Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park | Hacker News Reader

Steal This Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park

usa.streetsblog.org

64 pointsrntn84 comments

https://globalnews.ca/news/9668217/montreal-rosemont-la-peti...

> Whether electric, hybrid or internal combustion, parking a vehicle under 1,550 kilograms will cost $115 for the year. Vehicles with a mass between 1,250 kg and 1,424 kg will cost $145, 1,425 kg to 1,599 kg will be $175 and 1,600 kg and more will be $205.

(I think that 1550 is a typo and should be 1250 and is reflected in the table below)

    |      kg     |      lbs    |  fee  |
    |:-----------:|:-----------:|:-----:|
    |     < 1,250 |     < 2,755 | $115  |
    | 1,250-1,424 | 2,755-3,139 | $145  |
    | 1,425-1,599 | 3,140-3,525 | $175  |
    |     ≥ 1,600 |     ≥ 3,527 | $205  |

Some data points:

My old '96 geo metro (four door) was is 1,984 lbs

My '03 Honda civic was 2,500 lbs

I currently drive an '10 Honda insight which is listed as "2,723 to 2,727 lbs"

A 2023 Toyta Prius is 3,097 to 3,340 lbs

A Mazda CX-90 (SUV) is 4,709 to 4,899 lbs

The 2023 Ford F150 is 4,021 to 5,740 lbs

The Mitsubishi Mirage is one of the lightest cars on the market that is still in the practical category and has a curb weight of 2,084 to 2,117 lbs.

EVs can be heavy; if quick internet search figures are accurate it looks like all Teslas beyond the Roadster are in the top fee bracket -- from the Model 3 (3,500 to 4,000 lbs) to the Model X (5,200 to 5,400)

I believe that’s in large part to the battery, which weighs somewhere around 1,200-1,700lbs

The Hummer EV (why?) weighs 9,063 lbs.

But at least it's electric! And can do 0-60 in 3.2 seconds.

And over $120K, so parking fees are just a blip for it. When you price it in $/lb, it's not too bad.

> My old '96 geo metro (four door) was is 1,984 lbs

I drove one of those, and there's no way they were typical American car in any way in any era, so I don't think it's a valid starting point for plotting a valid trend line. They were weird things. Mine had a 3-cylindar 55hp engine, and I'd joke there were lawnmowers that were more powerful.

The Geo Metro was at least common enough that people knew what they were, but they were certainly outliers.

But there were small cars, like the Nissan Sentra and friends.

> But there were small cars, like the Nissan Sentra and friends.

IIRC, a Sentra was Civic-sized. I drove a Civic before my Metro, and it was literally twice as powerful and much more fun to drive.

The Metro took smallness/cheapness/fuel efficiency to the maximum extreme (for the US at least). It was not fun to drive, and I was constantly reminded about how under-powered it was. IIRC, the thing struggled with hills and couldn't even make it to 80 or 85 on perfectly flat, level ground.

The problem with the Metro (and similar sized cars) is nobody wants to buy them new - the entire market is people who want a tiny used car.

Because if you have $10-15k for a Metro you just buy a used better car.

Electric cars are quiet heavy.

That’s a somewhat strange logic “cars keep getting bigger, losing us as many as 10,000 parking spots, so we’ll charge them by their weight”.

That effectively is an (small) incentive against going electric for car owners.

Aren’t length and width of car models as readily available as their weight? Or do they already have another tax based on car weight at borough level, making this simpler for them? Or is there a second argument this article doesn’t mention that heavier cars cause more road wear? I don’t see how that would be the case much for parked cars, though.

In a twisted way, in Rome (Italy) this is somewhat applied: the horizontal parking spot don't have delimitation lines, so people tend to use every cranny available. This in turn lead to a "rush to the bottom" of small cars, all the way to 2-seats cars.

Of course there are SUVs, but these also don't find parking spots.

Just make vehicles taxes directly proportional to gross vehicle weight.

You drive a 200kg motorcyle, pay $X, you have a 2ton car, pay the 10x

Yep, this is exactly how vehicle taxes work in the Netherlands.

Weight is one factor, the other is the engine sort. Diesel pays way more tax than a gas engine car.

This makes sense but this transforms the costs of using vehicle into a sunk cost for owners, which encourages using the vehicles as much as possible to spread the cost out. I generally think we should prioritize increasing the cost of using vehicles instead of owning them (such as by registration fee), such as parking fees, tolls, and gas tax.

Nothing says you can't do both. Some states have excise taxes on vehicles as well as tolls etc.

A linear rate seems high but is actually a steal for heavy vehicles, road damage follows the fourth power of axle weight.

https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...

Now that I think about it, there doesn't seem to be a precedent for an exponential tax anywhere.

