WHO ELSE SAYW THE NAME OF THE ARTICLE "BETWEEN THE LINES" AND FELT THE NEED TO LISTEN TO ONE OF GENESIS' ALBUMS, MOST NOTABLY "DUKE"

FTA:
Donald Shoup, a Yale-trained economist and former chair of UCLA's Department of Urban Planning

I'd like to see him provide photographic proof.

That Michael Jordan is so phony!

Fascinating read.

"We break the law often and get away with it," he says. "Deep down inside we know that. What makes us mad is getting caught the few times we do. Ninety percent of drivers on this street got away scot-free today, but I get the ticket? That makes us crazy."

I've made a genuine effort for my entire adult life not to break the law. Remind me never to go to L.A.; it sounds like a shiathole.

ZAZ: Neither is it an LA where walking feels alien.

Years ago, my best friend moved to LA from NYC. A few months later a bunch of us flew out to visit her and decided to do an afternoon of mani-pedis. She had noticed a spa several blocks away so we made appointments and walked down there. About a block in, we all felt kind of weird, like all the drivers were wondering what was wrong and why was there a bunch of women walking down the street. It was the oddest feeling. And what's even weirder is that at least in Hollywood, there are actually sidewalks. But no one uses them.

I loved the weather out in LA but damn, most of that city is just one strip mall after another.

When I got to the part about the parking meters were once called illegal and immoral, I could only think of how to return to free parking for everyone. Then I recalled just have theives break the machines and steal the change until the city can no longer maintain them. Oh, wait happened to Flint. Free parking for everybody!!

I would like to have the last 5 minutes of my life back, thank you.

FTA:
Shaye had the chaparral lot across the street paved to park them all

You guys actually park on pavement?

/things are strange outside Mississippi

Working to solve the parking problem:

Linger: The part about the old Lot men in L.A. reads like a movie waiting to happen.

Hell, there is a crappy reality show about meter maids, and Chinatown is about the water department of LA, Why not have J.J. Gittes get involved in some noir about how the parking was handled.

lack of warmth: When I got to the part about the parking meters were once called illegal and immoral, I could only think of how to return to free parking for everyone. Then I recalled just have theives break the machines and steal the change until the city can no longer maintain them. Oh, wait happened to Flint. Free parking for everybody!!

Nowadays with credit-card readers, there's no motive to break the machines...

I live in Philly. We shoot each other over parking spaces, especially in winter. Don't park your piece of shiat in front of my house.

Huh.

I would never have guessed that one could argue that everything that's wrong with LA could be traced back to too much parking.

And yet...

ZAZ: lack of warmth: have theives break the machines and steal the change until the city can no longer maintain them

Boston has recently upgraded to relatively abuse-proof meters and is phasing in an electronic payment system to reduce the amount of sympathy you get for a broken coin slot. The yuppie shopping district switched from meters to pay-and-display a few years ago.

Flint is broke enough to fire 10 city hall employee (some elected) just in time for Christmas. New parking meters are not even discussed. Besides so many people left after losing jobs and homes that parking has really become easy.

Fascinating article - slow start but really gets going.

Strip malls and parking lots aren't that bad on their own. Go to north carolina and drive around, try to find something interesting. At least LA has something approaching a grid. The grid in Raleigh falls apart after about a square mile. Everything in the area is built around suburban residential communities that are designed to be impassible and keep traffic out.

People in Manhattan don't ditch their cars because owning a car is expensive; incredible public transport, efficient community structure and actual farking neighborhoods make owning a car pointless. Pedestrians are no longer a shiatstain on the face of transit. Jaywalking isn't dangerous on smaller streets and cars will actually pay attention to walkers' existence. In NC, I can't cross a parking lot without an SUV trying to run over me.

You just need a smaller car, really how big is a bag of money anyway?

pinchpoint: I live in Philly. We shoot each other over parking spaces, especially in winter. Don't park your piece of shiat in front of my house.

I was going to start talking about living in Philly, and the parking nightmare. Try living in Old City...

Interesting read.

This:
"After a concert in San Francisco," says Shoup, "the streets are full of people walking to their cars, eating in restaurants, stopping into bars and bookstores. In L.A.? The bar next door at Patina is a ghost town."
Caught my eye. Shouldn't that be obvious? If you want an area to be busy and prosperous you want lots of people walking around. Cars may make it quick and easy for potential customers to get to your area, but it also makes it quick and easy for them to go home again the moment they have done the one thing they came to do....

ZAZ: But L.A. had more than 1,300 lots-the largest game of all.

That's 2 to 3 per square mile citywide.

A large portion of them are tiny 5-to-10-car lots along busy streets, like Santa Monica. Also, if Los Angeles' parking is overkill, particularly in the San Fernando Valley, the parking in all of its suburbs makes it look like a walker's paradise. Cities like Commerce are vast seas of striped lots, rarely filled to more than 5% capacity.

A dry but important topic. Too bad urban planners are some of the stodgiest people on the planet.

ZAZ:

My experience says progressives are abnormally likely to be car-haters who want to price private automobiles out of existence.



