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Comment by mattmcknight | Hacker News Reader

I find this sort of logic absurd. “There are at least four parking spaces for every car, meaning that the parking stock is no more than 25 percent full at any given time. And some of those cars are moving at any given time"

So, if I have a two car garage in my house, a parking spot at work, and a parking spot at the local shopping district, how else is this going to work? I can't bring my parking spot with me. The idea that we should look at per existing car utilization as any kind of indicator is ridiculous. Now, if any of those spots is never used, that may be a good indicator- but it might be because a building isn't fully leased at the moment as well.

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The idea is that if parking lots are built, they should be at the very least well utilized. We have a big problem of shopping centres over-building parking. For example, optimizing for everyone being able to always find a spot even at peak holiday seasons. As opposed to optimizing for having that parking lot being ~90% full for most of the day.

The fact that your home garage and work parking lot are also empty most of the time is also a huge problem. It makes cities much larger than they need to be, and serving public transit across them impossible.

> The fact that your home garage and work parking lot are also empty most of the time is also a huge problem.

I don't think it's a huge problem. My garage is part of the overall footprint of my home. My garage is under my office. It wouldn't help to have them full all of the time. Should I also have someone living in my house while I work? Or ensuring that all offices have shift work? Sure, there is a possible efficiency there, but we make certain concessions for convenience. A ratio of 4 spots per car doesn't seem obviously bad.

I do think there are some places with too much parking, but there are also plenty of places where there is not enough.

You don't have a parking spot at the local parking district. You share your spot with everyone else there. Sure you have one at home and one at work, but everything else is shared with people who use your spot when you are not there.

Well, I do like to park when I go shopping, but it's still going to increase the ratio of spots to cars, even if 10 cars park in that spot over the course of the day. I just don't see a ratio of 4 spots per car being particularly egregious.

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