This actively discourages electric vehicles.

On a similar note I’ve long thought that larger heavier vehicles should pay more for insurance, as a sort of “danger tax” to cover the greater damage they tend to cause in collisions.

Or just as an alternative to using fuel taxes to fund infrastructure.

For a long time “amount of fuel consumed” was roughly aligned with “amount of wear you cause to roads”. But that relationship is breaking down and we need to find something new (at least in the US, not sure how roads are funded elsewhere).

You don't think this is factored in when they ask you what make and model car you are insuring? They ask because they know what they will likely be paying out, which captures this and many other characteristics.

Insurers are motivated by profit and actual claim costs not on what should be.

https://www.iihs.org/ratings/insurance-losses-by-make-and-mo...

Click lowest and highest losses. Pick bodily injury liability and property damage liability. You’ll see that BI is dominated by fast or cheap cars not necessarily the biggest. Big trucks are well represented on the PD side.

I care less about weight (although that obviously does affect road maintenance) and a great deal more about dimensions. The arseholes who block footpaths with their oversized vehicles have purchased something too wide to fit in a standard roadside park; the people who can't keep their killer security blanket in a single lane and hang into oncoming traffic because it doesn't fit on the road.

While I agree with the sentiment I think weight is the better lever here. Size for the most part will also affect weight, but weight is the thing that causes the bigger cost in energy use, road maintenance, road noise, consequences of collisions etc.

A car that is too big to use in regular lanes or parking lots should be banned from street use or come with it's own hefty share of fees, bureaucracy and paperwork.

Crash worthiness actually increases weight. If you want safe cars, they'll be heavy.

Do you take into account that other cars are also getting heavier?

A minivan can very comfortably seat 6 adults. In a busy area, higher fees for larger vehicles may discourage carpooling and increase traffic.

Perhaps if the fee was more expensive for a single person, but economical for >2 people then the math works out.

The idea is going into the right direction but i would also love to see a skyrocketing price for a second car per household. So if i need a car and my wife as well, i would encourage to make the second car around four times as expensive. Also I don't like the weight and size that much cause a functional vehicle like a minivan or pickups or vans used for work reasons shouldn't be punished. A combination out of HP, weight and a functionality factor (roomy family friendly cars and pure or mainly used working vehicles vs big luxury SUVs or small overpowered sports cars) would be a adequate calculation. Also motorbikes would need an adjustment in that level. Nobody can tell me they need a 120hs motorbike for a proper commute. They are just noise pollution.

The vast majority of people in the US and Canada are not buying minivans. They're buying comically large cars that endanger road users, and often even themselves because SUVs and trucks are not subject to the same road safety standards as sedans and minivans (in the US, at least. Not sure about Canada on this second point).

> The vast majority of people in the US and Canada are not buying minivans. They're buying comically large cars that endanger road users...

This is true in the surrounding suburbs but vehicle size in city centers trend smaller.

While it’s true the vast majority are not buying minivans, the vast majority of US citizens also live outside of cities. Thus making minivans and other, similar cars uneconomical outside of large family units.

Additionally, if the majority of Americans are buying “comically large cars”, then most are equally protected and fewer are at risk. And in my lower income neck of the woods large cars are hardly the status quo. Maybe in cities, where people make more on average and live above their means people can get large SUVs and such, but around here the biggest we got is trucks and that’s typically for work, so not overly common on the roads outside of work hours.

> While it’s true the vast majority are not buying minivans, the vast majority of US citizens also live outside of cities.

Nope:

> This statistic illustrates the size of the urban and rural population of the United States from 1960 to 2020. In 2020, there were approximately 57.47 million people living in rural areas in the United States, compared to about 274.03 million people living in urban areas.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/985183/size-urban-rural-...

Would you consider the suburbs “outside of cities”?

I'm not sure. But I'm sure I wouldn't consider the suburbs to be rural!

The most popular vehicles sold in the USA Today are crossovers, and they are subject to the same safety standards as cars. There are lots of other criteria that have to be met for a truck to be considered a non-passenger vehicles. https://www.motorbiscuit.com/do-suvs-designs-let-them-be-mor...

Unless a minivan costs more than 6x as much to park as a smaller car, it's not going to discourage carpooling. Realistically the vast majority of oversized cars are used for single drivers (and often don't even have any extra passenger or cargo space compared to a more regular sized car).

Unfortunately, the average vehicle ocupancy is around 1.6. Vans are a bit better at 2.4, but these numbers are puny compared to the 20-80 prople who fit in a single bus (which takes as much space as 3-4 cars).

Cars are a luxury in cities. The cities themselves pay for cars with noise, air quality and congestion. People should be encouraged to use them less in general.

