<story><title>Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/15/why-free-parking-is-a-big-problem/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JDDunn9</author><text>Many of the benefits you listed are good examples of how people are actually pretty bad at predicting what will make them happier. We have a lot of data on the subject.&lt;p&gt;- People think that living in a larger home will make them happier than a shorter commute. Cohort studies show the opposite is true. We adapt most quickly to things (good&amp;#x2F;bad) that stay the same (like the size of your house), and poorly to things that change (like the traffic situation from day to day).&lt;p&gt;- People think they will be more active if surrounded by parks and greenery, but city dwellers actually walk&amp;#x2F;bike more. People moving to the city lose weight within a few months (~3 lb. if I remember correctly)&lt;p&gt;- People think that cities are dangerous, but you are more likely to be killed young in the suburbs. This is because car accidents are far more likely than homicides, and you drive more in the suburbs.&lt;p&gt;We know people in cities are, on average, happier and healthier.</text></item><item><author>closeparen</author><text>I propose a fundamental principle that should be obvious, but apparently isn&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Public policy should aim to improve average quality of life in the short, medium, and long terms.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;We live in low-population-density areas &lt;i&gt;because we get more, higher quality housing for less money, shorter lines, less crowded public places.&lt;/i&gt; We drive instead of taking transit &lt;i&gt;because we get where we&amp;#x27;re going faster and more comfortably, sitting down, with our personal space bubbles intact&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Everything is tradeoffs. You can already make these tradeoffs for yourself by moving to SF or Manhattan, which is generally ill-advised unless you make so much that the astronomical housing costs don&amp;#x27;t hurt too badly. Why should the rest of us be required to make these tradeoffs? What are we getting in return? &amp;#x27;Cause it sure isn&amp;#x27;t better commutes or better homes.&lt;p&gt;If your argument is long-term sustainability, we have electric cars now and we&amp;#x27;ve had nuclear power for quite some time, and a public policy kick in that direction &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt;, I&amp;#x27;d argue, critical to long-term quality of life.</text></item><item><author>JDDunn9</author><text>This topic is discussed at length in the book, &amp;quot;Green Metropolis&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s part of a bigger issue of always putting cars first. You can&amp;#x27;t build a large building without first doing a traffic study. If you bring too much traffic, you can&amp;#x27;t build it. Never mind that traffic is about the only cost in America that you can increase to make public transportation more appealing.&lt;p&gt;Generally U.S. building codes include a maximum building height, and require minimum parking spaces. Many European cities have maximum parking spaces, and minimum building height. The latter produces higher population densities which make public transportation possible.&lt;p&gt;We need to push back against suburban sprawl and the car-first design. No required parking, no free curbside parking, and a carbon tax on gasoline. Once cities get a population density &amp;gt;7 people per acre, public transportation becomes viable. Population density follows a logarithmic curve with miles traveled per person, so you get as much of a reduction from moving from 2 to 20 people per square acre, as from 20 to 200.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sandworm101</author><text>The one thing that definitely won&amp;#x27;t make people happy is someone else telling them they don&amp;#x27;t know how to make themselves happy.  People want choice, even if that means making a few incorrect choices.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;We know people in cities are, on average, happier and healthier.&lt;p&gt;Some people really dislike cities.  I need woods.  I need open spaces.  I need to see the stars at night.  I need a place for my dog to run without some stranger screaming about leash rules.  But I also need to work.  Personal transport, my own vehicle to carry myself and my dog, allows me to both work and enjoy the open spaces.  So I&amp;#x27;m all for parking spots.&lt;p&gt;And yes, weather permitting, my dog does come to costco with me.  She would much rather sit in the car than sit at home.  If she wants we&amp;#x27;ll hit any number of dog parks on the way home.  If I took the bus, or Uber, she would have to sit at home ... alone all afternoon rather than being with me.  That&amp;#x27;s what having parking spots at Costco means for us.</text></comment>
