March 7, 2016

Free parking is like squatting …

Vancouver and other dense cities often bemoan the fact that they do not have the revenue tools for public transit. They complain to the federal and provincial governments and pretend they have no money.
Whiners, all.
Of course they have plenty of tools, but do not like to use them for fear of voter backlash. The biggest unused tool is  parking revenue in residential streets.
To me, offloading your parking requirements is like squatting. You demand free space, paid for by someone else. You occupy public property, for free.
Politicians love free stuff. Vote for me, and I give you free stuff. As such the squatter and the squattee, i.e. the authority that allows squatting are equally guilty.
Here are a few shots, near UBC along Marine Drive, along 16th Ave, along Blanca (that looks like a RV storage site) and in Point Grey to show how modern squatting in the car-era looks like. UBC exports their parking requirements onto 16th Ave or Marine Drive, for free. $4M house owners in Point Grey convert the garage into a rental property or exercise room, and park their cars on the street, for free. Why not allow tenting there, for free, too ? It is the same thing !

If Vancouver, which has 200,000+ cars in the city, charged a $100/month fee for the right to park anywhere, or perhaps $250/month for a dedicated spot this would not only generate about $250 -300,000,000 in annual revenue but also would eliminate many cars. Add other cities in MetroVan at perhaps 50% of this figure and you’d get the required annual $750M the Transit Referendum was asking for. It wouldn’t even need provincial approval or a referendum and it would be truly “green” and sustainable. It would achieve exactly what we want: a more walkable city, less cars, and pay as you go (or shall I say pay as you don’t go ?)
Since our enlightened mayors decided not to do that common-sense approach I – and apparently a vast number of residents – decided to vote against the car-neutral PST tax increase. We need a carrot and a stick to eliminate cars in our cities. The carrot is better and faster transit options which costs money. We all understand that. The stick is higher car use fees for its two states: driving and parking. More on road tolls later or elsewhere. But the timid politicians decided not to lead, but to ask others to subsidize free parking. They allowed squatting. Not a great policy tool to change behavior.
 

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  1. I don’t always agree with your rationale, but on this, I agree with you almost completely. I would only add either a salary exemption below a certain threshold, or a minimum income sufficient that the parking fee was not onerous on those who truly couldn’t afford it, but otherwise, I agree entirely that this is an externality that needs to be dealt with.
    I would also add that the parking fee be proportional to the car’s value … As there are plenty of those for whom $100 a month is of no consequence whatsoever.

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      That would be too complicated, as the space occupied costs the same whether it is a $200,000 Lambo or a $3000 lemon, or if the owner make $2000/month or $25,000/month.
      One solution is to meter all parking, or with modern GPS enabled systems, have zones with colors and one knows that green zone is X/h and blue is Y/h and red is Z/h.
      It really irks me driving or walking or cycling through Point Grey along $2-5M homes to see so many cars parked for free, many by owners but when UBC is in session, also by UBC students that commute in from Richmond or Langley or Coquitlam and park for free and then drive the free bus for the last 2-3 km.
      As such, to me, it makes sense to charge more for what we want less of, i.e. cars, as opposed to some arbitrary consumption (aka PST) or even incomes. In Japan for example you need to prove you have a parking spot when you register your car. Perhaps Vancouver needs such a model too. If you do not own such a stall, then, bingo, $1200/year fee. All doable with enough political will.
      ==> Car use is far too cheap still in our cities, and unless that changes car use will not diminish !

      1. If Finland can give pro-rated speeding tickets based on income, its not too complicated.
        I agree car use is too cheap, but for those who it is at the moment necessary, and for whom it is even now too expensive, making more so won’t do anything but make it hurt more. (This is something I will happily readdress when the transit $ come rolling in, and public transit becomes sufficient) … in the interim, there are plenty for whom $1200 is s sneeze, and so is not any kind of deterrent.
        The difficulty bit is why I mentioned minimum income instead – a way to make the cost of this fee less onerous on those who truly can’t pay.
        ……..
        Free bus for the last 2-3km? Hows that work?

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      2. The U Pass is not free. It is cheaper than the normal monthly transit passes because every student is required to pay, whether they use transit or not. UBC AMS does a referendum from time to time whether students want to keep and pay for U Pass or not.