1/10

Flint Ironstag: Interesting read.

This:
"After a concert in San Francisco," says Shoup, "the streets are full of people walking to their cars, eating in restaurants, stopping into bars and bookstores. In L.A.? The bar next door at Patina is a ghost town."
Caught my eye. Shouldn't that be obvious? If you want an area to be busy and prosperous you want lots of people walking around. Cars may make it quick and easy for potential customers to get to your area, but it also makes it quick and easy for them to go home again the moment they have done the one thing they came to do....

That's been sort of the effect of the increased parking meter rates in Chicago, for me. I used to take transit to do errands in certain neighborhoods because it was impossible to park. With the increased rates, I will now often drive because it is faster, and there are usually parking spaces. But because it is so expensive, I tend to put in the minimum time on the meter that I think I can get away with and do my errands as quickly as possible. No time to stop in to an interesting-looking shop on the way like I did in the old days.

The other thing is too, with the old style meter if you put in a quarter or so anticipating a 15 minute trip and then saw something you wanted to look at, you could add more money to the meter. The new automated kiosk things won't let you do that. Too complicated, and it discourages me from shopping.

From the standpoint of neighborhood shopping health, it was better the old way.

Parking is a horrible scam about everywhere you go. Schools, for example, are happy to charge you $100+ a semester when you aren't even guaranteed a parking space. I have to adjust my schedule for when I know parking will be available or risk having to walk a mile to class (and be late) and a mile back to my car. They also like to shut down parking lots and build useless shiat in them and say, ooh, parking is more scarce. We need to charge more in order for the market to adjust the number of commuters downward!

FSTFKL:
The other thing is too, with the old style meter if you put in a quarter or so anticipating a 15 minute trip and then saw something you wanted to look at, you could add more money to the meter. The new automated kiosk things won't let you do that. Too complicated, and it discourages me from shopping.

From the standpoint of neighborhood shopping health, it was better the old way.

In London you can pay by cellphone. See Link.

They can send you a text message when your time is about to expire (or you can just set an alarm) and if you want to you can top up by phone without having to go back to the car.

ZAZ: Flint Ironstag

DC has pay by phone. A recent newspaper article says updates to meter maids are sometimes delayed so you get a ticket anyway. The system is probably around 99% accurate. Less than 1% complain, but some people aren't going to waste their time arguing with the system.

At least with this there is an audit trail, and text confirmations that are timed. If a meter maid said you were out of time on an old mechanical meter how could you argue?

/The appeals process here seems to be fairly good. I've only had two parking tickets in maybe twenty years. Once when a regular bay had been converted into a disabled bay and they had put up signs but not changed the colour of the road markings and once when I had bought a pay and display ticket but it ended up upside down on my dashboard and couldn't be read.
I appealed both and both were dismissed. Didn't cost me anything but the price of a stamp.

City politics are run by stupid shiatbags who think that parking spaces are a godsend. It's like this in every city.

tl:dr
blocks and blocks of text.
Gaaah.
And I have actually read War and Peace.
Good book!

gadian: Hrist: Parking is a horrible scam about everywhere you go. Schools, for example, are happy to charge you $100+ a semester when you aren't even guaranteed a parking space. I have to adjust my schedule for when I know parking will be available or risk having to walk a mile to class (and be late) and a mile back to my car. They also like to shut down parking lots and build useless shiat in them and say, ooh, parking is more scarce. We need to charge more in order for the market to adjust the number of commuters downward!

My university covered our ample school parking with "green space". Now there isn't enough parking for students or staff and the university is being "forced" to raise tuition in order to hire parking enforcement and experts to tell them what to do about the problem. Obviously, digging up the old parking lots isn't being considered. Its now almost $500 a year for the privilege of parking so far away from any building that they have to run a non stop shuttle circuit from the parking lots to the various buildings.

You go to FSU?

I don't get the part about pulling into a parallel space front first. How is that stealing? (The word "parallel" never even appears in TFA).

Where I live, it's illegal to park "nose out" in a lot. Nobody seems to know why. My personal theory is that they don't want you to make quick getaways when you rob banks, but it's a bit of a stretch.

tillerman35: I don't get the part about pulling into a parallel space front first. How is that stealing? (The word "parallel" never even appears in TFA).

Where I live, it's illegal to park "nose out" in a lot. Nobody seems to know why. My personal theory is that they don't want you to make quick getaways when you rob banks, but it's a bit of a stretch.

I've heard people say that since some states only require plates at the back it is so cops can drive through the lot and check all the plates.

It's odd since I would have thought it is far safer to drive out of a parking space forwards than to reverse out.

/Was also shocked to discover that it is illegal in the US to park facing the "wrong way". You're parked! Why does it matter if you're facing the "wrong way"?

tillerman35: I don't get the part about pulling into a parallel space front first. How is that stealing? (The word "parallel" never even appears in TFA).

It's a seinfeld reference. See Beerguy's post for episode pic.

