Comment by inferiorhuman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by inferiorhuman | Hacker News Reader

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  So they are deliberately extorting local business people

lol, no.

Free parking is a great example of tragedy of the commons. Without time limits people will abuse it. Case in point: California. A handicap tag out here will grant you an exemption to whatever time limits are posted regardless of whether or not the spot is reserved for handicapped drivers. What ends up happening is people with handicap tags will just take up all the spots all day, leaving nothing for anyone else.

   Or said another way, they got tired of chalking tires

Having worked in the smart parking meter industry I got to talk to city folks and, while it may be painful to hear the actual enforcement rate is pretty darn low with a few exceptions (typically time of day based ones like street cleaning and rush hour traffic). It's extremely labor intensive to monitor every spot, so enforcement is pretty haphazard.

  the definition of "a block" is quite loose

This is, in California, defined on a city by city basis as far as I can tell. San Francisco defines the minimum distance as 1/10 mile (or 1 block), Pismo Beach specifies 100 ft or 1/10 mile on the odometer. Both of which seem pretty specific.

Here in London targeted use of parking enforcement is an infamous money-spinner for local authorities - in instances where they know they can clean up: case in point, our local hospital has basically no on-site parking, only metered parking on local roads. The problem of course is that people going to a hospital appointment have no accurate idea how long the wait plus appointment time will be. Hence, there is a bloke on a scooter on permanent patrols looking for anyone who is a few minutes over so he can do them.

London has one of the best public transport networks in Europe.

Being good at A is not an excuse for abusing users of B.

Would you feel good about the fact that a city with an amazing road network abuses public transport users ?

Hospitals are a really obvious case where someone may not be able to travel by public transportation.

i'm struggling to think of cases where it is safer to drive a car than to be carried by subway or bus

Highly contagious disease with symptoms mild enough for you for it to be safe to drive. Like COVID in early 2020.

Or, for example, if kid had accident at home that's fairly serious but not serious enough that you actually need ambulance. You want to get them to hospital quickly with minimal walking required but you also likely need parent to stay with them.

Because sometimes someone (a partner, a friend, etc.) is driving for you.

Yes, you could take a taxi, but that can easily cost more than parking, even when parking is as expensive as in London.

Those distance definitions of a block do not make any sense to me. Going from one street to the next is a block to me.

SFMTA says this:

  The law requires you to move one block away or at least one-tenth (1/10)
  of a mile—about 500 feet. Do not drive around and then park in the same
  block, or you can be ticketed!

They're not defining the length of a block, rather they're giving you two options. The end goal is to encourage vehicle turnover and prevent people from monopolizing all the spots in a given area.

I wonder why 100 feet or 0.1 mile (528 feet) are alternatives.

A car's trip odometer measures distance in 1/10 mile increments.

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