San Francisco bans parking space apps
bbc.com
bbc.com
How did anyone expect that would remain ethical or legal?
There are many ways technology could improve parking in SF but making private profits off public resources is not it.
Regulation at its core is a vital part of a free market (and by the way the only free part we really care about is freedom to set a price)
We regulate murder, kidnap, extortion and parking bye-laws. We do that so we can all move forward in a society packed full of other selfish Great Apes with weapons.
It works - we are living proof. It can always be improved, but almost always a market failure in the western world is down to some greedy bastard somewhere breaking the rules to obtain an advantage and not getting shutdown fast enough.
The BBC estimated that was 40% of rentals on airbnb - it is my contention that airbnb is doing a YouTube - basing its growth on breaches of copyright / lease law whilst hoping to grow big enough fast enough for it to not matter.
I think a better analogy is ticket touting - you buy a ticket at the baseball game and then sell the seat again, leaving when the next buyer turns up. And you only buy at "public good" rates and sell at "market rates"
This app would also go out of business if SF city sold parking places at market rates - there would be no margin.
In all, it's a silly app trying to create an after market in something where they and their customers have no legal rights and no practical enforcement, and I think they were hoping to scrape enough and not get noticed.
People who live paycheck-to-paycheck wouldn't be able to afford this. If it becomes very popular, those without disposable income may be unfairly abused by the system. Till now, finding a spot has been random lottery. Pay-for-privilege will leave struggling families out in the cold (perhaps literally).
Yet to punish a company so harshly before the phenomenon has proven to be a problem in practice seems draconian. The gap between theory and reality is large. Something that's harmful in theory can sometimes prove itself advantageous in unexpected ways.
And what if the company wasn't based in California? Would there be any recourse for California to exert regulatory pressure over a company based in another state? Pg's quote "if you outlaw the future, it will just happen elsewhere" seems relevant. Maybe it's a matter of time until this app catches on in other large cities. Nobody likes spending ~30 minutes searching for a parking spot.
But it's difficult to shake the feeling that the whole concept is, well, douchey. I dislike that word, but it seems quite applicable here. Sitting in a parking space for longer than you need it in order to personally profit is pretty much the definition of a dick move. Yet should that argument alone be sufficient reason to outlaw the entire market? I don't know.
EDIT: Or is the problem you are referring to what the app is doing? I read it as that the app wasn't the problem, but that the underlying idea of paid parking which it sits on top of is wrong, but I realize that it might also be read the other way.
Reality: This will harm middle class people who live paycheck-to-paycheck, not struggling families.
Public parking is designed to ensure spots are available. This is why many cities have meter parking with a 2 hour limit; to discourage people from parking on the street all day long (there are garages for that).
This type of app encourages people to occupy spots by camping out in them and selling them to the highest bidder. If your goal is to ensure parking spots are available to people that need them for short-term parking, allowing that behavior seems counter-productive towards your goal.
The article says it was built in Rome, Italy.
OTOH, any company doing business in the San Francisco probably has assets or income streams that are going to be subject to the jurisdiction of courts through which either the City and County of San Francisco or the State of California could act to enforce fines.
More likely, cities will find a way to auction off parking spaces, in real time, as a source of revenue. This can be zoned to high-congestion / high-activity neighborhoods, like anything else. Not much different from parking meters, in basic conceptual terms (which I've heard also weren't so popular when they were first introduced). Or congestion pricing.
But the idea that people "own" the parking spaces they're sitting on, and have an inalienable right to extort as much money as they'd care to fancy from the next hapless driver -- let alone that the "market" for this kind of an activity has an inalienable right to exist (just because someone created an app for it) -- is, well, very Silicon Valley.
I'm not saying that it's the best solution, but it does seem arbitrary to have some private goods rationed by price and others rationed by lottery. Just because "that's the way it's always been". In any case this app or rather the people using it don't rightfully own the parking spaces, but they are taking advantage of a market inefficiency.
If the company is doing business in California and has assets or income streams in or coming from California then there are probably avenues for enforcement.
And if that wasn't the case, there wouldn't be an issue here in the first place.
Getting payed when you leave requires being willing to spend extra time when you are done -- and depends on how willing you are to do that. People with reasons for being in the spot beyond arbitrage may have other needs that make that less viable.
Then the city should build their own version and get the money that it feels it is entitled to.
Parking spaces are a public resource. The city sets tariffs at a level it feels reasonable.
Why should this public resource be priced at the highest rate the market will bear? Why should everything in the world basically only be available to those who can pay the top possible price for something?