    2. I also think one has to balance values here. It’s likely that university enrolment would drop if driving to that isolated campus were impossible, and everyone HAD to take the bus (or cycle).
      There is value in looking to other places to learn about policy options and effects, but it is not rational to make policy concerning, say, Richmond/Coquitlam/UBC based on what they do in Japan. Our density simply would not support a university like UBC unless people can attend from a considerable distance. When we DO have equal density, which we may someday, THEN the same policies will make sense. But to make those policies before they make sense is political suicide, among other things.

      1. Thomas just wants to subsidize transit instead of driving, which makes perfectly good sense. Sure, fewer people would drive. But more people would take the bus. No reason to think enrolment would drop. Maybe it would go up if we invested more in transit instead of parking. Or down. Hard to say from here, either way.

        1. No, given the distance people travel from, it is easy to say that enrolment would drop. And given the quality of the bus experience, even more so. That is why I stay off buses, both for my own protection and the protection from me of the people who are incapable of behaving with consideration when out in public.
          This raises a point that people often miss when trying to reduce driving: it’s a private mode of transportation, and people like that. To increase transit ridership, one must control the quality of the ride experience, and that means managing behaviour.
          Finally, the hill to UBC and our rain limit bikeability, unless one of those hill-push devices is installed.
          And frankly, enrolment should drop; the university has dumbed itself down in the interest of growth and needs a re-think anyhow.

      2. This is all the more reason to build that subway to UBC. Perhaps taking out parking (or restricting it more) can be part of the deal.

        1. Transit empire building? Not at all. Just providing a vital public service when the cost of devoting hundreds of km2 of public taxpayer-funded land to single-use road space for private cars is now on the table.
          Here’s how professional transit planner Jarrett Walker puts it, rather succinctly at that:
          Cities have relatively little space per person. Cars are big. Big things don’t fit in little spaces.
          https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/03/02/buses-and-trains-thats-what-will-solve-congestion/?utm_content=buffer5fba8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

      3. There is a fairness issue at play here. Driving is very highly subsidized and people who use other modes of transportation, especially walking and cycling, pay taxes to support this subsidy. Some form of road pricing would make the situation more fair, as would removing parking subsidies. Even an annual vehicle levy would help. And speaking of safety, transit riding is super safe from a traffic safety perspective while driving is not so safe. More cars means more crashes and more injuries and deaths of vulnerable road users. Research from UBC shows that every km driven costs society $0.56 while every km cycled benefits society by $0.15. Transit is almost neutral.

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          Cycling is not a great choice for many in rainy hilly Vancouver. Only for some.
          My point of this blog was to show that cars have two states, driving and parked. Vancouver and other cities cannot unilaterally introduce road tolls – as we should – but can only control parking fees without provincial approval. They chose not to. Why would we toll roads then if the cities don’t even do the simple yet very effective things ?
          Only when two things align will we lure folks out of their car
          a) car use is far more expensive, both parking and driving
          b) public transit is more enjoyable, rapid and convenient

    3. It would make more sense to increase tax credits for low income households rather than provide a lower car parking rate for them. Especially since the lowest income households are less likely to have cars, therefore you would give money not to the poorest and provide a perverse incentive to use cars in the city.

  2. To some extent, doesn’t the permit parking used in many neighbourhoods serve this function? It’s not flexible, but it wouldn’t be complicated to extend the concept.
    But what will happen to the people currently living in RVs and other vehicles parked on various streets….? Because we know they’re there!
    The other thing I keep wanting to know (free associating somewhat) is why angle parking is used nowhere in this city. Some streets are wide enough for it. If parking were a revenue source, it would benefit the city to cram more spaces onto each block – er, and encourage more people to get cars. Wait a minute… but you know, having a car doesn’t have to mean you drive a lot.
    The moral is, I think it is far easier to make rational policy if the city limits its objectives to what is within the city’s purview, rather than having tyrannical objectives to control people’s behaviour and choices. Residential parking would be a great source of revenue and I wouldn’t mind paying, end of story.

