Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 455 posts

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#51

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

drcode wrote: post #30

1. Stores that offer free parking have more customers 2. Stores that have more customers can offer better prices to all their customers (including poor people) due to greater sales volumes

In urban areas the parking actually doesn't attract many customers. It is often government mandated, not something the store necessarily would choose to provide.

Each space requires land, and in urban areas land is not cheap. Even worse, it's land that could be used for more retail, office, housing, etc.

I'm on mobile and don't have access to links, but IIRC each space costs like $10K to provide.

In many cities parking minimum laws stiffle growth by making new buildings impossible to build as the parking requirements are quite onerous. It's either get much bigger scale (also illegal) or get a waiver for parking (difficult for small scale property owners to navigate).

We're not even talking about environmental effects.

Honestly, if parking is so great and rational, why do we have laws requiring X spaces per Y square feet per Z use?

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#53

Post by erentz »

forgettableuser wrote: post #47
jedberg wrote: post #16

There was a study a while back that showed that the USA has eight times as many parking spaces as it has cars. At first that seems crazy, but it makes sense if you think about the fact that all the places you go in a day need to have enough parking to meet their peak demand all year, so places like malls have huge empty lots most of the year until Christmas rolls around. And then there is the spot your car is in at w…

Interesting. Now you got me thinking more about what things might change with self-driving cars. Will cars offer an "orbiting" mode where they keep driving in a circle until you are ready to be picked up. Will stores offer a driving ring where cars can drive around in circles off the main street in the case where no parking slots are available? Will cars be able to drop you off, and park themselves when a space becom…

Cars moving take up more space that stationary parked cars. What you've stumbled on is actually a concern for transit planners - more traffic because self driving cars are circling without any passengers.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#54

Post by op00to »

badsock wrote: post #37

The trucks that deliver the goods that poor people buy (and carry away the waste) are hard as hell on roads - you could say that the car drivers are subsidizing (through gasoline taxes) the massive infrastructure costs of maintaining a road network. I don't know how the numbers would balance out, but I'd bet that the benefits of that subsidy are greater than the costs incurred from free parking.

You're right and you're wrong - trucks generally don't pay the true cost of their road usage, but neither do motorists, at least through gas taxes and tolls. Much of our road funding comes from other sources like sales taxes and such. Which seems really funny when public transportation is constantly expected to pay for itself, but far more inefficient private motor vehicles don't have to pay their fair share.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#55

Post by JacksCracked »

drcode wrote: post #30

1. Stores that offer free parking have more customers 2. Stores that have more customers can offer better prices to all their customers (including poor people) due to greater sales volumes

What? Increased demand does not generally lead to lower prices.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#56

Post by PebblesHD »

Keverw wrote: post #24
pcr0 wrote: post #18

Parking shouldn't be free. If it's to entice customers at a store/shopping mall, they can be provided an hour of parking for every x dollars spent. Under-utilised parking spots should be leased or sold. (They sell for 80-300k where I live)

80-300K for 1 parking spot or a whole lot?

For reference, a single car space in Sydney sold for over $100k[0]...

[0] - http://www.domain.com.au/news/kirribilli-car-spot-sells-for-...

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#57

Post by erentz »

djsumdog wrote: post #28
jedberg wrote: post #16

There was a study a while back that showed that the USA has eight times as many parking spaces as it has cars. At first that seems crazy, but it makes sense if you think about the fact that all the places you go in a day need to have enough parking to meet their peak demand all year, so places like malls have huge empty lots most of the year until Christmas rolls around. And then there is the spot your car is in at w…

I think we wouldn't see things as being nearly this bad if all American cities didn't rip out their tram networks. Every city I've lived in, even small ones with ~100k people, use to have Streetcars. Today, cities like Cincinnati struggle to get a tiny segment put in. Trams carry a ton more people than buses. People are more likely to ride them too. If American cities hadn't given in to GM and Ford and kept streetcar…

Not only that but the suburbs built up around these streetcar networks are typically the preferred places to live in cities these days, due to their walkable neighborhoods.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#58

Post by kylec »

pcr0 wrote: post #18

Parking shouldn't be free. If it's to entice customers at a store/shopping mall, they can be provided an hour of parking for every x dollars spent. Under-utilised parking spots should be leased or sold. (They sell for 80-300k where I live)

Given the choice between a mall with paid parking and a mall with free parking, I'm picking the mall with free parking.

Even if there's some sort of validation system if you buy something, dealing with the whole ticketing system on entry and exit is annoying, and in the circumstances where I don't end up buying anything I have to deal with paying for the parking. It's much less of a hassle to just avoid all that.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#59

Post by dorfsmay »

forgettableuser wrote: post #47
jedberg wrote: post #16

There was a study a while back that showed that the USA has eight times as many parking spaces as it has cars. At first that seems crazy, but it makes sense if you think about the fact that all the places you go in a day need to have enough parking to meet their peak demand all year, so places like malls have huge empty lots most of the year until Christmas rolls around. And then there is the spot your car is in at w…

Interesting. Now you got me thinking more about what things might change with self-driving cars. Will cars offer an "orbiting" mode where they keep driving in a circle until you are ready to be picked up. Will stores offer a driving ring where cars can drive around in circles off the main street in the case where no parking slots are available? Will cars be able to drop you off, and park themselves when a space becom…

Hopefully enough by-the-trip rental that you don't need to own one, and that they are used by somebody else while you don't need it, so less need for parking.

Sort of what we do with airplanes. You never really think of until you need them to be all grounded:

http://m.imgur.com/7jGGZaT

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#60

Post by tzs »

tonmoy wrote: post #21
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #10

I don't disagree with the numbers but you could make this same argument for literally any feature of a business that has the affect of making that business more attractive to customers with Y quality (where Y is not something all customers have). Let's imagine that the parking lots of Walmart, $localSupermarketChain and other stores is cut to 1/4 it's present size. What happens then? I suspect the inability to draw w…

They specifically talk about the fact that cities require a minimum number of parking to be built for businesses and residences. Now, if this requirement wasn't present then economical forces would take over, places without parking would be ideal for less wealthy people because the prices would be lower.

> Now, if this requirement wasn't present then economical forces would take over, places without parking would be ideal for less wealthy people because the prices would be lower.

On the other hand, wouldn't those places tend to have fewer customers because people who are not willing or able to get their without driving will go someplace with more parking, and so would have to charge more per customer to cover fixed costs?

Post reply on HN