Why do you want to live in that world?
If you decide to distribute the limited resource in a fashion besides money, such as a lottery, you have an inefficient system. Instead of paying money, people have to drive in circles, or queue, or wait to find out the results of a lottery. No one benefits by this. If you are trying to help the poor, just give them more money, and they will decide on their own how valuable parking is to them.
For the record, I fully support the city deciding that these other people don't get to extract the city's rents. The city should stop people from occupying a public space merely because they want to get paid to move on. It's the city's resource to sell. (And maybe the market clearing price becomes $0 once you kick out the people who are making a problem just to be paid to stop making it -- which is the definition of a racket.)
why is efficiency always the best goal for common resources? Why should poorer people be priced out of an efficient market on public resources we have all paid for?
The kind of world you describe would far more efficiently allocate resource--even helping people to determine whether or not to drive versus bike versus walk versus other transportation. It also would help people determine the actual value of their property: should it be a house? A restaurant? A parking garage?
Your 'shortage' is only eased by making life difficult for others.
Because it's the only reasonable choice? Overly cheap parking is not just inherently stupid and wasteful, it also generates other problems:
"cruising for curb parking generates about 30 percent of the traffic in central business districts"[0]
You seem to think that paying for something is somehow inherently immoral, while being lucky and finding it first is virtuous and good. May I ask why?
Cities that have started using the price mechanism have seen great results.[0][1]
[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/opinion/29shoup.html?ex=13...
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/us/program-aims-to-make-th...
Of course I don't. Do go ahead and enjoy knocking your straw man though.
I just don't think that applying market principles to parts of what little is left of 'the commons' is an equitable solution, as it prices poorer people out of facilities.
that just sucks more money from everyone while leaving the situation the same as it was at the start (first come first served).
It's nonsensical
No it doesn't. Less traffic, less pollution, faster parking.
This works if you price people out of the market, not if you price people out and then subsidise them back in, and it's the pricing out in the first place that is my problem with it.
Or are you saying not to give the poor some of the money so they can continue to park, but just as a bit of a bung as an apology for taking away their access to yet another public service?
However, now I live in the UK, and despite the standard of living being much higher, and people making a lot more money in general, I know very few people who regularly take trains to go anywhere, because prices are "as high as the market will bear",which makes commuting longer distances very expensive - due to the fact that all train lines are private and they charge whatever they see fit, with higher prices during rush hours, and so on.
And no, the solution is not to subsidize poor people. In fact, I would not describe myself poor, making $30k a year, and I still would not take a train every day, as it would be ruining financially. In Poland, even if I was making a third of what I make here I could afford to commute by train every day, as it is absurdly cheap.
I feel like the same thing applies here. Cheap, publicly owned parking spaces guarantee better opportunities for everyone, and that's how it should be like.
In the closed world of parking spaces $5 an hour is the optimal rate, but in reality this could be disastrous for traffic and business who are now dealing with increased congestion and reduced customers respectively. Taking the ability to set pricing out of the control of the city and placing it with independent/selfish actors might have unforeseen ripple effects on the wider community. Therefore it should well within the city's right as an actor who is responsible to the community to direct the use of its property as best suits the public good.
I would have no problem if Edinburgh -- where I live -- adopted that policy for car parking.
> Why should everything in the world basically only be available to those who can pay the top possible price for something?
Car parking spaces are not "everything in the world".
I live in Southampton I know a bunch of people who would have a problem with this becoming the norm there - poorer local people would be priced out of city-centre parking as we have a regional shopping-centre. A first-come first-served basis lets everyone have a chance at access rather than reserving for those who can pay most.
Particularly, while the tariffs are intended to provide revenue they are mostly intended to supplement hard time limits in providing an incentive to limit how long you spend in the space, and largely are intended to be low given that purpose because they (and the hard limits) exist to enable commerce by encouraging turnover and thereby providing accessibility.
Maximizing fees by using an auction mechanism would not serve that purpose.
If this was in a private parking lot; knock yourself out. Charge whatever you want. Charge a hundred dollars a minute. But it's public space, and you cannot hold public property hostage and expect me to pay. You would be no better than a group of highwaymen holding up a bridge for a "crossing toll". It's not yours to profit from!
That situation isn't analogous. If you'd paid via parking meter for a space, then reselling it is merely simple arbitrage. You've already paid for the right to use that spot.
Regulating badly is usually worse than not regulating at all.
