social contract. If you disagree with the people in power to loudly, you got to rot in jail. https://www.smh.com.au/world/lee-kuan-yew-a-towering-figure-...

As it happens, Singapore got lucky. The people in charge are good at running a country efficiently. In particular, they didn't line their own pockets too aggressively - certainly not in a way that was out of line with liberal democracies. The Singapore it's an outlier compared to other authoritarian countries. Generally, once politicians eliminate the competition, they use their control to milk the economy for all they are worth.

[retinaros]

public transportation is not a viable option in the west. too much crime too many lenient judge. in asia it is top notch. because people are educated and this just works. once we fix this you can take our cars.

[TheCoelacanth]

They make money because they don't have to pay for the true value of the land. It's free to them.

It's still a subsidy because they are charging less than the market value of the most valuable possible use.

[sideshowb]

This is a really good comment thread and got me thinking.

However here in the UK I'm not sure your point about virtual subsidy quite computes. Most of the free to use parking in valuable areas is street parking outside homes. Seeing as housing costs are just a big sponge that absorbs any surplus productivity, I suspect if people had to rent or buy those parking spaces to use them then you would see a corresponding drop in house prices/rents.

[consteval]

I think even high rates don't get close to breaking even.