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        Exactly. The city rather pretends it is poor and asks for provincial or federal money for transit. Such cowardice. It is not about governing but about protecting one’s political seat.
        Local parking permits are far too cheap, like 100-150 a year. It should be double that, PER MONTH. But a provincial camp site of similar size is $40/night. Some political hypocrisy in the “greenest” city on the planet.

        1. Actually Thomas, one permit in my neighbourhood costs only $36/year, or $3/mo., or <10 cents a day. They could increase that by a factor of 10 and it still works out to the cost of 1/3 of a medium latte a day.
          In streetcar neighbourhoods that predate the zoning bylaw by almost a half century (which covers on-site parking), and which are rife with small lots and congested streets, I'd like to see the Engineering Dept. implement leased, marked on-street parking spaces and charge $150/mo. to the immediately adjacent residents, who would get first refusal. The spaces should be designed for small cars only (5 m long max), and a maximum of two spaces per household would be imposed. All other cars get towed. Sections of public 2-hour parking would be implemented on all streets fronting parks and residential lots with lane access.
          The immediate effect of that would be a winnowing of the number of vehicles on the block, and residents covering a fairer share of what it costs society to provide free parking.

      1. The issue of politicians not having the zeal to pursue changes that, while massively beneficial to society, are also incredibly unpopular (like what Thomas is proposing) will not be solved by slapping term limits on them.
        If you really want to get to the heart of it, you have to create some distance between the scientist and snarling ape within all of us when we civically engage.
        Increasing trust in the political process and a better educated population are good places to start. Alternative voting methods and campaign stipends could more accurately reflect the character of our population and reduce the moneyed influence (and perception of influence) on our elected leaders.
        Making sure people are disabused of their ignorance so that when they have to consider the long term implications of the Down-Thomson Paradox or think about increasing density in their neighbourhoods, they can see the community benefits.

  3. Good idea, but this will never fly. If I get shot down trying to implement permit parking on my own residential street (a much lower cost alternative,we tried), I couldn’t see how it would work for the whole city of Vancouver. Vancouver now has a ratio of 53 % renters to 47% owners, and nothing gets people to the ballot box like taking away their free parking. Most tenants don’t get a parking spot with their rentals, and charging one hundred bucks a month for street parking would be just a ticket for political carmageddon for who ever brought this in. We have ever-increasing density with no place to put the cars, we don’t even require developers to provide a parking spot for every unit any more. Those cars end up getting parked on the street, and the people in those units vote in civic elections.

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      Exactly. That is why the referendum failed. It taxed the wrong goods, via a higher PST. Only if we price what we want less of will behavior change. Until then, Carmageddon.

  4. I must also say, it is somewhat hypocritical to vote down a small sales tax increase via the transit referendum, and then moan about other people’s ability to do the same thing over a fixed parking rate. The next civic election would indeed be a referendum.

  5. “If Vancouver … charged a $100/month fee for the right to park anywhere, or perhaps $250/month for a dedicated spot …”
    Yeah, good luck with that. I’m down with road pricing and parking levies, but if you think $250/month is going to fly then IMHO you might as well just suggest sprinkling magic pixie dust over the city to solve all its problems.

  6. One quibble – the word “export” in the context of people looking for parking in or near UBC, implies that “parking” is a responsibility of the destination (UBC, in this case) rather than the responsibly of the parker. This is a subtle difference but important. UBC doesn’t have any parking requirements. People who wish to take a motor vehicle with them on their trip to UBC have parking demands. UBC may decide they want to be in the parking market and cater to those demands, or other market players may want to take that on. Or perhaps, if the potential customers are too price sensitive there isn’t actually much of a market at all for it, except when implicitly subsidized by govt parking requirements.
    If parking is the responsibility of the parker, you get correctly aligned incentives, you get a market for parking where parking is desired, and no space wasted on parking where it isn’t.
    If parking is the responsibly of the destination, you get minimum off street parking requirements, increased costs for commercial and residential building, decreased walkability, etc.
    While your suggestion of pricing all parking would accomplish the goal of making the parker responsibly, the language could easily be twisted to justify more of the same govt mandated parking we have seen for decades.

