
Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car - gwintrob
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/15/why-free-parking-is-a-big-problem/
======
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.

~~~
userbinator
I don't think that many people actually want higher population densities.

~~~
JDDunn9
Actually, we are seeing a return towards urbanisation globally, which is a
positive trends, since it's a vital component for curbing global warming.
Residents of NYC use 1/3 as much electricity as their suburban counterparts,
use a tiny fraction of the carbon emissions on transportation, and produce
less garbage. All without convincing New Yorkers to recycle or drive electric
cars. Environmental responsibility is baked into the city's design.

~~~
closeparen
Residents of NYC pay $3000/mo for 1-bedroom apartments, while their suburban
counterparts pay $1000/mo for 3-bedroom houses.

You could buy quite a few solar panels and lease _several_ electric cars for
less than it would take to move to NYC.

~~~
optimuspaul
Or you could move to a city with more reasonable housing costs, like
Minneapolis where 2br apartments <$2k/mo.

~~~
maxsilver
> more reasonable housing costs

Your "reasonable" housing costs are still double the price for half the space.

A lot of Americans just don't have an extra $1,000/month sitting around to
throw towards rent. Even if they ditch their car, they'd still be $800/month
short.

~~~
optimuspaul
You can definitely get a place in Minne for $1k. I was just quoting median
numbers. $2k for a 2br is in some of the more posh areas. But my point was
more reasonable that NYC. Much more space for much let money. And the suburbs
here would be even cheaper than the $1k.

------
tjic
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 basket of goods is created
and handed to everyone, regardless of whether they want it or not.

To say "yes, I still want that policy, but I want EXACTLY the bundle of goods
that __I __want forced on everyone, not some other basket of goods " seems
like special pleading.

~~~
at-fates-hands
Just in case someone wants to know:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-
capitalism](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 its proponents describe as a "voluntary
society").[2][3]_

One aspect that concerned me:

 _In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other
security services would be operated by privately funded competitors rather
than centrally through compulsory taxation. Money, along with all other goods
and services, would be privately and competitively provided in an open
market._

Sooooooooo private security firms for law enforcement? Pretty sure we saw how
that worked out in Iraq with Blackwater. No thank you. There's a ton of flaws
with this philosophy once you start thinking about it and following certain
aspects to their logical conclusion.

Such as:

>>> I'm an anarchocapitalist and would love to see all of these costs
unbundled, so that we each pay only for what we use.

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?

~~~
knz
> 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.

------
jedberg
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 work that's empty at night and the spot you park in at home that's empty
during the day.

Another nice benefit of self driving cars that are shared is the major
reduction in the need to all this excess parking.

~~~
forgettableuser
Interesting. Now you got me thinking more about what things might change with
self-driving cars.

Will cars offer an "orbiting" mode where they keep driving in a circle until
you are ready to be picked up.

Will stores offer a driving ring where cars can drive around in circles off
the main street in the case where no parking slots are available?

Will cars be able to drop you off, and park themselves when a space becomes
available? Will the cars notify you where they parked, or will they always
come to your location? (And what if you are standing in an area that is
impossible to drive to...where does the car go?)

I can't wait for self-driving cars. This will be a lot of fun to see how the
world changes in both the large and small.

~~~
erentz
Cars moving take up more space that stationary parked cars. What you've
stumbled on is actually a concern for transit planners - more traffic because
self driving cars are circling without any passengers.

~~~
csydas
Well, I think this is probably a case where a bit of number crunching will
save the day - considering a world in which driverless cars are the norm and
fully embraced by the city, the coordination system can likely determine based
on historical data and also current queue request pressure how many cars to
launch into traffic at any given time to satisfy demand for a summon in less
than 5 minutes or whatever target they want. When not summoned or being sent
to meet demand, the cars return to an enclosure outside the city for
maintenance.

Admittedly, there is a _lot_ of planning that needs to happen for even a
prototype of this to happen, as well as some major cultural shifts, but when
it does happen, I think it will run pretty smoothly. The biggest issue in my
mind isn't the logistics as much as the cultural attitude that will need to
happen - right now everyone seems to assume ownership of driverless cars, but
the more reasonable approach seems to be summoned fleets instead. I can
envision something like the city owning the control infrastructure and leasing
slots to competing companies, or even just competing companies and leaving the
city controller out of the picture.

------
sfifs
Most of the commenters on this thread don't appear to have lived in a country
with the opposite problem. Consider what happens when development and car
ownership expands in a country without adequate government parking mandates.

You routinely find at least two road lanes blocked by parked traffic because
buildings don't have adequate parking. This leads to very slow bumper to
bumper traffic (try Bangalore, Mumbai, Cairo, Manila), higher air pollution
leading to a public health crisis, waste of time, higher green house emissions
etc. When calculating "rental increases", articles like these conveniently
forget externalities that would result from jot providing for parking.

