[joedrew]

It's impossible to have 'enough' parking spots. Induced demand shows that cars, like goldfish, always grow to fill the space they're given. It's politically difficult process, but just refusing to try to solve this problem (which leads to more New Urbanism-friendly locations) is often the right solution.

[sbov]

I've heard this theory applied to traffic, but not parking.

Because no, it isn't impossible. I've never had a problem finding parking when there's a parking garage nearby. E.g. 5th and mission. Just go to the top open floor, and there's always several spaces waiting for you.

It's just street parking that is difficult. Which makes sense because if you think about it, streets don't provide much parking. Maybe 1 car per shop.

[jaynos]

Street parking is difficult to find because it cost less to park on the street, so people cruise around for spots instead of heading to a parking deck.

I just heard a Marketplace segment on this [1] where they talk about on-demand adjustable pricing. Very interesting.

[1] http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/tricky-practice-pr...

[malyk]

The Parking Is Hell Freakonomics episode is pretty good. In it they estimate that there are something like 800 million parking spaces in the country and recounted a study by Donald Shoup that estimates that up to 30% of traffic in cities are people cruising looking for street parking.

Basically, we don't have a real market for parking in most cities, so people will keep their car parked on the street forever instead of using market forces to induce turnover which is better for the city(revenue) and the nearby businesses(more customers).

[1] - http://freakonomics.com/2013/03/13/parking-is-hell-a-new-fre... [2] - http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/CruisingForParkingAccess.pdf

[saosebastiao]

It is possible to have enough parking spots. It is impossible to have enough free parking spots.

[T-hawk]

A counterexample: Las Vegas. All the casinos on the Strip have big parking garages that are free and don't fill up.

Perhaps it's possible only when the margins of a business are as spectacularly high as those of Vegas casinos, so that the parking facility as a loss leader is still net profitable overall. There's also the invisible hand of capitalism, as casinos compete in the market of convenience: a casino without such a facility will lose market share to those that do.

[toomuchtodo]

> Perhaps it's possible only when the margins of a business are as spectacularly high as those of Vegas casinos, so that the parking facility as a loss leader is still net profitable overall. There's also the invisible hand of capitalism, as casinos compete in the market of convenience: a casino without such a facility will lose market share to those that do.

Or land is so cheap because you're in the middle of nowhere.

[sliverstorm]

That holds when parking is free.