    1. UBC is kind of a special case. The reason why so many people park on 16th is because UBC uses parking as a profit centre. Rather than pay the roughly $100 per month that it costs to park in a UBC parkade, people now treat 16th as a park and ride ( put your bicycle in the car, and ride the last few k to UBC). People have always been doing this,but ironically, it was the Translink tax on parking spaces introduced a few years ago that really made this practice take off. You also have students living in RVs out there because of a lack of student housing that only compounds the situation. There are always unintended consequences to everything, just like New West going nuts because the toll on the Port Mann has shunted massive amounts of traffic across the Pattullo.

      1. Hardly a special case. Like every other situation, people are parking on 16th because we have chosen to pretend that land at the curbs of 16th is worthless and that people have a right to parking. As soon as you drop those assumptions and just look at it as land for rent at a market clearing price, 16th becomes only marginally less expensive than parking at UBC and their – the horror – profit oriented parking. Imagine – using profit incentives in a market economy, what are those crazy guys at UBC thinking? Next you will tell me that they also ask people to pay for their own lattes.

        1. I think you are misunderstanding what I meant. It’s a special case because it is a destination with a high cost of parking just like downtown is. With downtown though, the park and ride thing happens with neighbourhoods around Skytrain stations. I live near 29th St. Skytrain station and the number of people parking free all day drives me nuts. Myself and a few neighbours tried to get permit parking put in, but a majority of people in the neighbourhood were against it, so it never happened.

      2. UBC does not use parking as a profit, it covers capital and operational cost only. UBC charges nothing for the land used for parking. As opposed to the land that is used to live on. So from that perspective UBC parking is making a loss. If land was priced in, parking would be a little over twice the current rate. Which underlines the points others made: If land was priced into parking, we would be in a completely different world. The $100/month UBC charges would be cheap.

  7. A place can decide to subsidize (or not) anything they wish so I personally have no problem continuing to subsidize car parking. What I hope for is a system where everyone knows that it’s a subsidy. Maybe in Drivers Ed classes, there can be something about how things are paid for, when you take your driving test, there should be education about how what you’re getting into is subsidized. I say this because there appears to be a commonly held myth that driving pays for itself. We need to dispel this myth and keep it from continuing. Partly because it’s not true but partly because it causes problems in improving things.
    And again, if we all decide that subsidy to driving is worth it, that it produces benefits that outweigh it’s cost, then I’m cool with that.

  8. I agree with the idea behind this, but I know in my yard we consciously decided to not build a garage in the back yard because we could park on the street. This resulted in less impervious surface on our lot, we planted trees and gardens, etc.

  9. The worst are the people who put cones on the street in front of their house, saving it for themselves, relatives, or friends. It’s a public street! A surcharge would eliminate this reprehensible practice.

    1. I’d say the practice is reprehensible when there is lane access to a full back yard. Some older neighbourhoods do not have that privilege.

    2. Actually, people living in a house have parking priority on the section of street in front of their house. Others have 3 hr limit during the day. However, I would feel no compunction to removing the cones if I need to park for a couple of hours.

  10. I agree with the principle in Thomas’s post, but it will fall down in practice at the next election. The city’s response over the years has been incrementally increasing various parking restrictions.
    On my one short block there are 19 cars for 11 houses that date back to the streetcar suburbs without lane access. None of the houses have garages where their basements are. Yet three houses have three cars each, essentially one for each member of the family. Not every car is used every day. Only two are used as commercial vehicles.
    When the city recently did a survey about permit parking on our block, only 26% of respondents were in favour, 47% were against and 27% did not respond. It seems the $3 a month per car for a permit (yes, you read that right — $36/yr) was too much. I really don’t see anything less than mass protest and pitchforks if $100 / mo. was charged.
    Meanwhile, the residents in the very next block were in favour of permitted parking, and the day the signs went up we noticed an increase in parking constraints on our block. Even though we have one tiny econobox, we often find it difficult to park within a reasonable distance of home. We still need a car, at least until we’re both retired, so we are now are limited to two essential tools: Traffic cones (very handy when you are hauling stuff and have arthritis) and calling the 311 parking enforcement number when a stranger exceeds the 3-hour parking restriction. Of course, it takes them a day to arrive and chalk the tires, so we usually give the owner 24 hours and call early in the day.
    Ideally, car ownership will drop as transit and walkability increases. And that’s the Catch 22: Transit and municipalities remain in the jurisdiction of a government that doesn’t give a fig. They are ideologically bent toward spending billions on road infrastructure at an outrageous scale, and with no unreasonable roadblocks placed in the way, like referenda.
    So, some of us in our quest to decrease our carbon footprint chose to drive less, and eventually not at all, to support our local merchants who exist within walking distance, and vote for transit at every opportunity. And we see that cracks do appear in the province’s sheet metal Chevy armour, and that some revenue could come from cities and coordination could come from the Metro to run increased bus service as a utility using cheap, effective methods to improve service (signal priority, curb bump-outs). But the revenue to do this has to come from more reasonable sources than an impossible $100 charge on every car.