~~~
6t6t6t6
I'm afraid that you are comparing pears and oranges.

If you want to be fair, compare American cities with European cities. In
Barcelona or the center of Copenhagen, there are not free parking spaces. And
I can assure you that there are not the traffic issues that you are mentioning
in your comment... It's quite on the contrary, actually.

~~~
sfifs
Well if you want to compare that way to the cities mentioned in the list, the
only appropriate comparisons in Europe are London and Paris which definitely
have parking, traffic and pollution issues (or had till they started banning
vehicles in the center of the cities). Paris even considered banning diesel
altogether contrary to the rest of Europe.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_agglomerations_by_po...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_agglomerations_by_population)

Barcelona and Copenhagen arr about an order of magnitude smaller and likely
don't even make it into the top 100 cities. In India in casual conversations
we would call places with such populations "small towns" :-)

~~~
CalRobert
Parking and traffic issues aren't issues if you're not driving, and most
people in those places aren't.

I mean, flying a helicopter around the city sounds like great fun but that
doesn't mean everyone else should be forced to build places for me to store
said helicopter.

~~~
7Z7
I have to disagree here. I spent some time in Dhaka recently and they have
some of the worst traffic problems on the planet, through a combination of
incredible population density, lack-of-infrastructure, and partisan-political
strong-arming.

Everyone suffers because of it, whether they are actively utilising the roads
or not - because the people who are using the roads are their
customers/staff/suppliers/whatever. If half of my staff can't get to work on
time, my business suffers. If my customers can't get to me, or don't feel the
time investment is worth it (I've done 3km in 3 hours in Dhaka), my business
suffers.

Losses from Dhaka's traffic nightmare: [http://print.thefinancialexpress-
bd.com/old/more.php?news_id...](http://print.thefinancialexpress-
bd.com/old/more.php?news_id=95715&date=2012-01-25)

[https://newrepublic.com/article/118416/what-dhaka-
bangladesh...](https://newrepublic.com/article/118416/what-dhaka-bangladesh-
traffic-capital-world-can-teach-us)

------
refurb
I don't disagree with the analysis on how free parking makes things more
expensive, but if you carry that argument forward, it gets kind silly.

Credit cards make everything more expensive when the poor often can't use them
due to bad credit.

Putting grocery stores in really upscale areas makes the groceries cost more
(across all stores), even though the poor don't shop at the fancy stores.

I'm sure what this article is arguing for.

~~~
CalChris
_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...](https://www.merchantmaverick.com/the-complete-guide-to-credit-card-
processing-rates-and-fees/)

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.

~~~
trentmb
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.

~~~
kuschku
> Handling cash ain't free.

But it's so much cheaper than handling credit cards that many small stores in
Germany won't accept any cards at all.

~~~
Symbiote
Don't German stores accept debit cards?

The cost is much lower on a debit card transaction.

~~~
detaro
Yes, debit cards are more widely accepted than credit cards, but many places
take neither. Not just stores, bars and restaurants as well.

~~~
lorenzhs
It's quite uncommon for stores not to accept debit cards in my experience, but
next to nobody pays by card in bars and restaurants.

------
skrap
My city just passed a bond measure which includes $36MM for a 300 space
parking garage for the high school and city hall, literally meters from where
a new light rail stop will be built. 25% of the city's families don't own a
car. I have trouble not seeing this as a forced, direct subsidy for the
lifestyle of the employees of the city. And this is supposedly one of the most
transit-friendly cities around (in the US). But this is an enormous cost, for
the benefit of so few... plus it will add 600 trips per day to some of our
busiest local roads.

Free parking has all sorts of problems, and when government gets in on the
game it only raises more questions, in my mind.

[edited to clarify that the city in question is in the USA]

