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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

#401

Post by kuschku »

germanier wrote: post #384
kuschku wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thwy accept German EC cards, which is an entirely seperate network from MasterCard and Visa (and it's the E in EMV). Mostly because their fees are even 10 times lower than MasterCard's debit card fees.

The "E" in EMV is for Eurocard which is something different (and now merged with MasterCard). The fees for the German Girocard system (which is what colloquially is still called EC) are lower than MasterCard's fees but not by that much anymore nowadays. MasterCard debit should not be 50% more expensive than Girocard considering all fees (which of course still is more) if you shop around a bit. Even Aldi takes them no…

> Even Aldi takes them now

Well, Aldi only takes some type of MasterCard debit - only the Chip + PIN edition Maestro cards, not any of the actual MasterCard network, nor mixed credit/debit cards.

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

#402

Post by jessaustin »

carapace wrote: post #309
tjic wrote: post #245

Meh. You also pay for the cost of public parks even if you never use them. You pay for the cost of government elementary schools even if you homeschool your kids. etc. Now, I'm an anarchocapitalist and would love to see all of these costs unbundled, so that we each pay only for what we use. ...but the other 99.9% of folks in our society think that it is reasonable to have one-size-fits-all solutions, where a single b…

To what granularity? Toll booths at each intersection? (Serious question.)

Many tollbooths have been replaced by overhead transmitters/receivers that interact with in-car electronic devices. ISTM such a technology could continue to improve, to the point that eventually an exact accounting of road use would be practical.

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

#403

Post by e28eta »

jessaustin wrote: post #402
carapace wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what granularity? Toll booths at each intersection? (Serious question.)

Many tollbooths have been replaced by overhead transmitters/receivers that interact with in-car electronic devices. ISTM such a technology could continue to improve, to the point that eventually an exact accounting of road use would be practical.

And fully tracking every trip made in every car. That'd be an interesting database to compile

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

#404

Post by thatcat »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #48
thatcat wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These aspects also have some advantage - being handled on site means having employees that spend that money locally. All the credit card fees are effectively removed from the local economy.

So you think that companies who only take cash will pay higher wages thus keeping that money locally? I would assume that lower cost would lead to lower prices rather than higher wages.

No, I think they would pay a net higher local labor cost and lower remote processing fees.

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

#405

Post by overcyn »

snrplfth wrote: post #395
overcyn wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What rules against parking on the street? In many existing neighborhoods, houses don't have garages and rely exclusively on street parking. Should we disallow street parking and start making people rent garages? That would definitely affect the poor.

Well, there's a number of solutions. You can tie the properties to particular street locations, like immediately in front of their house. You can give parking permits to local residents, and disallow visitor parking in some or all areas. You can turn it into metered parking, for which local residents are reimbursed some or all of their costs (or from which they receive a share of the local parking fees.) You could ev…

But these resident-permit systems are already in place in many cities, and we still have parking problems. And you want to remove minimum parking spot mandates on top of that, which will only reduce the supply of parking. I guess auctioning off street parking permits could work but it hardly seems any more fair than forcing new developments to provide their own parking.

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

#406

Post by knz »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #302
tjic wrote: post #245

Meh. You also pay for the cost of public parks even if you never use them. You pay for the cost of government elementary schools even if you homeschool your kids. etc. Now, I'm an anarchocapitalist and would love to see all of these costs unbundled, so that we each pay only for what we use. ...but the other 99.9% of folks in our society think that it is reasonable to have one-size-fits-all solutions, where a single b…

Just in case someone wants to know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism Anarcho-capitalism is a political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favor of individual sovereignty, private property, and free markets. Anarcho-capitalists believe that, in the absence of statute (law by decree or legislation), society would improve itself through the discipline of the free market (or what it…

> So you only use 2.5 miles of a highway to get to and back from work - right? Should you pay for the entire highway or just the parts you use? So what if other people only use "parts" of that same highway? Does that mean we suddenly have huge gaps in our highways since people are only paying for the parts they use?

The irony is that society would probably quickly realize that it's a lot more efficient to just build a road than pay for the overhead of managing so many small individual segments.

To be fair, I assume the OP's point was that they would rather see a tax based upon their actual distance driven.

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

#407

Post by germanier »

kuschku wrote: post #401
germanier wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "E" in EMV is for Eurocard which is something different (and now merged with MasterCard). The fees for the German Girocard system (which is what colloquially is still called EC) are lower than MasterCard's fees but not by that much anymore nowadays. MasterCard debit should not be 50% more expensive than Girocard considering all fees (which of course still is more) if you shop around a bit. Even Aldi takes them no…

> Even Aldi takes them now Well, Aldi only takes some type of MasterCard debit - only the Chip + PIN edition Maestro cards, not any of the actual MasterCard network, nor mixed credit/debit cards.

They take all MasterCards, including credit cards. I paid with one just this Saturday in Germany.

Things have changed considerably in the last two years and whatever one knows about cards, acceptance, and fees from before 2015 can safely be forgotten.

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

#409

Post by snrplfth »

overcyn wrote: post #405
snrplfth wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's a number of solutions. You can tie the properties to particular street locations, like immediately in front of their house. You can give parking permits to local residents, and disallow visitor parking in some or all areas. You can turn it into metered parking, for which local residents are reimbursed some or all of their costs (or from which they receive a share of the local parking fees.) You could ev…

But these resident-permit systems are already in place in many cities, and we still have parking problems. And you want to remove minimum parking spot mandates on top of that, which will only reduce the supply of parking. I guess auctioning off street parking permits could work but it hardly seems any more fair than forcing new developments to provide their own parking.

Most of the problems of resident-permit systems come from the fact that they are inconstantly enforced, or that no spots are reserved, so that people arrive in an area where they have permits but cannot find a spot. This is a problem in the design of the particular resident-permit system - it does not mean that all such systems will fail. And, to me, resident-permits is indeed second-best to a system where the prices for parking are allowed to float, to balance demand with supply (and residents can be reimbursed by some share in the parking revenues.)

The only real problem with zero parking minimums is the possibility that people will park in places that other people were hoping to use (for parking, driving, biking, etc.) But all that means is that either rights have been unclearly assigned (as in street parking that doesn't officially belong to anybody), or a scarce good has been underpriced (as in 'free street parking' that's always full.) So, just assign clear rights, or adjust the price until there's free spots.

To me, it seems totally fair that the people who use parking should own it or pay for it (which are really the same thing). Why mandatorily bundle parking with other things if people don't want it?

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

#410

Post by jessaustin »

e28eta wrote: post #403
jessaustin wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many tollbooths have been replaced by overhead transmitters/receivers that interact with in-car electronic devices. ISTM such a technology could continue to improve, to the point that eventually an exact accounting of road use would be practical.

And fully tracking every trip made in every car. That'd be an interesting database to compile

Sure, that would be the easy way to set up the system. Perhaps something more sophisticated and privacy-preserving could be done with blockchains...

That's probably wishful thinking, though. It would be wonderful if travel database access were limited to lawful court orders, but on current trends that seems impossible.

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