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Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

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Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#171

Post by dpark »

tptacek wrote: post #164
dpark wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think my back of the envelope math is more compelling than your assertion that parking tickets implies sufficient parking capacity.

If there’s enough street parking, then why the proposal to charge so much for street parking to moderate demand?

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#172

Post by ajford »

ghaff wrote: post #77
ars wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think non-residential street parking, paid or not, should probably be illegal. Or at least eye-wateringly expensive and limited to a few minutes at a time So basically you don't want me to go there. Ok, I won't. I'll take my business somewhere else. I personally never shop at small local stores in my area because of lack of parking. I go to the huge stores 10 minutes away that have parking lots.

I'm not sure why this is a controversial take. I absolutely make decisions about activities, where I shop or eat, etc. based on whether--if I drive into the city--I can find parking and, if so, how expensive it is. Cities (and to a lesser degree businesses) can absolutely decide they don't care if they discourage people from coming in from outside. And I'll act accordingly. Which is fine.

Same. I entirely avoid Downtown Austin for this reason. I used to go when I could park for free at the state parking garages after-hours (was a state employee at the time), but now it's just expensive and/or tedious to park there.

I even passed on a job offer for a downtown office when I was informed they didn't have a parking lot/garage but would instead provide a monthly parking allowance. Wasn't interested at all in hunting for parking on-street or around various garages every morning.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#173

Post by jjav »

newaccount2021 wrote: post #14
davidw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all of the social engineering Do you mean forcing, by law, business and homebuilders to provision parking?

no, I mean the laws that mandate that they can only build a maximum of 80% of parking needed these laws aren't new...when Yahoo's "new" campus was built in 1999, only 8 parking spots per 10 employees were allowed to "encourage mass transit use" (lol)...so people just wasted hours driving around aimlessly

Yes, saw the same when my employers new campus in Santa Clara was built around the same timeframe. Parking was impossible, so people would drive around for a long time wasting fuel to find someone leaving. I settled on working from home the mornings and timing my arrival at lunchtime when spots were available. This of course left people coming back from lunch driving around for a long time. A huge waste.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#174

Post by rahimnathwani »

SECProto wrote: post #153
rahimnathwani wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A toll on all cars (not just empty cars) would already disincentivize driving around empty.

A larger toll on empty cars would disincentivize it more.

"A larger toll on empty cars would disincentivize it more."

A larger toll on all cars would disincentivize it just as much.

My point is: why not set the toll at an optimum level, and then let each car owner decide whether it's worth the car driving at a particular time and place?

If we want to charge people based on the contents of the car, why not charge lower tolls for cars with 5 occupants instead of 4. Or lower tolls for cars carrying older or fatter people (who are less able to take public transport)?

It seems to me that road usage prices should be high enough to limit/eliminate congestion and that, if they were that high, there would be no need to discriminate based on what is being carried.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#175

Post by celtain »

rory wrote: post #68
nostromo wrote: post #64

People supporting "new urbanism" -- a camp I was in until pretty recently -- should come look around downtown Seattle and see how it's working out. Our downtown is a grim wasteland. Shoppers, workers and residents have voted with their feet -- and they voted to avoid downtown. And it's not just Covid. The suburbs are booming. Walkable areas (most with free parking) in the 'burbs have new stores opening and have crowd…

The lack of a subway system can't help here. How reasonable is it to live without a car in Seattle?

It's pretty easy for a childless adult who works downtown and can afford to live in one of the more central neighborhoods of Seattle, and still workable in certain neighborhoods further out that have walkable amenities and good transit connections. If you're willing and able to get occasional rental cars/ride shares then it's absolutely trivial.

It's not easy for a lot of other people though. Rent in those neighborhoods is too expensive for most, and while you can take kids around by transit or by bike (and I certainly encourage people to do that when it's convenient), you'd have to be a pretty dedicated urbanist to do that for all your trips.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#176

Post by nostromo »

SECProto wrote: post #70
nostromo wrote: post #64

People supporting "new urbanism" -- a camp I was in until pretty recently -- should come look around downtown Seattle and see how it's working out. Our downtown is a grim wasteland. Shoppers, workers and residents have voted with their feet -- and they voted to avoid downtown. And it's not just Covid. The suburbs are booming. Walkable areas (most with free parking) in the 'burbs have new stores opening and have crowd…

> People supporting "new urbanism" [...] should come look around downtown Seattle and see how it's working out. People can go look around the downtown of any given city to see a "grim wasteland", but it has little to do with new urbanism and much to do with covid causing major shift to work from home + avoiding a lot of in-person events.

I agree, Covid has been a catalyst for the change.

But 1) the start of the shift pre-dates Covid and 2) suburbs are booming with in-person activity, so it's not just Covid.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#177

Post by tptacek »

dpark wrote: post #171
tptacek wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think my back of the envelope math is more compelling than your assertion that parking tickets implies sufficient parking capacity. If there’s enough street parking, then why the proposal to charge so much for street parking to moderate demand ?

You don't understand my argument, which has nothing to do with whether we should charge for street parking (we should). There's not much point in us continuing here.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#178

Post by SECProto »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #174
SECProto wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A larger toll on empty cars would disincentivize it more.

"A larger toll on empty cars would disincentivize it more." A larger toll on all cars would disincentivize it just as much. My point is: why not set the toll at an optimum level, and then let each car owner decide whether it's worth the car driving at a particular time and place? If we want to charge people based on the contents of the car, why not charge lower tolls for cars with 5 occupants instead of 4. Or lower t…

> My point is: why not set the toll at an optimum level, and then let each car owner decide whether it's worth the car driving at a particular time and place?

Because to a person stuck in traffic, seeing a bunch of empty cars beside you wasting space is infuriating regardless of if they paid the government their $3 toll or whatever

> If we want to charge people based on the contents of the car, why not charge lower tolls for cars with 5 occupants instead of 4.

Yep, I'm fully on board with scaling the toll down as the number of occupants increases (and so are most people - HOV lanes exist for exactly that reason)

> Or lower tolls for cars carrying older or fatter people (who are less able to take public transport)?

Yeah, on board with this too, as are most regulatory bodies - thus the handicap only parking spaces, bus+handicap loading zones, etc.

Equal isn't always fair.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#179

Post by dpark »

tptacek wrote: post #177
dpark wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my back of the envelope math is more compelling than your assertion that parking tickets implies sufficient parking capacity. If there’s enough street parking, then why the proposal to charge so much for street parking to moderate demand ?

You don't understand my argument, which has nothing to do with whether we should charge for street parking (we should). There's not much point in us continuing here.

I absolutely do not understand your argument. That’s why I’ve asked you to clarify it several times. This is what I responded to:

> What we should be doing is eliminating all off-street parking requirements […] and then simply charging for convenient on-street parking

I don’t understand how this solves for any parking issues. It seems like it will create a significant parking issue.

There is insufficient street parking for this to work. Yes, you can hypothetically charge to death until most people stop parking on the street but that just means they’ll vote out the board who instituted the parking fees that make it “convenient”, and the poor will be screwed over either way.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#180

Post by tptacek »

dpark wrote: post #179
tptacek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand my argument, which has nothing to do with whether we should charge for street parking (we should). There's not much point in us continuing here.

I absolutely do not understand your argument. That’s why I’ve asked you to clarify it several times. This is what I responded to: > What we should be doing is eliminating all off-street parking requirements […] and then simply charging for convenient on-street parking I don’t understand how this solves for any parking issues. It seems like it will create a significant parking issue. There is insufficient street parki…

None of our problems involve insufficient street parking.
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