~~~
hackuser
A reasonable concern, but a few thoughts:

* Increasing use of public transit benefits everyone, including by reducing greenhouse gas emissions

* Almost everything government does benefits some citizens more than others. Police help some more than others; some make more use of the water system, fire department, the courts, health care, other forms of transit, Social Security, etc. I want my society to provide those services to those who need them; I need some services myself some days.

~~~
CalRobert
"Increasing use of public transit benefits everyone, including by reducing
greenhouse gas emissions"

Which would be a good reason to put housing and amenities near the station
instead of parking...

~~~
dsfyu404ed
That does nothing to help existing residents utilize the rail station.

~~~
skrap
In this case, the city is only 4.3 square miles, and there's enough homes
within walking distance to saturate the new transit stop. The garage isn't a
commuter rail parking lot. Rather, it's a parking lot for people working at
the school and city hall, on the presumption that they won't want to take the
light rail to work.

------
dsfyu404ed
I don't disagree with the numbers but you could make this same argument for
literally any feature of a business that has the affect of making that
business more attractive to customers with Y quality (where Y is not something
all customers have).

Let's imagine that the parking lots of Walmart, $localSupermarketChain and
other stores is cut to 1/4 it's present size. What happens then? I suspect the
inability to draw wealthier customers from further away (because "why shop
somewhere you can't find parking") would cause a price increase.

~~~
tonmoy
They specifically talk about the fact that cities require a minimum number of
parking to be built for businesses and residences. Now, if this requirement
wasn't present then economical forces would take over, places without parking
would be ideal for less wealthy people because the prices would be lower.

~~~
tzs
> Now, if this requirement wasn't present then economical forces would take
> over, places without parking would be ideal for less wealthy people because
> the prices would be lower.

On the other hand, wouldn't those places tend to have fewer customers because
people who are not willing or able to get their without driving will go
someplace with more parking, and so would have to charge more per customer to
cover fixed costs?

~~~
snrplfth
Maybe, maybe not. But isn't that for the businesses to decide, depending on
their needs? As it stands, large numbers of businesses (and residences, etc.)
are _required_ to have more parking than they ever need at any point. How does
that make sense? Why can't the owners of a property determine how much it's
worth to them?

------
drcode
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

~~~
kylec
I never shop anywhere I can't park at

~~~
op00to
I only step foot in the mall when I must. I much prefer to walk to the corner
grocery store or take the train to a downtown shopping district. I suppose we
cancel each other out.

~~~
s0rce
You probably live in a walkable city with good public transit, the parent
poster probably lives in the other 95% of the USA.

~~~
TulliusCicero
And the reason transit sucks and cars are way more convenient in 95% of the
USA is exactly what we're discussing: mandates from the government that
prioritize cars over other modes.

~~~
gbrs
I think the problem is that to transition to a public transit model would
require the transportation to be built first. It would also require the public
transit to operate at a loss for a decade or two while buildings and people
transition to this new mode of transportation. Many people are against this in
the US because it's expensive and nobody likes tax hikes. Also people love
their cars.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Transit already exists in the US, it just usually sucks. And you're never
going to get radical, system-wide improvement in one shot in a car-dominant
area. But there's nothing stopping us from releasing mandatory minimum parking
requirements while gradually improving transit, biking, and walking. Removing
the minimums doesn't erase parking overnight.

> It would also require the public transit to operate at a loss for a decade
> or two while buildings and people transition to this new mode of
> transportation.

Transit always operates at a loss, same as driving, or biking, or walking.

> Many people are against this in the US because it's expensive and nobody
> likes tax hikes.

Agreed, politically it's up in the air whether this will work. Mostly it is
region-dependent, with a bunch of metros actually passing tax hikes to fund
better transit the other day: [http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/north-
america/nearly-70...](http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/north-
america/nearly-70-of-us-transit-ballot-measures-pass.html)

> Also people love their cars.

Two things:

1\. Again, this is largely a chicken and egg situation. Over the course of
decades, we've created an environment that's good for cars and hostile to
everything else. People are mostly pretty rational about their personal
transportation choices, and they quite rationally prefer the method that's
much better supported, because it works better. But when other modes work
well, people will choose them too.

2\. The younger generation does not like cars as much as previous ones.
There's a steady shift underway.

------
badsock
The trucks that deliver the goods that poor people buy (and carry away the
waste) are hard as hell on roads - you could say that the car drivers are
subsidizing (through gasoline taxes) the massive infrastructure costs of
maintaining a road network. I don't know how the numbers would balance out,
but I'd bet that the benefits of that subsidy are greater than the costs
incurred from free parking.

