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

Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

econlib.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 195 posts

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#161

Post by TylerE »

davidw wrote: post #17
jimbob45 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this framing of the zoning issue much more than “build build build on every scrap of land you can get your hands on”. Ownership of land is really important for ensuring everyone in America is literally bought into the American Dream. Until you’re ready to buy a house, I feel no compunction forcing you into high-density housing in the meantime (paired with greatly increasing low-income mortgage assistance).

You can own a home without owning the land. It's pretty common in denser parts of the world. I recall a wealthy family in Padova, Italy where I lived that had a flat on the 3rd floor of some building right in the historic downtown. It was both large and very nice.

I guess it comes down to definitions.

To me a home would mean no shared walls/floors/ceilings with other tenants.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#162

Post by dpark »

tptacek wrote: post #160
dpark wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a glib non-answer. How many housing units can squeeze onto a city block is zoned for multi family units? Now how many cars can park on the street in front of those apartments? I expect my house’s lot could hold a 6 unit building. I have exactly 2 parking spots in front of my house. It would be 3 if I had no driveway. So at best residents could get 50% of their parking needs met with street parking if my house…

I don't think you can reasonably say I'm being glib about this, given that I've posted actual data about the specific parking usage in the area I'm talking about, and you're just spitballing based on "a map of Chicago".

You posted data about parking tickets. This is not evidence that street parking provides sufficient capacity.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#163

Post by jjav »

jurassic wrote: post #102
decafninja wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if there are cultural practices in play regarding your mention of SFH being used as "overcrowded communal living situations". For example, it's not uncommon in Asia to find multiple generations living in the same household. AFAIK California has a lot of Asians. While not in California, the town my parents live in has had an influx of Chinese immigrants the past decade or so. This has resulted in situati…

Thansk for the comment. I have no problem with multi-generational living. I'm not Asian but I lived with my in-laws for a few years while we were saving up to buy a home and it was great. The problem I have is when there are more people in a given housing unit than it was designed to accommodate and so you make up for that lack by consuming something in the commons, specifically street parking. The pattern I saw in t…

> I have no problem with multi-generational living.

> groups of multiple unrelated working adults moving into a single-family home together as roommates

From the number of cars perspective, it doesn't make any difference if the multiple adults in the house are family or not, it's still one car per adult.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#164

Post by tptacek »

dpark wrote: post #162
tptacek wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can reasonably say I'm being glib about this, given that I've posted actual data about the specific parking usage in the area I'm talking about, and you're just spitballing based on "a map of Chicago".

You posted data about parking tickets. This is not evidence that street parking provides sufficient capacity.

If you have actual data about parking usage in this area, I'm all ears. I'm much less interested in your axiomatic derivation of how parking here works.

At any rate: I answered your question about "where all this on-street parking comes from". You can do the math on the carrying capacity of an Oak Park street for parking; you've got the maps, after all.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#165

Post by alkonaut »

jjav wrote: post #157
alkonaut wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet, with some planning it could go quite far to a place with ample parking (or even back home) to wait. Then come pick me up.

But that trades a lot of unnecessarily wasted energy to move those 4000+ pounds to a faraway place and back, empty, just to work around the parking rules. (See parallel thread on "Lufthansa confirmed that 18k flights had been flown empty to keep slots", which feels related.)

Compared to constant driving around the block it can’t be much worse? Worst case it drives away and comes back later with no stop. Best case it drives home or to a parking and waits then returns. The former could be worse than cruising constantly (due to potential higher speed) but the latter is better than constant cruising.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#166

Post by diebeforei485 »

If most people get there by car, then yeah parking should be free or close to it.

But if a lot of people get there by walk, bike, or transit - it makes no sense for parking to be free, especially if street parking can be replaced by outdoor (truly outdoor, with air flowing freely) dining.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#167

Post by davidw »

TylerE wrote: post #161
davidw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can own a home without owning the land. It's pretty common in denser parts of the world. I recall a wealthy family in Padova, Italy where I lived that had a flat on the 3rd floor of some building right in the historic downtown. It was both large and very nice.

I guess it comes down to definitions. To me a home would mean no shared walls/floors/ceilings with other tenants.

A home is where you live. If you stop to think about it, it's a very US sort of bias to define a 'home' as the single family detached house, whereas other things like apartments are not considered a 'home'. Not picking on you; people do this all the time. You even see it in the press, where they'll talk about some kind of development that includes both single family homes as well as apartment units (which sounds kind of cold and unappealing).

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#168

Post by ajford »

HWR_14 wrote: post #118
ghaff wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or to come into a city for an evening event. I'm actually quite close to commuter rail to the 40 mile away large city. Which I take if I'm going in 9-5 but it's completely impractical to use for going in for dinner and a show.

Why is it impractical for dinner and a show?

Not the OP, but I had the same issue living in North Austin, TX. I was nearly outside ATX, and would have loved to take the rail downtown for a night of bar-hopping and then not have to drive back. But the last northbound train was at like 10 or 11pm.

That meant while I could take the train to downtown, it wasn't practical (at least for a night of bar hopping) unless I wanted to spend a hefty sum on a return Uber at the end of the night.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#169

Post by jjav »

dml2135 wrote: post #116
dpark wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how removing off-street parking requirements would address anything. It doesn’t. It allows developers to dump the problem on public streets. Seattle does this stuff now. 42 unit buildings with 5 parking spots. This is great for developers. They get to build more units and let Seattle deal with the additional parking pressure. It’s car hostile, which fine, but then you need to provide alternatives to the…

I don’t understand why this is the developer’s responsibility. People choosing this apartment building will be aware of their parking options and can plan accordingly.

> I don’t understand why this is the developer’s responsibility.

Because otherwise they're just raking in the profits (from many additional units) and externalizing all the negatives.

> People choosing this apartment building will be aware of their parking options and can plan accordingly.

In a perfect world with perfectly rational people, you're right. But the leasing office will claim "you can always find a spot nearby" and people tend to be optimistic about having it work out even if rationally it won't.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#170

Post by vkou »

jdminhbg wrote: post #46
sokoloff wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Send the car on an errand and have it come back, or even send it “home” and summon it later. (I’m deeply skeptical that we’ll have level 5 self-driving cars in my lifetime, but if we do, we won’t need to pay $50 in today’s money to park anywhere…)

Even outside of "cheating" like this, self-driving would have a pretty significant impact on parking economics. You don't need to have parking spread throughout the city in convenient places, because you can send your car to the central parking depot while you're shopping and recall it when you're done.

This sounds wonderful, except for the part where your desire to avoid paying for parking is creating gridlock for everyone else, as your car drives around, creating traffic. [1]

Since I'm not interested in paying the taxes necessary to double the amount of roads in town, and since I hate traffic, I'd rather just make what you describe illegal [2], just like how many other nuisances are illegal on public roadways. It should be pretty easy for legislatures to force vendors to disable self-driving summons/parking on public roads.

[1] And no, even if the traffic you create is counterflow, we will still need more road capacity, and I'm not paying for it. Where I live, there is no 'counterflow' - traffic consistently sucks in both directions of travel.

[2] Or toll you, preferably to the point where you'll find it more advantageous to just pay for parking.

Post reply on HN