I’m glad you point out that this is specifically a problem in cities. Most people I’ve seen on HN advocating for reducing cars make the astronomically out-of-touch arguments about how buses will come get us countryfolk and that “private transport is a luxury”, as if we’d be able to do what we need to productively without it.

Sure, with the anti-consumer construction of modern cars, and the unfortunate difficulties of sourcing old car parts, we’d love to be less car-reliant. It’s just not feasible for us though, and never will be.

There are countries with well developped buses lines in the countryside.

Minivans are a totally different class of vehicle than the actual problematic vehicles, body on frame suv’s and pickups, though. I wager they are significantly lighter too because they are unibody and based on car platforms. The problem is that most people who are really in the market for a minivan don’t buy minivans anymore, they buy crossovers, which are either cars or minivans (the caravan, the first minivan, was based on the chrysler k platform, anyways) made up to look like a big box, non-aerodynamic, and in most cases, “rugged” (or “sporty”) suvs.

The minivan is cheaper to park than 6 cars. This tax discourages people from using minivans by themselves but still incentives carpooling.

> […] higher fees for larger vehicles may discourage carpooling and increase traffic.

The average occupancy is 1.5 people per vehicle:

* https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/mobility/perso...

Everybody is already not-carpooling; more not-carpooling is just more of the status quo.

So the streetsblog article[1] says "with cheaper prices for electric, hydrogen and plug-in hybrid cars vs. all other engines" but the citation from globalnews.ca [2] says the opposite, "Whether electric, hybrid or internal combustion" ?

Strange. Given the rationale seems to be to improve parking rather than save us from a climate disaster the globalnews.ca seems to be more "rational" but it seems odd that the two reports so directly contradict each other.

[1] https://usa.streetsblog.org/2023/05/16/heres-a-big-idea-the-... [2] https://globalnews.ca/news/9668217/montreal-rosemont-la-peti...

In the US, we literally don't have a choice. The only small (2-door) cars that are on the market are the Mini, Mazda MX5, Toyota GR, Subaru BRZ. The last three being sports cars. Everything else has pulled out of the country or has more doors (and is larger). It is really sad. I really wish Smart cars would come back as an option.

The VW Golf, which not exactly a compact car by Euro standards, is pretty well sized.

My Mk7 is only a half inch longer and one inch wider than a current gen (21+) BRZ.

I’ve actually owned the Mk7 in both 2 door and 4 door. The 4 door is identical dimensionally, better proportioned, and much easier to get in and out of since you can open the doors more than 10 degrees without banging the car next to you… the doors on the 2dr are loooooong.

Americans like hatchbacks just fine.. Honda sells a bunch of Fits… they just don’t like two door hatches, for mostly good reason.

Funny that you mention two cars that no longer are sold in the states. Honda fits and regular VW golfs are not for sale anymore.

Exactly!

GTI and the R are. Which are the ones you want, really, anyway.

Only because of a small niche that enjoys hot hatchs. Regular people in the US are not interested in these vehicles.

yeah 2-door is a weird place to draw the line. I had a 2003 Ford Focus 4-door, and while it wasn't tiny, it was fairly compact. Meanwhile Plymouth used to make a 2-door midsized station wagon (the Suburban, not to be confused with the Chevy SUV of the same name, came in both 2- and 4-door versions).

I don't need or want more than 2 doors. I want a small car. A big reason for this is that I also have a very small garage. My condo is also very small, so having a bit of extra storage space in there that isn't taken up by a car, is very useful.

Also note that Ford no longer sells Focus in the US.

Against the 4 door is the exact same size of except it has longer doors that make it more difficult in tight spaces, or easier.

Friendly advice: if you go for a Mini, take a 3rd gen (2014+ roughly) or be prepared to wrench on it (because otherwise your mechanic bill will soon be more than buying a newer one in the first place).

They are awesome little cars that are plenty practical for the city and still fun to drive (even the naturally aspirated ones).

Great advice. I do plan on getting one above 2022 cause I like the digital dashboard design better than the big round useless dial in the middle of the car.

I have heard that they generally have a lot of issues though. I also plan on just getting a certified pre-owned to at least give me a few years of warranty service so that I don't have to deal with it myself.

I also hope to just sell it after a few years and get the electric version. I'd get that now, but the mileage is pretty bad. Hoping that it gets better.

Wouldn't using length, or better still, area be a better proxy for land usage? What about area/seats? Weight might be a good proxy except electric vehicles tend to be comparatively heavier than their ICE counterparts.

Road wear grows to the fourth power of vehicle weight. Vehicle land use may or may not be a problem (on the countryside it doesn't matter that much, in a historic part of an old city very much).