~~~
op00to
You're right and you're wrong - trucks generally don't pay the true cost of
their road usage, but neither do motorists, at least through gas taxes and
tolls. Much of our road funding comes from other sources like sales taxes and
such. Which seems really funny when public transportation is constantly
expected to pay for itself, but far more inefficient private motor vehicles
don't have to pay their fair share.

~~~
badsock
Here in Canada that's generally not the case:

[http://globalnews.ca/news/907665/ontario-motorist-fees-
taxes...](http://globalnews.ca/news/907665/ontario-motorist-fees-taxes-cover-
majority-of-road-costs-study/)

"The report released Thursday found Ontario road users driving cars, minivans,
SUVs and light pickup trucks are paying 70 to 90 per cent of the costs of the
road through fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees and tolls, to the tune of
$7.5 billion a year."

But the OP is a US article, so point taken!

~~~
op00to
Great point. Curious if that figure is talking about construction costs,
maintenance costs, or a combination.

------
samtoday
There is a more in depth interview about this subject in podcast form, if
that's what you prefer: [http://www.maximumfun.org/adam-ruins-
everything/episode-10-p...](http://www.maximumfun.org/adam-ruins-
everything/episode-10-parking-donald-shoup-dogg-shoup)

------
andy_ppp
The canonical opposite example of this is a nationalised healthcare system.
Rich people pay for a healthcare system that they don't use.

Due to economies of scale the NHS in the UK costs less than half the money the
American systems costs and has better outcomes. The government in the UK being
very right wing are slowly trying to destroy the service. Numerous mostly Tory
MPs are paid cash by private healthcare providers!

[1] [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/selling-nhs-profit-
full...](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/selling-nhs-profit-full-
list-4646154)

[2]
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/03/healthcare-...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/03/healthcare-
companies-links-tories-nhs-contracts)

------
pcr0
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)

~~~
kylec
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.

~~~
gohrt
How much farther will you drive (wasting time and gas) to avoid paid parking?
It's the 21st century, paid parking can be a radio transmitter in your car or
on your receipt.

~~~
tedunangst
People assess visible and invisible costs very differently. We are, by nature,
often penny wise and pound foolish.

------
cobbzilla
I'm wondering what are the myriad other ways that low-income folks are
silently taxed?

higher interest rates, housing codes, regulatory compliance (leading to higher
prices), and possibly even the minimum wage come to mind (I'm sure there's
much more), thus always keeping "the basics" expensive enough to be out of
reach.

~~~
losteverything
<low-income folks are silently taxed?

I worked at a hotel and a woman asked to use the phone. She said she was
robbed earlier and has no money. She called the local priest to get a ride. It
was to the motel where she lived that night.

I drove her there and found out she worked at McDonald's. (Near the hotel).

When I talked to the priest he said she was homeless. That she had a network
of people that help her.

That one instance made me realize how transportation especially a car was
essential. Then - she uses same day places to cash her check. Keeps cash with
her always since she has no bank. Has no phone number or address. How many
silent taxes on her hurt entry back into my familiar society?

------
briandear
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 friends with a doctor.

A strange thing is that you have handicapped parking requirements yet the NYC
subway is still not even close to being Accessible for those in wheelchairs. A
suburban Target is required to have something like 90 handicapped spaces
(obviously I'm exaggerating,) but the NYC subway still has huge swatches of
stations that are accessible only by stairs. How NYC gets away with this is
beyond me -- they can force businesses to bend over backwards to accommodate
the disabled, but they themselves don't do much of anything to improve the
public transportation situation for the disabled. (or even moms with strollers
and kids.)