  11. I don’t often agree with Thomas, but this is right on. The city is currently trying to resolve the street parking mess in the West End. Because of low priced street parking permits, demand is over the top while there is more than enough off street parking to accommodate all the cars. People spend a lot of time driving around looking for a parking spot. One way to resolve this might be to raise the permit cost until revenue is maximized. Then they should expand the model to other resident parking areas and then throughout the city.

      1. a) I don’t know how I could be more clear. Thomas has many ideas that I disagree with, however I fully agree on this one.
        b) Yes – but I cycle a whole lot more since it is by far the most time efficient, cost efficient and enjoyable way of getting around the city.
        c) They already accommodate visitors and this will be addressed in any planned changes. How about meter (real or virtual) parking? Or they could park in a resident permit area and pay a higher hourly rate via virtual meter. These are all details which can be worked out. The key is to pay a sufficient rate for the parking. What could be worse than exists now? More here:
        http://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/west-end-parking-survey.aspx
        Adding another concept: Streets should be for getting people from A to B, not for free or subsidized parking. We already conveniently use the streets for walking and driving, but not much street space is left over for safe cycling. Shouldn’t this be a priority over parking? Hornby/Dunsmuir upgrades showed that protected bike lanes had minimal effect on driving, probably a benefit for business and drivers ended up parking closer to their destination than when there was street parking. More people cycling means less people driving. Who needs all this street parking?

      2. I don’t know how I could be more clear either. What does your overall opinion of Thomas have to do with your response to this idea, unless you are trying to reduce his credibility and enhance your own with an ad hominem delivered off the side?
        If streets are not for car parking, then they cannot be for bicycle parking, or stroller parking for that matter, either. What do you propose to charge for that?
        The Dunsmuir bike lane had a catastrophic effect on driving, turning the Dunsmuir viaduct into a virtual parking lot several times per day.
        It could easily be worse, which is why I think things like one-upmanship and bicycle elitism or the self-appointed mantle of virtue do not serve anyone, least of all cyclists.
        Dating back to my days serving on the boards of local and national cycling associations and cycle commuting and racing/training long before there was infrastructure, I have never seen a lot of point in making drivers hate cyclists. That just seems like making accidents happen, something I see entitled cyclists now doing every day on the streets to their fellow cyclists.
        In this city, it’s time for cyclists to read their own bumper stickers: “share the road.”
        It’s not that motordom needs no challenge. It needs effective, productive challenge though.

        1. “The Dunsmuir bike lane had a catastrophic effect on driving, turning the Dunsmuir viaduct into a virtual parking lot several times per day.”
          Nope. I rode (and drove) that route multiple times a week for a few years and there was maybe an extra light to sit through at times. The real congestion issues only occurred when events were happening at the stadiums in the neighbourhood and one more lane for cars would not have made any difference at all except to shorten and thicken the car clot on that artery.

        2. Chris, I ride and drive (present tense) that route multiple times a week now and have done so for 20 years. Why would you assume that your experience trumps mine?
          Previously congestion was for the length of Dunsmuir when a valet parking operation abused its privileges. Now congestion is limited to the viaduct itself and often has Dunsmuir itself sitting empty with the whole length of the viaduct backed up. It has to do with the addition of the Citadel Parade light and the failure to time it properly at the same time as the bike lane was installed. The bike lane by itself reduced the volume of traffic that could get off the viaduct each light cycle.