I think ideally a rule that incentives smaller lighter vehicles thinks about both size and weight, with weight being the more important one by far.

EVs are supposed to become lighter than ICE in a couple of years, but I wonder if it's already happened if you take carrying capacity into account.

Generally EVs seem to have interior space equivalent to the next largest car up the scale

e.g. the Volkswagen ID.3 may have an outer size similar to a VW Golf, but interior carrying capacity closer to a VW Passat.

this is an excellent idea. I'm looking at you mr F350 with 2 bags of groceries in the tray.

It'll be interesting to see what effect it has. It may lead to greater revenue for the city while not changing the trend toward larger cars. This would leave the public worse off than before, all other things being equal.

So, family tax? Again?

Families and tradesmen, likely physically disabled people as well. You could make exemptions for people who actually need bigger vehicles, but that just means yet more bloated bureaucracy.

I think I'll skip on stealing this idea.

It does not need to be that complicated. Just give families, special needs groups etc tax credits or direct payments and have them decide how to use it. Then families that do not _need_ a large car wont buy one, because they can still save taxes if they do not do it.

Good luck figuring out who needs a truck to transport generators, materials and tools and who doesn't. Just more bloat to chase some low-impact goals of activists who found a new group of people to pick on.

The idea was: give all (relevant class) people a bonus that compensates the tax. If they can forgo the car, they get more money. If not, they break even.

relevant class: big families, construction workers, whatever

What about people falling into phase 1 homelessness: RVs

I hate having to street park my RV in densely packed urban cities /s

Parking permits in Montreal require you to have a home in the neighborhood you wish to park in. So this won't affect homeless people as they aren't parking there to begin with.

As someone pointed out in this thread, this would discourage carpooling with eg minivans. Coming from a large-ish family of modest means, that would have cut down on the number of “field trips” my mom took us on which would have been a shame.

Instead, how about (car volume * size of blind spot in front of car) / (number of seats)?

But what about... there are infinite but what abouts.

Why not get the next model of minivan up? Perhaps it didn't justify the cost. Why not get a 2nd hand one? Or one from a different manufacturer? Perhaps the cost was affording the best one deems within the means. That extends to eating out when there vs a packed lunch or picnic, things to bring.

There's always costs, options. Where, and to whom, you're normalised to allocate or offload it to.

Why? It's cheaper to pay for parking one minivan than it is to pay for parking two cars.

Penalizes families - say you have 3 kids, a dog and grand parents to move around you will need a larger vehicle. So many of these schemes to punish car ownership and use are invented by cyclists and people who don't need a car and don't think anyone else should have one either.

Also penalizes tradesmen who have trucks and vans.

Meh. You could offset this. Tradesmen could get a tax credit and families as well.

But why should we do something to fix the problem of increasing vehicle sizes at all when we could just do nothing and resign ourselves to the objectively awful status quo instead? After all if you change something, someone somewhere is going to be negatively impacted. Can’t have that.

Well, maybe the people with the huge family should pay more because there are more people?

In a world that is being brought closer and closer each day to climate disaster by the exponentially increasing exploitation of resources to satisfy the exponentially increasing needs of an exponentially increasing population… maybe we should be ever so slightly discouraging large family sizes instead of the current policy of subsidizing them?

As long as cyclists are forced to share the road with cars they should get a say when it comes to car safety, especially when it comes to properties of cars that make them more dangerous to cyclists and others on the road.

Also worth pointing out that most cyclists are also car drivers.

The fact is that cars have been getting way bigger and heavier and don’t actually need to. And speaking of families, as someone with young kids, pickup trucks these days are especially scary.

No, don’t steal this idea. It has sprung forth from the head of a bureaucrat and will lead to externalities like the one mentioned about carpooling. Instead, steal this idea: Stop investing in optimized bureaucracy. It is ever so fragile, eternal, and unforgiving. It creates expensive administrative jobs that waste lives and resources. Invest in a philosophy of creating innovative improvements which can survive in a marketplace of ongoing change and adaptation.

Bureaucracy is just rules. most rules are there to prevent the harm to other members of society. Unless you own all the land and build all the roads you are NOT allowed to do whatever you want if the society that provides the land and roads doesn't want you to.

True, optimising rules doesn’t always make things fairer or better…

But it doesn’t hurt to revisit old rules, especially when circumstances like cars have changed so much

Maybe you grew up as a single kid, but if you take part in a society bureaucracy takes the role of managing the flow, conflicts and frictions between the different interests. What is the alternative? The right of the stronger? Warfare?

How "well" the private market solves certain problems can be observed in every nation that privatized parts of their former crown jewels. If there was evidence rhat "the market" did it better, I'd be all for it. But we have ample evidence for the opposite.

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