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

washingtonpost.com

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

#231

Post by TulliusCicero »

Decade wrote: post #222
gohrt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can buy myself a car. I can't buy myself a train. That's the problem.

Why? So you can customize the paint? It’s not like you have access to the interesting control systems of a modern car, anyway. Donald Trump does bring up a legitimate point: The train can be operated by a corrupt entity. With a car, you have options. With a train, you are stuck. However, I prefer to arrange my life so I can use bicycle.

Biking in the US mostly sucks too, almost entirely due to car-oriented legislation at all levels of government.

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

#232

Post by TulliusCicero »

kylec wrote: post #58
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.

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

Sure, and if enough people agree with you, then businesses will choose to provide free parking of their own accord. But they shouldn't be required to, is the thing.

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

#233

Post by [deleted] »

zik wrote: post #107
bsznjyewgd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get why trams are better than buses. Do they really carry a ton more people than buses? Why are people more likely to ride them? Buses come in short/long/articulated/double-decker sizes and don't need to be on rails or require overhead electrical lines. The only argument I can think of is that you get a smoother ride and no need to burn fuel with a tram. (I've only ridden the trams in one city, and the…

Here's an example of a good tram system: http://dyob.com.au/sites/default/files/u9/96%20North%20Carlt... It's separated from the traffic so it's fast, doesn't have associated tyre and asphalt maintenance costs, and each tram carries over 200 people maximum. The service is frequent - about every five to seven minutes - and much smoother and more comfortable than a bus.

[deleted]

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

#234

Post by TulliusCicero »

readme wrote: post #86

Implicitly, the author assumes that a car would be the last thing this hypothetical poor person would purchase. There are in fact, many impoverished homeless people who live in cars. In this case, they might find themselves parking in one of those abundant spaces. I wonder when the last time she walked by a walmart was.

The irony in this post is tremendous. The whole reason so many poor people in the US still own cars is precisely because of these kinds of pro-car regulations! In western Europe, a poor person owning a car is much less common, because transit works well enough that they don't really need it, and driving is an expensive activity.

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

#235

Post by TulliusCicero »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #95
cldellow wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but what compelling public interest is there in forcing subsidized parking? Other countries get by just fine with far less parking.

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

#236

Post by TulliusCicero »

briandear wrote: post #216

So we could argue that drivers are subsidizing the cost of mostly unused handicapped parking spaces as well. I'll see a parking lot with dozens of these spaces almost chronically unused, but since the ADA requires a certain (arbitrary) number of handicapped spots, businesses are forced to build an excess capacity of these spots despite many of them sitting unused, except occasionally by the Jaguar owner who is friend…

> So we could argue that drivers are subsidizing the cost of mostly unused handicapped parking spaces as well.

Sure, and we do this because there's a compelling public interest in requiring businesses to cater to the handicapped, where market incentives alone would probably not work.

What compelling public interest is there in forcing businesses to cater to all drivers that market incentives wouldn't work for?

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

#237

Post by TulliusCicero »

tn13 wrote: post #84

So in principle WaPo or anyone else willing except that it is immoral to create regulations about X where people who do not benefit from X end up paying for it ? Will WaPo argue the case to abolish things like college education subsidies where people who never even go to college end up subsidizing those who do ? While WaPo is absolutely right in stating the facts it may or may not be bad for the poor people. I live i…

> So in principle WaPo or anyone else willing except that it is immoral to create regulations about X where people who do not benefit from X end up paying for it ?

No, it's a given that subsidies happen all the time. But there needs to be (or should be, rather) a compelling public interest in doing so. For forcing businesses to build parking all over the place, there isn't one; to the extent that their customers desire parking, businesses will build it so that they can get those customers. Requiring parking just means that in cases where they don't need to build parking, they still do, which is a waste.

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

#238

Post by zimpenfish »

nannal wrote: post #230
TeMPOraL wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interior of a bus doesn't need to be any different than the interior of a tram. Unless your city is repurposing coaches for public transport, the interiors of buses should have ample standing space.

In my experience trams trend to be wider than buses by a noticeable margin.

Here in the UK, trams (at least for Croydon[1][2], Metrolink[3], Newcastle Metro[4]) seem to be standardised at 2650mm width whilst the New Routemaster[5] is 2520mm wide. Probably not a noticeable margin (130/2650 =~ 5%).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_CR4000 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variobahn#Variobahn_trams_for_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M5000 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_and_Wear_Metro_rolling_st... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Routemaster

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

#240

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

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 actually not correct; suburban areas have more intense and all encompassing parking minimum laws. Manhattan, for instance, has either none or none below 125th Street IIRC.

Suburbs look like they do not because of preference but because it is not legal for them to look otherwise.

The idea in the 50s was:

A) Require cars to live and you will not have to live next to poor people or minorities since cars and maintenance of them are expensive, how great; Jim Crow without the legal challenges and we can co-opt non racist people B) Cars are the future and no one needs to walk, except maybe in parks C) Since this glorious future has yet to arrive naturally despite decades of mass produced automobiles, we'll need to legislate it into existence and massively fund highways D) Cities are the source of all ills

Other than the racist motivations, it's really just poor planning that is copy and pasted from one place to another.

A lot of cities are realizing it's stupid and removing or relaxing these laws.

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