
BART parking permit black market and urban planning failures - jelliclesfarm
https://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/She-handed-a-stranger-2-220-cash-in-a-paper-bag-13556765.php
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wahern
> One solution that’s not on the table: more parking. BART doesn’t have land
> or money to build new structures or lots, which cost $20,000 to $30,000 a
> space. The planned surface lot at Antioch Station, scheduled to open next
> year with 850 spaces at a cost of $16.4 million, will likely be BART’s last
> parking expansion.

Some of those waitlists are 2,000-3,000 long. They could easily charge an
extra $200/month, so about $300/month. If they built 850 additional dedicated
spaces, then including the existing allotment that'd be about 1000 * $300 * 12
-> $3,600,000/year. More spaces could probably pay for themselves, and that's
before considering other improvements, like apartment buildings. Or they could
always just raise prices and use the revenue for improvements elsewhere if
construction costs don't pencil out.

This demand is a _good_ thing. The existence of the black market is a huge
signal that they're needlessly forgoing revenue and that they're not really
facing any hard decisions, just their own indecision.

The City of San Francisco owns several large parking garages downtown. Over
the past few years monthly prices have about doubled, I think, from about
~$200 to ~$400. That put a monthly permit beyond what I was willing to pay,
but I'm glad they raised prices. Increasing revenue is a necessary, if far
from sufficient, step to improving transit more generally.

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jelliclesfarm
I am not sure it’s a good thing. They are taking out parking garages to build
apartments in San Francisco.

All over the world, public transport works. We just can’t seem to hack it in
the Bay Area. Where it is needed most..

Car parks are not a solution. This will only increase traffic gridlocks which
is already bleeding our time.

Public transport is a system of multi tiered transit solutions. Since trains
don’t pick you up from your home, there is a need for intra city public mass
transit to get you from home to train stations or bus stations or ferry
stations.

Personally I think it’s worth thinking about underground or maglevs that is
dedicated to intra city transit while surface roads and freeways can be inter
city. This would take the pressure off.

Charging for public transport parking means it’s a way to make traveling more
expensive. This is already true for tolls and over bridges. By making it
expensive for cars to cross county lines, cities can become walled gardens.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing if that’s what the city wants(Marin is a
good example of how tolls thin and channel who can enter their enclaves due to
the high tolls and also monitored entrances/exits) ..but free movement of
public transport between cities(due to concentration of scattered work hubs
from residential sprawl)should not include added high barriers like limited
and expensive parking.