If anyone wants to know why public transportation isn't a bigger thing for
families -- it's because going to a grocery store with a kid(s) in a stroller
via the subway is a nightmare. -- not even talking about carrying your
purchases home. Buying a weeks worth of groceries and then carrying all that
home on a crowded bus or train with a kid in tow? No thanks.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> 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?

------
readme
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.

~~~
TulliusCicero
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.

~~~
snrplfth
That's how these kinds of regulations frequently get ratcheted up.

A: "It's nice to have lots of parking available everywhere! Let's make it
mandatory."

B:"But now everything is far apart, and I need a car to do anything."

A:"Hm, good point. Well, then we will make sure there's even more parking than
anybody ever needs, so it doesn't cost you anything to park anywhere."

B:"What about letting the market decide?"

A:"The market? Why do you hate the poor?!"

------
chunsj
Yes, it can embed the cost. However the problem solving approach should be
social one; more tax from who can afford, which means in this case, the car
owners. Without social, community based approach, the solution surely become
less protective and more discrimitive to poor people.

------
zensavona
And you know what? In countries with free healthcare the healthy pay for the
care of the sick, even when they are healthy. Doesn't make it a bad system.

~~~
jschwartzi
So are you saying that the poor are like healthy people, and the wealthy are
like sick people who need the help of the poor?

------
h4nkoslo
Minimum parking requirements are also a mechanism to prevent businesses from
declining to build parking and free-riding on their neighbors.

They also effectively ensure maximum density, which in some areas is an
explicit government policy objective.

------
spectrum1234
This is pretty obvious right?

A few years ago in the US there was talk about requiring the 1st checked
airline bag to be free. This is the same thing. The bill was put forward by a
respected politician.

These are the types of issues that make me think educating the public on this
stuff is incredibly important.

------
vondur
Here in my part of the greater Los Angeles area, in the poorer areas, you will
see most houses with more than a few cars in each house. In my area we have
some people who have more than five cars/household for houses that are
probably no larger than 1500 sq. ft.

------
tn13
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 in Sunnyvale and prefer to work around Sunnyvale
precisely because of the ample parking spaces everywhere. If the regulations
don't exist for those spaces I might consider moving to some other place where
they have more parking space.

Poor people benefit by having well off people living around them for many
number of reasons.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> 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.

------
zdragnar
...And I pay for public schools even though I do not and will not have
children. I'm not complaining, mind you, but of the problems we could be
trying to solve, this seems like a relatively low priority.

My state also passed a sales tax (you know, the regressive kind) intended to
preserve natural resources and cultural heritage, and most of the money has
gone to art projects in the major metropolitan area that are mostly
unappreciated. The point here is, yes, governments waste money, but making
parking easier is hardly the worst offense.

~~~
snrplfth
But it's a large deadweight on the economy. It requires the production of
considerable amounts of parking that is never, or almost never, used or needed
by anybody. It makes parking easier only by hiding the cost of parking in
everything else, in a wholly regressive way. And it's not a "commons problem"
like air pollution - it's just the government deciding that a particular
private good is nice, and everybody should be forced to provide it. It's
silly.

~~~
zdragnar
That precisely describes the example I gave (sales tax that funds pointless
art projects noone likes), except the cost to the economy, and the impact on
the poor, is readily quantifiable, unlike hypotheses of various opportunity
costs regarding parking.

Saying all parking is funded the same way and has the same externalities is
both reductionist and absurd. Furthermore, what value empty lots provide is
entirely up to the people who control them; several around here are used for
farmers markets and other activities outside of peak time usage.

We've got light rail and buses where I live; one of the light rail lines was
poorly planned and is now subsidised somewhere around $20-30 per passenger per
trip. Another was promised to ease traffic congestion and revitalize several
neighborhoods along the path; it has done neither and has arguably made both
worse (traffic has to stop when it goes by, and the horns contribute
significant noise pollution) and driven down property values to a certain
degree.

Basically, costs are relative, and arguing over parking is far less productive
than what we could be working on in our communities.