Hrist: Parking is a horrible scam about everywhere you go. Schools, for example, are happy to charge you $100+ a semester when you aren't even guaranteed a parking space. I have to adjust my schedule for when I know parking will be available or risk having to walk a mile to class (and be late) and a mile back to my car. They also like to shut down parking lots and build useless shiat in them and say, ooh, parking is more scarce. We need to charge more in order for the market to adjust the number of commuters downward!

I work at a university and even as staff we have to pay for parking too. My building (a converted house) is a block from the student center, so whenever there's any kind of event the lot I use is the one they close.

Good article. I wonder how many lots the Mafia owns.

I have no problem with meters. I have preferred parking aka handicapped. Not so useful in concert venues (first in last out) but it does come in handy at times. It did help me at one concert where I was out in minutes while others I know took hours. I did find out there are no limits here in town while reporting to jury duty. Saved me a eight block walk. The garage was full.

/limps a lot

ZAZ: My experience says progressives are abnormally likely to be car-haters who want to price private automobiles out of existence.

Take out the hyperbole and that is true. The point of the article is that parking spaces are expensive and if drivers paid the actual cost, they would drive less, and cities would be more livable.
Conservatives also have an angle on it. They prefer personal responsibility over social services, so they would love to see more actual-cost parking. When you combine that with their privately built toll roads, you'll see car ownership plummet. Conservatives would love to see GM go out of business, because of the bailout.

The Angry Hand of God: pinchpoint: I live in Philly. We shoot each other over parking spaces, especially in winter. Don't park your piece of shiat in front of my house.

I was going to start talking about living in Philly, and the parking nightmare. Try living in Old City...

I live near a Produce Junction in Philly. On the weekends you cannot park anywhere NEAR my complex. Especially in the late spring when the flower garden idiots are out in force. The customers also assume none of the laws apply to them and regularly BLOCK OUR DRIVEWAY, park in the MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMNED ROAD, or just generally behave like assholes while waiting for a spot to open. My guests have to park on adjacent streets.

EricTheHalfABee: Wow, that was a lot to read, but it was an interesting article. Thanks!

Shoup's book is over 700 pages, but it's actually a very interesting read. I got it out from the library. Unfortunately, I my local library didn't have it, so they had to borrow it and that meant I couldn't keep it very long or renew it. I made it through but I wish I'd had more time to go back over parts. When you start to look at the costs of parking it can get staggering. Not only is the giant half-filled parking lot wasting space, creating an impermeable surface that makes flooding worse when it rains, it's also costs tax revenue for the building that could be in that parking space. It encourages more cars to come to an area which means more traffic (and less foot traffic) and when free spaces run out you get people circling, which makes traffic worse. On top of that, giant parking lots move buildings farther apart, which means that walking becomes less and less practical because stores are farther and farther apart. Fewer people walk, which means more people drive, parking more cars, pushing the stores farther and farther apart.

Unfortunately, cities often look at tickets and meters as a source of revenue first and as a way to manage parking second. That leads to stupid rules. In lots of towns (mine included) if you park two motorcycles in the same space it's a ticket, even although from a rational parking standpoint it's a win for the riders (1/2 cost space) a win for the other parkers (the second motorcycle isn't wasting another space) for congestion (people ride smaller motorcycles instead of big SUV's) and for the city which get's, on aggregate, to provide fewer spaces which means it can make more money by having more buildings which means more property tax. There are also some ultra small cars that are designed to be able to park in regular parking spaces facing the curb instead of parallel to it. That's a ticket too, even although it's not taking up any more space.

One of the things he mentions in his book is that the ADA requires retrofitting corner curb cuts to make them wheelchair accessible. L.A. is on pace (or at least was at the time of the edition I read) to finish retrofitting their curbs in about 100 years (no hyperbole there, actually, they are on pace to retrofit their curbs in about 100 years.) If they put in meters in these areas they could pay for it some ridiculously short amount of time, like five years.)

Another interesting thing is the private driveway. Lots of cities let you put in a private driveway (they charge you a one time fee.) The problem is that a lot of these private driveways are big enough for exactly one car. The curb cut removes one street parking space, so in effect, by putting in the space you are taking one spot from the city and making it private and paving over part of your lawn. If instead you put in meters (actually, with new GPS devices that work sort of like EZpass at highway toll booths you don't actually need meters) you can give the residents a single pass to park in the neighborhood for free. You set the parking fee for non-residential parking high enough so that you keep enough spaces available for the residents and suddenly there are more spaces available and greener lawns. Win-win, but not how most cities do it. With the GPS devices you might be able to meter for vehicle length too. You are using a lot more parking in a extended cab pickup truck than a Yaris if the length of the spaces isn't predetermined by some lines on the pavement.

HoratioGates: Another interesting thing is the private driveway. Lots of cities let you put in a private driveway (they charge you a one time fee.) The problem is that a lot of these private driveways are big enough for exactly one car. The curb cut removes one street parking space, so in effect, by putting in the space you are taking one spot from the city and making it private and paving over part of your lawn.

Around here, most private driveways host 2-3 vehicles, making it a net gain in parking.