<story><title>Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/15/why-free-parking-is-a-big-problem/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JDDunn9</author><text>Many of the benefits you listed are good examples of how people are actually pretty bad at predicting what will make them happier. We have a lot of data on the subject.&lt;p&gt;- People think that living in a larger home will make them happier than a shorter commute. Cohort studies show the opposite is true. We adapt most quickly to things (good&amp;#x2F;bad) that stay the same (like the size of your house), and poorly to things that change (like the traffic situation from day to day).&lt;p&gt;- People think they will be more active if surrounded by parks and greenery, but city dwellers actually walk&amp;#x2F;bike more. People moving to the city lose weight within a few months (~3 lb. if I remember correctly)&lt;p&gt;- People think that cities are dangerous, but you are more likely to be killed young in the suburbs. This is because car accidents are far more likely than homicides, and you drive more in the suburbs.&lt;p&gt;We know people in cities are, on average, happier and healthier.</text></item><item><author>closeparen</author><text>I propose a fundamental principle that should be obvious, but apparently isn&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Public policy should aim to improve average quality of life in the short, medium, and long terms.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;We live in low-population-density areas &lt;i&gt;because we get more, higher quality housing for less money, shorter lines, less crowded public places.&lt;/i&gt; We drive instead of taking transit &lt;i&gt;because we get where we&amp;#x27;re going faster and more comfortably, sitting down, with our personal space bubbles intact&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Everything is tradeoffs. You can already make these tradeoffs for yourself by moving to SF or Manhattan, which is generally ill-advised unless you make so much that the astronomical housing costs don&amp;#x27;t hurt too badly. Why should the rest of us be required to make these tradeoffs? What are we getting in return? &amp;#x27;Cause it sure isn&amp;#x27;t better commutes or better homes.&lt;p&gt;If your argument is long-term sustainability, we have electric cars now and we&amp;#x27;ve had nuclear power for quite some time, and a public policy kick in that direction &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt;, I&amp;#x27;d argue, critical to long-term quality of life.</text></item><item><author>JDDunn9</author><text>This topic is discussed at length in the book, &amp;quot;Green Metropolis&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s part of a bigger issue of always putting cars first. You can&amp;#x27;t build a large building without first doing a traffic study. If you bring too much traffic, you can&amp;#x27;t build it. Never mind that traffic is about the only cost in America that you can increase to make public transportation more appealing.&lt;p&gt;Generally U.S. building codes include a maximum building height, and require minimum parking spaces. Many European cities have maximum parking spaces, and minimum building height. The latter produces higher population densities which make public transportation possible.&lt;p&gt;We need to push back against suburban sprawl and the car-first design. No required parking, no free curbside parking, and a carbon tax on gasoline. Once cities get a population density &amp;gt;7 people per acre, public transportation becomes viable. Population density follows a logarithmic curve with miles traveled per person, so you get as much of a reduction from moving from 2 to 20 people per square acre, as from 20 to 200.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>closeparen</author><text>New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. have significantly higher commute times (including by public transit) than less dense cities. New York&amp;#x27;s subway riders have it particularly bad, spending an average of 7.5 hours per week on the trains [0]. This is despite those cities having some of the best transit systems in the country [1].&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m aware of the finding that lower commute times are associated with happiness, but that makes the opposite of your argument. The lowest commute times are found in small, low-density, car-oriented cities. Even in New York, drivers and taxi-riders have shorter commutes than public transit users.&lt;p&gt;As you&amp;#x27;ll see in the report, a very lucky few have short walks, but it is not at all the norm. I surmise that if you can afford to live within walking distance of work in New York, you&amp;#x27;re likely an order of magnitude too rich to need to work.&lt;p&gt;Your other points are valid, but I&amp;#x27;m highly skeptical that these benefits are worth the extra $2000&amp;#x2F;mo they bring in housing costs (when collapsing a 3-bedroom house family into a 1-bedroom apartment), particularly when we are talking about people who do not &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; $2000&amp;#x2F;mo.&lt;p&gt;I say this as a relatively new Berkeley to SF public transit commuter. I love my job, but I&amp;#x27;d rather stab my eyes out than spend 80 minutes on overstuffed, lurching BART trains every day for the rest of my life. Fortunately, the gruesome death vs. BART tradeoff is available in the form of motorcycling, which I&amp;#x27;m trying next.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;origin-states.politico.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;Embargoed%20Hardest%20Working%20Cities%20Study.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;origin-states.politico.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazo...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ao.umn.edu&amp;#x2F;research&amp;#x2F;america&amp;#x2F;transit&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ao.umn.edu&amp;#x2F;research&amp;#x2F;america&amp;#x2F;transit&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;index.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>