Hacker News Reader

Comment by jseliger | Hacker News Reader

Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking is germane here: https://www.city-journal.org/html/high-cost-free-parking-146.... It is surprising that the article doesn't even name-check it.

View on HN

Though I live in San Diego, I generally avoid going downtown because the parking costs about $30. In a pinch, I'll park a mile north of the city center and take a scooter or an Uber for the last mile. It's just hard to justify spending $80 on a night out and nearly 40% of the cost goes to parking.

This is the reason why I have completely stopped going to downtown. Too much traffic, no free parking etc. Just not worth it to me!

Where are you coming from?

I live in a large Canadian city, and here most people don't own cars. When I want to go out, I usually take uber. No worrying about parking, tickets or driving drunk. No worrying about maintenance, licensing and filling the gas tank either. Not owning a car is wonderful.

> Not owning a car is wonderful.

When you are single.

But if you have children, it gets a lot more complicated. Possible, certainly, lots of people do it, but much more complicated.

And the larger you family, and the younger the children, the harder not having a car is.

I have a 3 months old, no car, and I buy groceries and go out without it. Sure, I chose an apartment close to transit, but I'm saving a lot by not having car hassle anymore. And I took cabs a bit more often in the first month (no idea how to even hold a baby, let alone wearing a carrier).

When I buy groceries, we bring stuff back with 2 carts, 1 backpack and 2 ikea bags (the ikea bags are kept very empty, to avoid unbalanced weights). Baby travels in the carrier with me, or in the stroller with mom, in which case I pull 2 carts.

Aside from groceries which is the one that requires more organization, we can go anywhere else (except movie theatre, of course )

My sister and her husband have 4 children ages 1 to 9 and had no problem predominantly going car-free here.

It's insanely easy to find parking for $5-$10 or at least $20. This is pretty much just wrong, or the side effect of being part of a mob, which is different from visiting a city. It's tourism, whether you live in the county or not. Same idea as $11.50 for a beer at a concert. It's a convenience cost. In my other comment I agree that it's more difficult some places than others, but I went for 3 years so far, never paying $30. I've never paid more than $20, and only then when I was in a huge hurry. Since then I just changed my behavior, did better research, and it was fine.

People coming downtown treat the place like a theme park. It's not. Maybe reorient your expectations.

That's one data point, but how does that relate to whether the law should force people to build parking garages in their homes?

Have you considered using public transit? A day pass is $5 to $12, depending on how far out you are, assuming you have a $2 Compass Card.

https://www.sdmts.com/fares-passes

Public transit is not always a great option. For example, where I currently live in Washington is a ~1hr bus ride to Seattle, but only a ~20 minute drive. It's awfully hard to justify the loss of ~40 minutes each way just to visit Seattle.

With that said, I do take public transit whenever I can (including basically every day to and from work), but I sure wish some of the "long haul" routes were optimized for city-to-city. Hopefully the light rail system that's being extended to several cities will help.

I have lived without a car for more than a decade. I spent part of that time in San Diego. I am specifically talking about transit in San Diego.

It's pretty good for an American system. That doesn't guarantee it will meet the GPs needs.

I do!

Our trolley system isn't great, but it's better than nothing. I appreciate the free parking.

> A day pass is $5 to $12

If you are a family with 3 kids that's $25 to $60 just to go downtown (are there child discounts?)

Much cheaper and easier just not to go places that don't have free parking.

From the link in my comment:

Up to two children age 5 and under may ride free with a paying passenger on all MTS and NCTD routes

Family Weekends: On Saturdays and Sundays up to two children (age 12 and under) may ride free with a fare-paying adult (age 18 or older) on all MTS routes.

Holiday Friends Ride Free: On New Year's Day (observed), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day, a friend may ride free with a fare-paying customer on all MTS routes. This promotion will be in effect on December 25, 2017 and January 1, 2018.

Plus, monthly passes for "Youth" (under age 18, or maybe 18 and under) is half the cost of an Adult monthly pass.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com