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Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

Let's say that some people are opposed to the city's enforcement of parking rules against them (people who don't want parking tickets for overstaying in a spot, nor for parking somewhere they aren't supposed to).

Let's also say that some other people support the enforcement against that first group (e.g., small brick&mortar businesses, and people who want more parking available for quick errands).

If the Opposed group uses big data to work around the enforcement, does that hurt the Supports group?

What's fair in that situation?

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Just charge market rates for land.

Overstaying (aka overconsumption) is mostly just a predictable consequence of selling something valuable at far below what its value.

Even if you charge $10/hr, or whatever the market rate would be for street parking spots, you still need an enforcement mechanism to prevent people overstaying.

In general, the idea of a "market rate" for any given property depends fundamentally on a system of property rights actually being enforced.

Market rate is $4.10 per hour during peak hours. But it falls off precipitously per hour and ceases to be enforced around 6pm. For overstays those little white golf cart trucks have cameras that check license plates for permits. I recently got a parking permit for $200 or so after paying like $500 in tickets for various infractions including “Parking on Grades, wheels straight”. So I very much want anyone overstaying a 2hr parking spot to get tickets and or towed to make room. And I can speak from experience having just recently being towed, that the parking downtown is ruthlessly enforced. It will cost you about $700 if you’re towed.

I've always wondered what the market rate for parking would be if you allowed for things other than parking like restaurant tables, a shed, a tiny skyscraper...

Exactly. It's not much of a market if 99% of potential uses of the land are prohibited.

Perhaps the overconsumption is on the businesses that have no parking infrastructure for their customers, relying on street parking instead. What if there was no street parking allowed at all? It’s probably too late to implement this idea, but interesting to think about.

That's more or less how Tokyo works. Almost no on-street parking, people have to prove that they have a parking spot when buying a car, liberal zoning so there are lots of very small pay parking lots around the city. It works really well IMO but it would be politically very difficult in North America.

Even if every business had a 1000 stall parking garage beneath it, curb parking would still be highly valued because it’s more convenient. And since it would be valued more than zero dollars, if the city charges zero dollars for parking, then we’ll still see over consumption and contention for those spots.

I agree 100% though that not having street parking at all is the way to go. My arguments about market pricing is more of a second best option – if the city is going to continue to provide land for this specific use, then we shouldn’t subsidize it or treat as a special case.

Ah yes, the free market, which tends to always work in favor of the majority of people and common good.

The people own the land and as such, deserve to receive it's full value. Charging $0 is stealing from the people to give to car drivers.

San Francisco has a system for reporting parking violations. Residents can report illegal parking such as blocked driveways, sidewalk obstructions, double parking, and abandoned vehicles through the city’s SF311 platform.

You can make a report on the 311 website, mobile app, or by calling 311. You receive a tracking number to monitor the response.

https://www.sf.gov/departments--311-customer-service-center

Opposition must come through legal means, because the cheapness and omnipresence of enforcement is only getting better, especially for SFPD on the tech front.

Who used big data first, who uses big data more, who has more big data to work with, who has big data they get to keep to themselves and who has to work with only big data that both have the same access to?

F this supposed see the other side question.

Quality public transportation

I don't mean just having public transport but make it be something people actually want to use. It has to be cheap, convenient, and useful. But even in the Bay these aren't all met. It can be hard to get to some places or quality can go down hill real quick.

I think there's these problems which are really self reinforcing. You don't build public transportation because no one uses it. No one uses it because it doesn't actually meet their needs. You don't maintain it because use usage is dropping but usage is decreasing because it's not maintained.

Then you have these external costs that are easy to ignore because you over simplify and think they are out of scope. Like you have to have more parking spaces for more cars. Less green spaces. This all raises the cost of the real estate. So on and so on. There's more complexity than we often think and we should start with our simplifications but to improve we need to consider the complexities we initially ignored

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