~~~
snrplfth
I'm not saying "all parking has the same externalities" \- obviously, the
first parking spot at a house has different impacts than the tenth. And of
course people can do creative things with parking lots. I never said that they
couldn't. What I am saying is that mandated parking, above what property
owners want to provide, is a deadweight loss and can't be ignored. And, as is
common in many suburbs, when parking and roads is frequently one-quarter of
total land use, we have to consider that this could have a significant impact.

If what you desire is a walkable or Main-Street-y type urban form, you have to
tackle parking minimums. Likewise if you want compact row housing and multi-
storey apartments. If you don't want those things, that's fine, no problem.
But if you do, you should consider that the dense urban form of older
downtowns and main streets is basically impossible to build with current
parking regulations.

------
OJFord
I haven't read the actual study, but I don't really buy this on the basis of
the article alone.

Allocated parking that you're not using? Let it out.

Abundant parking at supermarkets? Pfft - only in locations with an abundance
of space anyway. At least in the UK, I'd argue that supermarkets with plenty
of parking have lower prices than those without - since they're not in city
centres.

~~~
snrplfth
The problem is that the requirements are so high, and demand the creation of
so much parking (indeed, parking lots for commercial uses are generally
required to be larger than the buildings they serve) that the price for
parking is driven down to $0. Most parking lots in the suburban US fill up
either never, or on a single day per year.

The point is that _forcing_ businesses to have excess parking imposes a real
cost on them that they make up with prices increased over what they otherwise
would have been.

~~~
OJFord
Okay, I think I might retract my comment then, on the basis that this seems to
be US-centric issue due to specific regulations.

Definitely sounds odd, why is it that way? (I generally believe that even the
maddest of regulations had sound reasoning at some point in time or for some
circumstance, even if hypothetical!)

~~~
snrplfth
Well, a lot of it originated around street parking. When cars were becoming
very popular and common, they would generally be parked on the street. Of
course, since most street parking spaces were not metered (that is, free
parking) this meant that parking was constantly scarce. Huge parking
congestion, conflict over spaces, etcetera. Even where the parking was
metered, the price was usually set too low (since it was owned by
municipalities, with no incentive to maximize revenue). So street parking was
still congested everywhere, but the straightforward solution of just raising
the price of street parking was too unpopular for most cities.

This led, mostly post-1940s, to urban planners requiring homes, businesses and
offices to have a minimum amount of parking. However, the way they usually
determined the "appropriate minimum" was to estimate the maximum probable use:
measuring the busiest day of the year at a shopping mall, or requiring one
parking space per bedroom in a house, etcetera. This basically ensured that,
no matter where you go, there's almost always parking available. However, this
also means that most parking is never used. The secondary effect of this means
that everything becomes surrounded by large amounts of parking, causing
everything to be further apart, making driving much more appealing. Also,
people become very accustomed to free parking, so anywhere that there is a
parking shortage, they demand not _better pricing_ , but _more mandatory
supply_. In the US at least, you will typically only pay for parking in areas
built before 1940.

But it's not necessarily US-centric. While the US tends to have the most
extreme parking minimums, they're common all over the world, from England to
Malaysia.

------
_Codemonkeyism
Everything there is to know

"The High Cost of Free Parking" by Donald Shoup

------
mseebach
Yes, heavy-handed government regulations (to which planning belongs) means
that you pay, directly or indirectly, for a lot of things you never use.

------
pc2g4d
I'm feeling more attuned than usual to the fact that I inhabit a filter
bubble. Thus I observe the preponderance of anti-car posts on Hacker News and
wonder, what's the other side of this issue? What are the arguments in favor
of sprawl and car-first development? Surely it's more complicated than just
"cars are evil, why don't we change this!?"

------
mac01021
The same phenomenon applies to credit cards, for which all the merchants bake
the processing fees into the prices of goods and services whether you pay with
a card or not.

I'm not sure which instance of this phenomenon incurs the greater cost for
most people, though.

~~~
majewsky
Some shops in Germany require cash below a certain threshold (anywhere between
3€ and 10€) because of card transaction fees (which are in the 5-10 cent range
as far as I'm told).

------
chiefalchemist
1) Any economist will tell you, NOTHING is "free."

2) Like it or not, one hand subsidizing the other is the DNA of any social
contract. In a perfect world, it would be ideally otherwise. We don't live in
a perfect world.