I suppose I was just thinking about the city I live in. Here, the meter prints out a receipt that the driver leaves on the dash of the car. People often will give the receipt to someone else when they are leaving their spot. Of course this practice is illegal, but I don't think it should be if the spot was paid for. Of course, it would be douchey if people started selling these tickets for high prices (that would be seeking rent from a public good), but I would have no problem buying a ticket off of a guy who wants to get his remaining three bucks back.
But I suppose you are right, there is no "good way" to get something between price gouging anarchy and outright banning of the practice.
Monetising antisocial behaviour is not to be encouraged.
This is very similar to domain name registration. You have someone pay a small registration fee (~$12) to register a domain and then they sit on that domain waiting for someone to pay them substantially more for it.
If it is ethical for a domain name market to work this way, why is a parking meter market different?
Being paid for leaving the place actually creates market for people who would bend the rules for profit. For example get a low-mpg/electric car that you drive around, take any space, then immediately resell it. Even worse, if you get together with others, you probably could create enough artificial resource scarcity to lift the prices to the level that makes doing this all day long profitable.
But yes, I agree, this whole thing creates incentives that add up to a bad situation for an allegedly public resource.
But I have admit that I doubt there is a cheaper way. And city probably has more important problems to solve.
Right, because I've never driven around Nob Hill for an hour trying to find parking, only to have to give up and pay $25 for a garage. The response from the city makes more sense if you've never actually had to do street parking in the city. When I'm at my wit's end, driving around the same streets continuously, I'd gladly have paid $7 for a spot. Have the time you don't even find a spot, you find someone leaving and take the spot immediately.
Frankly, if private prices for parking spaces really did start to soar, that would be an Enormous Clue for the city, though I fully trust them to bitch about the market long before they actually listen to it. (And by "listen" to it, I do not mean "mindlessly obey it"... I mean, listen to it. It would be trying to tell you something. Perhaps something you already know, but with fresh volume and urgency. But, of course, far better to just crucify the market, then live in a world of myth and mystery where things Just Happen and The Rich are mysteriously behind every bush and every lamppost keeping down The Good People via entirely mysterious and inscrutable magic mechanisms that can never be studied or understood by Good People lest they become Tainted and Unclean....)
If you do find a street spot, its probably metered which now has adjustable rates depending on location and time. A meter will run about $1 for 15 minutes, but no upper cap and most of time limits.
If you get out of downtown, there is street parking in most neighborhoods for free, but typically with 2-hour limits, permit zones or weird street cleaning hours which if you leave it there you will get towed.
The app will probably benefit the neighborhoods the most, since a free spot with no street cleaning the next day is a gold mine.
However, these apps also create incentives for people to not give up their spots until someone pays. It's an incomplete market, where someone sits on a shared resource until paid to move.
The reality is that SF should be auctioning off these spots on its own. Let the market decide what the price of parking is, and pay the supplier.
This analysis is totally on point and I'm shocked someone downvoted you.
TLDR: if it's a limited resource ("more demand than supply", colloquially), allocate it by money. If you want to help the poor, give them money instead of breaking the market for the resource.
If it is a public resource with a single public issuer, you don't have the requisites for a functioning market anyhow, so not auctioning it doesn't "break the market".
This is otherwise a functioning market. There is demand that can react to prices, and the city can adjust supply based on price data.
Supply/demand problems really pricing problems.
You can lottery, but then people would just trade the seats for money themselves. Why bother? If you want poor people to have more money, give them more money. You can even do it randomly if the lottery aspect is fun for them.
The purpose of paid, time-limited public parking isn't to maximize revenue (though providing revenue is not unimportant) , it is to maintain availability of spaces so that people can use them and promote commerce.
Auction off spaces -- e.g., maximizing the cost to park -- is not really ideal for serving that goal.
I.e., say $N is the price at which no one willing to pay $N can't get a spot, and say $M is the price at which the city maximizes revenue. $M could be greater than $N, and it's a policy decision on the city's part which to choose. [1]
If the problem is insufficient parking, though, charging less than $N is the solution. If "auction" doesn't work to get you there, find some other method that does.
[1] (And it should be upfront to its citizens about which it chooses. Red-light cameras often are said to be about safety even if they end up causing accidents, because it helps the city get revenue.)
This is simply arbitrage, and it's legal when Wall St fatcats do it, it should be legal for everyone. If the city objects, they should charge the market-clearing price for parking. If that leads to a problem where only rich people can park, then California should build as much low-cost housing as it takes so that everyone can afford a house without paying an arm and a leg.