Is parking too cheap?

Where'd you end up moving after all? (p.s. update the profile!)
 
Yes, it is. I think Montreal's parking system is great - smart, connected paystations at $3/hour with a much more reasonable 3hr limit. And their spaces are well-marked on the road so you can see whether an open space is a parking spot or a hydrant while driving.
 
Next step: charge for neighborhood parking. Passes in Somerville cost an annual fee. They should cost a fee in Boston, as well.

Matthew: Newton temporarily. JP this weekend! Haha.
 
I never understood how Boston justifies not charging a fee for permit parking... Somerville's isn't that expensive on an annual basis, but it's at least an attempt to not make it a complete freebie. Does Boston ever throttle issuances of permits on the basis of available street spots in a given neighborhood? I don't think they do...
 
Nope. Unlimited free permits for every car that you have registered and principally garaged at an address in that neighborhood. I remember reading about a hedge fund manager from Bain Capital who has permits for 7 cars registered at his South End address.
 
Charge for resident permits and set quotas at maximum on-street space per district. There's no good reason we should be artificially creating 'parking crises' by over-allocating resident permits beyond the space on the street available.
 
I think better than a maximum would be an increasing rate for every additional car. I'd propose:

  • $50/year for 1 car
  • $100/year for a second car
  • $200/year for a third car
  • $500/year for a fourth
  • $1,000/year for a fifth
  • $2,000/year for a sixth
  • $5,000/year for a seventh

If the hedge fund manager is willing to pay $5,000 for his seventh car - great! More revenue for the City of Boston.
 
Also, make the price of the 2nd, 3rd, etc permits exponentially more expensive than the first. Maybe even cap the number of permits per person/household.
 
bigeman312 said:
I think better than a maximum would be an increasing rate for every additional car. I'd propose:

  • $50/year for 1 car
  • $100/year for a second car
  • $200/year for a third car
  • $500/year for a fourth
  • $1,000/year for a fifth
  • $2,000/year for a sixth
  • $5,000/year for a seventh

If the hedge fund manager is willing to pay $5,000 for his seventh car - great! More revenue for the City of Boston.
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I like the concept, except that $50 per year is still pretty much free. That is $4 per month or about $0.14 per day. Except for the extraordinarily destitute, $50 per year is no deterrent at all to getting a permit. The time wasted to go the permit is the greatest part of the cost.

How about $360 a year? That is a mere $1 per day for public storage of your private property. That still seems like a steal.
 
I agree, but that is unfeasible to start. The amount of backlash would be incredible. My concept is partially rooted in selling it as "basically free" while still deterring some people. From there, different price structures can be explored. Nobody has a good argument for why they shouldn't store a privately owned, massive vehicle, on city property, for $50/year.
 
What's funny is that the cost you gave for the fifth and sixth cars is around what it costs to rent an off-street parking spot. Of course off-street parking isn't the same, but I think it shows how absurdly far the parking situation is from a "free market".
 
metasyntactic said:
What's funny is that the cost you gave for the fifth and sixth cars is around what it costs to rent an off-street parking spot. Of course off-street parking isn't the same, but I think it shows how absurdly far the parking situation is from a "free market".
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That's true. Ideally, my pricing scheme would only be year one, with the goal of establishing an equilibrium so that there are no more cars registered for on-street parking than there are on-street parking spots. That will take time, though.

Also, keep in mind that pricing should be different in various neighborhoods. Off-street parking (and land for storage in general) is cheaper in West Roxbury than Back Bay. The neighborhood pricing would be independent of one another to reflect this. I would bet that if my pricing scheme took effect in 2016, with the goal of changing pricing annual to approach equilibirum, that West Roxbury's pricing would not go up much, while Back Bay's would continue to jump for years, until equilibirum was reached.
 
People who live in Boston already pay taxes to the city, why should we have to pay even more on top of that to park in the streets? This proposal would face serious backlash, especially from the poorer neighborhoods. To deal with the parking crunch, the city should do a better job of monitoring each neighborhood and how many permits they issue. That guy in the South End should never be able to register 7 cars.

This may however give some ammo to the fools who mark their spots during the winter that they have a “right” to reserve spots on a public street.


Take the meter spots in Downtown, Back Bay, North End, etc. and make them all $3/hr, 3 hr max. Up the penalty for not feeding the meter.
 
mass88 said:
People who live in Boston already pay taxes to the city, why should we have to pay even more on top of that to park in the streets?
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Answer 1) As a matter of justice. For the same reason dog licenses aren't free. It is both more just and more efficient that people having/using the city service pay for it. Some have zero dogs. Some have zero cars. Some have many dogs. Some have many cars. It is just to ask people to pay according to their choices. Cars take up more space (bigger and for more time), kill more people, and produce more pollution than dogs do. A sticker should cost at least 10x a dog license by that math alone. If you have an off-street parking spot, you could opt out of buying a parking sticker if you wanted.

