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

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

#91

Post by hibikir »

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

If stores are helped by free parking, then we should be able to leave the parking space to the market: Let retail real state builders decide how much parking space they need, and let them act in their own best interest. However, that's not how it works.

A large majority of US metro areas mandate huge amounts of free parking that are enough to have space in Black Friday, whether they need it or not. For instance, there's a strip mall near me divided in two halves. One half has a neighborhood supermarket, three tiny stores (hair salon, gamestop, froyo), and two restaurants. That half has 400 parking spots. Typical number of spots in use? well under 100. It's not even half full when every line in the supermarket is working right before thanksgiving. But those 400 spots are mandated by area, just because the municipality finds all this parking space a great way to deter the least successful merchants to move in: Making sure all space is premium space is a way to make sure poorer people not only don't move to the municipality, but not even come here to shop. A bit like how municipalities also don't want public transport nearby.

Which places around here lack public parking? Urban areas where poor people live, as it's a way to tax non-residents.

Therefore, if this was really about what is good for stores, we'd see a lot less regulation, as opposed to what is good for the municipality itself.

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

#92

Post by mikecke »

coldtea wrote: post #80
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…

> 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 "Need to", because, god forbid if people: (a) take the public transit (or build a decent public transit in the first place), (b) park a little further down (e.g. half a mile or so), and walk to the place you want to go.

God forbid that these are suburban areas where public transit effectively makes no sense for the loosely-packed population- you might as well be blowing away $ building parking spaces half a mile away.

Places which (b) happen already have (a) and vice-versa.

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

#93

Post by CydeWeys »

dba7dba wrote: post #89
hibikir wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very surprised if shared self driving cars lead to a major reduction in excess parking, or lower the number of traffic jams. People want to do the same things at more or less the same time: Having time off while your social circle is at work is not as fun. Many jobs require customers, and others require entire groups of people to be there together. This means the minimum capacity needed to handle peaks is not…

>I'd be very surprised if shared self driving cars lead to a major reduction in excess parking, or lower the number of traffic jams. I agree. Years ago in a certain Asian city when chauffeurs were still common for well off families, traffic around luxury department stores was bad even during day time. A chauffeur would drop off the housewife for a shopping trip, and than he would drive around and around until her sho…

You're still assuming that everyone owns their own self-driving car, though. Given that the average person only uses a car for one hour per day it's silly that you'd keep idle a car that can drive itself for those other 23 hours. It makes sense to share the entire fleet. So after you get dropped off at the mall, the car is off to pick up its next passenger, and you get whatever self-driving car happens to be closest when you're done shopping.

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

#94

Post by pbhjpbhj »

trentmb wrote: post #17
CalChris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit cards make everything more expensive Full stop. Credit cards provide a service and that service isn't free. It gets factored into prices. https://www.merchantmaverick.com/the-complete-guide-to-credi... I'll add that Visa charges 1.43% - 2.4% of the transaction. I'd be curious to know what the cost of a cash transaction is as a percentage of the transaction. I doubt it climbs that high.

Handling cash ain't free. At a minimum, a certain amount must be kept on hand to make change. Then theres insurance on that cash. Then theres the safe (and registers) you have to buy to store the cash. Then theres the transport of the cash to the bank. Also, better hope your cashiers never make a mistake or accept a forged bill.

In the UK the bank charges us to pay in cash (weirdly cheques were free, haven't had any for a while, may have changed) such that payment by card costs about the same when you factor in our micro-businesses staff having take the money to the bank. How the banks get away with charging to be given money I'm not sure.

Re your last point: it's probably a similar risk for us as charge-backs.

Customers offer to pay cash thinking it saves us money, they're wrong.

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

#95

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cldellow wrote: post #90
employee8000 wrote: post #35

I'm getting really sick of these media companies pushing their anti-rich agenda. Blaming rich people for parking that causes costs to rise for poor people is just insulting. I didn't believe in much liberal bias in the media until this election. This is simply another extent of it, it's really eye opening.

The argument isn't blaming rich people for parking that causes costs to rise for poor people. The argument is: * mandatory parking is imposed by urban planners * mandatory parking raises costs for all people * poor people are less able to absorb the increased costs Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking goes into a lot of detail and approaches it from the point of view of planning theory. It's a good read, I recommend…

Also, traffic lights, fire stations, rural mail deliver.... everything makes society expensive to some degree.

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

#96

Post by ianferrel »

loeg wrote: post #69
Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even at peak demand many spots are empty. The reason for so much parking is that it is legally required. Nothing more, nothing less. Many of the businesses will never make full use of their parking. Places without parking requirement laws develop very differently, and if parking is provided at all, it's usually in far smaller quantities and it's not free. Compare, say, third tier Japanese cities that lack subway syst…

That might apply in cities, but I don't believe parking spaces at suburban malls are typically regulated.

You are probably incorrect. Suburbs generally have parking requirements in their zoning laws as well.

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

#97

Post by greggman »

jedberg wrote: post #83
hibikir wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very surprised if shared self driving cars lead to a major reduction in excess parking, or lower the number of traffic jams. People want to do the same things at more or less the same time: Having time off while your social circle is at work is not as fun. Many jobs require customers, and others require entire groups of people to be there together. This means the minimum capacity needed to handle peaks is not…

The traffic reduction will come from two sources -- fewer cars and the fact that the cars can drive at optimal speed, reducing unnecessary slowdowns. That being said, while some cars would need to be stationary, there are plenty of people moving around all day long.

Do we know there will be fewer cars? Self Driving cars allow all non-drivers to use a car.

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

#98

Post by JDDunn9 »

This topic is discussed at length in the book, "Green Metropolis". It's part of a bigger issue of always putting cars first. You can't build a large building without first doing a traffic study. If you bring too much traffic, you can't build it. Never mind that traffic is about the only cost in America that you can increase to make public transportation more appealing.

Generally U.S. building codes include a maximum building height, and require minimum parking spaces. Many European cities have maximum parking spaces, and minimum building height. The latter produces higher population densities which make public transportation possible.

We need to push back against suburban sprawl and the car-first design. No required parking, no free curbside parking, and a carbon tax on gasoline. Once cities get a population density >7 people per acre, public transportation becomes viable. Population density follows a logarithmic curve with miles traveled per person, so you get as much of a reduction from moving from 2 to 20 people per square acre, as from 20 to 200.

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

#99

Post by coldtea »

mikecke wrote: post #92
coldtea wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 "Need to", because, god forbid if people: (a) take the public transit (or build a decent public transit in the first place), (b) park a little further down (e.g. half a mile or so), and walk to the place you want to go.

God forbid that these are suburban areas where public transit effectively makes no sense for the loosely-packed population- you might as well be blowing away $ building parking spaces half a mile away. Places which (b) happen already have (a) and vice-versa.

>God forbid that these are suburban areas where public transit effectively makes no sense for the loosely-packed population

God forbid people didn't create environmentally disastrous and socially ho-hum suburban sprawls...

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

#100

Post by bbcbasic »

theparanoid wrote: post #68
CalChris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit cards make everything more expensive Full stop. Credit cards provide a service and that service isn't free. It gets factored into prices. https://www.merchantmaverick.com/the-complete-guide-to-credi... I'll add that Visa charges 1.43% - 2.4% of the transaction. I'd be curious to know what the cost of a cash transaction is as a percentage of the transaction. I doubt it climbs that high.

Gas stations and car mechanics give cash discounts, sometimes as high as 10%.

That has to be for nefarous reasons other than the cost of CC trasactions
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