------
calvinbhai
I used to believe this for a long time, but now I dont.

Here's why:

If there was a Walmart that had zero parking lots, only those without cars
would do business with that Walmart. That'd probably be 1/10th or 1/100th the
revenue compared to that of a Walmart with a parking lot. Its because people
with cars come in and purchase more and larger stuff, revenue goes up. The
increased revenue justifies the cost of building such a parking lot or a
structure.

Now, this argument holds true, only if there's a Walmart that has a huge
parking lot and is always empty.

fwiw: I think these are the types of articles paid for by TNCs like Uber and
Lyft, to popularize the idea of getting rid of parking everywhere so that
their market expands. (I'm not judjing, but this is my observation).

~~~
hx87
If Walmart needs parking spaces in order to make revenue, then Walmart will
put up parking spaces, government-mandated minimums or not.

~~~
ars
You are forgetting that if Walmart doesn't provide the parking spaces people
will park in the nearby residential areas.

------
nsgi
Thought the title was saying poor people buy parking to alleviate their
feelings of not being able to afford a car. Seemed like an interesting
sociological phenomenon.

------
andrewfromx
i can't wait for [http://www.seasteading.org](http://www.seasteading.org) to
take off and live where there are no cars. Or maybe
[http://freedomship.com](http://freedomship.com) is what I need as long as it
has free wifi.

~~~
7Z7
>as long as it has free wifi.

"You may pay for the cost of free-wifi even if you never go online"

------
eat_your_potato
If you have an empty parking space in your apartment, well just rent the spot

~~~
jessaustin
Since excess parking is required by law, everyone will just park somewhere
else rather than renting my spot.

------
Thane
If you can't see this article by the Bezos-owned Washington Post as a
propaganda piece to push aside obstacles he faces in his redevelopment of
Seattle, then you need to brush up on your critical thinking skills. Bezos
gives fuck-all about the poor unless they're buying his products.

------
pmiller2
Come on, now, why was the title changed? The originally submitted title, "Poor
people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car," is the title of the
article, and it's _true_ , not click bait at all.

~~~
dang
Because the 'poor people' angle is a red herring and thus arguably misleading,
and perhaps clickbait as well since it makes the story more sensational. Those
are the two reasons why titles should be changed on HN, as described at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

The article's actual argument is that free parking forces people who don't
drive to subsidize those who do. That's a sentence from the article, so it
could make a legit title, but in this case we picked another representative
sentence, from the article's second paragraph. Either of those seems fine to
me.

Edit: ok, since we got other complaints and this is a borderline call anyhow,
we've restored the "Poor people..." title.

~~~
upofadown
But the poor people thing is the main thrust of the article.

>"People who are too poor to own a car," Shoup writes in the University of
California's ACCESS Magazine, "pay more for their groceries to ensure that
richer people can park free when they drive to the store."

You could argue that the article is in itself overly sensational but the title
is accurate.

------
edblarney
Build wicked fast trains and tons of subways and people will use them when
they make sense to use them.

A high speed along DC-Boston corridor that stopped in downtown of major cities
would be full all day, every day.

------
employee8000
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.

~~~
cldellow
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
it.

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

~~~
jschwartzi
The difference is that fire stations have some tangible benefit, like a form
of mandatory insurance that pays out before your house and everything you own
burns down.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...if you own a house.

------
ww520
Fire code make everything more expensive. Why have them?

~~~
snrplfth
Because if your building catches on fire, the people inside could die and it
could spread to other buildings. Classic externality problem. Nobody is going
to die because the owners of buildings get to choose how much parking their
building needs, any more than they will if they get to decide how many
bathrooms their house has.

------
kazinator
> _pay more for their groceries to ensure that richer people can park free
> when they drive to the store._

That seems to assume that the richer people just park there "for free" and
then don't buy anything.

How much volume would that store move without those customers, and what would
that do to the prices? Hard to say. On the one hand, there would be lower
demand. On the other, worse economy of scale.

Heaven fucking forbid that the poor pay even a tiny share for for something
that doesn't directly benefit them.

Paying for this and that which doesn't benefit oneself: isn't that squarely
the job of the working class? Don't foist that onto the poor, _or_ the rich.