Answer 2) As a matter of practical limits. Street space is finite and is a thing where one person's use makes everyone else poorer and more cramped. The more parking you consume--starting at the very moment you go from car-free to 1-car-- the more you should pay (and compensate others in your city) for that use. The current system issues more permits than there are car-sized spaces to fit them. We are over the limit. What's a practical way of cutting back? Of asking: do you really need this?

Answer 2)As a matter of efficiency. Because pricing is not just a tax mechanism, but also a fair way to allocate scarce resources. when you give stuff away free, people over-consume it or hoard it and generally use it badly. That's what the term Tragedy of the commons is all about: people use/abuse/consume free stuff until the whole system breaks. We saw communism fail because it promised staple goods for free and then lost the ability to produce enough to meet demand. Charging for on street parking makes as much sense as charging for milk or bread: the market is the best way we know of producing a quantity that makes the most people happy.

A system that allows both 0-car and 7-car households to feel the savings or costs of their behavior ensures that those who most "need" parking will have a way of showing it (by bidding higher for permits) other than the very-inefficient current technique of standing in line and/or doing paperwork.

Answer 4) As a way of providing more-affordable housing. Bundling parking into housing prices causes housing to be overpriced relative to what people need to live in the city. Housing, like Cable TV, would be more affordable if you could add stuff a la carte--and some would chose to live car-free and use bike/ped/transit--instead of buying a rich-man's bundle.

Back to you: Why single out parking only cars (and not any personal property) as the thing which should be utterly free to leave in the public ways? Why is plopping a car on the street the only way of "claiming" a spot on the public way? Why can't a cyclist park in a "whole spot", or somebody without a car keep one of those PODS on the street? Or maybe just flower pots? Some would visit a "community garden" in front of their house way more often than some people drive their cars that sit motionless and unused for weeks on the street.
 
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mass88 said:
People who live in Boston already pay taxes to the city, why should we have to pay even more on top of that to park in the streets?
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I never understood this line of thinking. Why are the two connected in any way? I pay taxes to city of Boston and don't own a car. When you purchased property, did the Purchase and Sales agreement state that you are granted the right to store unlimited amounts of cars, free of charge, on city property? No. Of course not. Similarly, at no point in any paperwork upon buying my property or paying taxes did it say anything about storing a car, free of charge, on city property. It would be utterly foolish for me to assume that this was a tacit part of the sale.

I pay taxes to the city of Boston. Does that mean I can dump a bunch of furniture in Boston Common? I mean, I pay taxes to the city!

ADDITION: You did not buy any part of any right-of-way of Boston's neighborhood streets. What gives you the right to dump your junk there, on land you do not own?
 
bigeman312 said:
I never understood this line of thinking. Why are the two connected in any way? I pay taxes to city of Boston and don't own a car. When you purchased property, did the Purchase and Sales agreement state that you are granted the right to store unlimited amounts of cars, free of charge, on city property? No. Of course not. Similarly, at no point in any paperwork upon buying my property or paying taxes did it say anything about storing a car, free of charge, on city property. It would be utterly foolish for me to assume that this was a tacit part of the sale.

I pay taxes to the city of Boston. Does that mean I can dump a bunch of furniture in Boston Common? I mean, I pay taxes to the city!
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Exhibit A:

preggonote_0.jpg
 
The way I see it: if you want a parking spot in the city of Boston, buy one.

If you want to park your car on someone else's land, rent their land from them in a mutually agreed upon transaction. In this case, you are renting land from the city of Boston. You do not own the land. Therefore, you do not get to act like you do.

I own two off-street parking spots. But no car. Therefore I have two more spots than cars. If you own zero parking spots, but have a car. Well, that sucks for you. Poor planning on your part more than anything else. Now, you have a huge, burdensome item with nowhere to put it. Why should someone let you put it on their land for free?

F-Line: lol.
 
Winter parking wars are a product of unlimited subsidized parking with no limitations. If permits were issued with quotas by zone and charged a fee, the surplus of cars would dissipate. Heck, use the permit fees to plow out neighborhood roads better and lose fewer parking spaces in the snow times, further alleviating the angry letter, key scratch woes.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Winter parking wars are a product of unlimited subsidized parking with no limitations. If permits were issued with quotas by zone and charged a fee, the surplus of cars would dissipate. Heck, use the permit fees to plow out neighborhood roads better and lose fewer parking spaces in the snow times, further alleviating the angry letter, key scratch woes.
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Exactly. Free on-street neighborhood parking is a totally broken economic system.
 
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