Comment by godot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by godot | Hacker News Reader

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I feel like that's not all of it; there is a certain expectation for parking to be free from many people and I feel like it's because the demand for parking can be drastically different in geographically nearby locations.

For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages. But go less than 30 miles to east bay (far east or south east bay, not Oakland or Berkeley), parking is much more plentiful everywhere and the expectation for parking is free.

If you live in the east bay and visit SF once in a while, you are coming from a daily life of the expectation of free parking to suddenly seeing signs for $20 a day, $50 a day, and so on. Without really consciously thinking about the economics and thinking, oh, it makes sense, because millions of people want to park in the city, it can definitely drive some emotional responses. If you live in SF and have thought about the economics and have accepted that parking is expensive, then the emotion and impatience and anxiety can be reduced/removed by the UX.

> For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages

I think it's useful to consider that SF downtown parking is - in the grand scheme of things - an exception, not a norm.

As it turns out, parking is free in most geographical locations. Even within SF, there's plenty of free street parking around areas like the Sunset or Potrero Hill for example, a mere 20 mins away from downtown core. Go another 15 mins further south and there's free parking at Home Depot, Costco, etc. Go further out to places like San Jose, and strip malls with abundant free parking dominate the landscape.

IMHO it doesn't make sense to think parking space can be easily replaced with residential space. This has been a theme in places like downtown Toronto, where parking lots were literally getting turned into condo buildings. Without a supporting transportation strategy, all that ends up happening is overloaded roads because more residences equal more people, and people need transportation. Going back to Toronto, they're now apparently talking about expropriating businesses to make space for public transit expansion in the worst congested subway station (Ironically, several businesses were already displaced from a lot to build a high rise mix use condo building in this exact intersection some 5 years ago, and there's now another high rise in construction right across the street from it). I honestly wish them good luck with scaling public transit to match demand, as all forms of traffic there - including the subway - already get to pretty bad levels.

Paying for parking changes the calculus of life. It makes everything significantly more expensive and really puts a damper on membership type things.

Like we've got a membership to the children's museum. But parking is ~$15 a time so we go far less frequently than we otherwise would.

Economic arguments about freeloading are good and something I theoretically agree with. But in practice when the other option is 2 busses & 45 minutes you end up not going to as many places as you otherwise would.

You're paying either way - the time you'd otherwise waste on finding a parking spot has a direct value, which makes 'free' parking even more costly than paid-for parking.

To some extent, this is the very point of having these charges. They relieve congestion on scarce resources by ensuring the only people using it are the people who want it really badly and are willing to pay, in either time, money, or inconvenience.

> this is the very point of having these charges. They relieve congestion

Yes.

>> ensuring the only people using it are the people who want it really badly

Not necessarily. People using it could just have more money.

> For example, in the bay area, parking in SF is difficult to say the least and usually in paid garages.

Funnily enough, when you live in SF, you find parking to be easy and mostly free :-)

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