        3. “Why would you assume that your experience trumps mine?”
          I dispute the use of terms like ‘catastrophic’ to describe a couple of minutes added to a drive time. I note by your own remarks that you are blaming something that’s unrelated to the bike lanes as the causes of congestion. And I can point you to dozens of places in Vancouver where vast swathes of road space sit empty periodically due to light timings. Stand at Cambie and Broadway at almost anytime of day and look east to Main. The street empties and fills repeatedly. If reducing motorist/cyclist antipathy is a goal (absolutely, and laudable IMO) hyperbole and erroneously placed blame for congestion (such as on bicycle lanes) needs to be eliminated so that a reasoned conversation about the real causes of traffic congestion (SOVs) can be initiated.

        4. The slogan “Share the Road” isn’t a cyclist bumper sticker but a cop out by transportation authorities who didn’t want to do anything about pinch points in roads. The sign was supposed to have meant “Have patient on this narrow stretch if someone in front of you is slower.”
          Anyway, on another topic of projection, where ever did you get these ideas that cyclists think they have virtue or are entitled?

        5. My remark about Thomas was meant as a compliment for his lucid article on this topic. I apologize if anyone took this as an insult.
          I wasn’t advocating for using a street lane for bike parking but as a lane to provide mobility – just like general traffic lanes and protected pedestrian lanes (also known as sidewalks). Why waste precious public space for subsidized parking when we can use it more efficiently for moving people?
          With regard to Dunsmuir Viaduct, there were just as many lanes in the two years before the bike lanes went in and nobody seemed alarmed about that. To create the bike lane, they simply moved the barricades which closed off the left lane over to the north side to protect the bike lane. Same number of lanes. In fact, only a single general traffic lane in about 6 blocks were upgraded to create the protected bike lanes on Dunsmuir and Hornby. The rest came from parking lanes and after the project was complete, people actually parked close to their destination than they did previously.
          “one-upmanship and bicycle elitism or the self-appointed mantle of virtue”
          Wow! I, for one, am simply trying to get around the city in the most convenient, safe and enjoyable way possible.
          “making drivers hate cyclists”
          This is too much! It is only the press that try to perpetuate this myth in order to sell newspapers.
          You should be happy that more and more people are enjoying cycling as a means of getting around the city since that creates more space for people that need to drive. I don’t understand why everyone is not fully supportive of initiatives to get more people cycling.

        6. “I don’t understand why everyone is not fully supportive of initiatives to get more people cycling.” Arno, that right there is your self-appointed mantle of virtue. It is actually a mantle of deafness, a deafness to the needs of others and their rights and the value of their considered decisions regarding travel that is inherently contemptuous of them. It is the characteristic that makes most bicycle advocacy counterproductive and requires the use of connivance, force, and manipulation to get cycling infrastructure in place. It’s not unique to you, but ubiquitous in this forum. As for that being a myth that the press perpetuates, I’m not the press and it’s not a myth. I observe this antipathy constantly from both the seat of a bicycle and the seat of a car. Activism can either polarize or unite. Cycling advocacy has consistently chosen to polarize. That’s anyone’s privilege – there’s more political currency and money in conflict than in peace – but then don’t say you don’t understand why everyone is not fully supportive. You (collectively) stepped on their foot first, so don’t be surprised when they won’t get off yours.

        7. Misleading to criticize Arno’s comment without consideration for the remark that prefaces it, which recognizes that there is a wide range of legitimate road users.
          More useful would be rebuttals to the criticisms of your claims that bike lanes caused congestion on Dunsmuir — a highly suspect assertion IMO.

        8. Yes, I was going to come back to the viaduct. I acknowledge that the causation may be complex; I am interested in solving problems, not winning arguments. One does not solve problems by pretending they do not exist or by devoutly hoping that one’s pet project did not contribute, and it is facile at best to say the bike lane had no effect. The reason that special events clog the viaduct has to do with the bike lane: heavy pedestrian flow blocks both right and left turners, leaving very limited through-traffic capacity. The bike lane therefore reduces the rate at which cars can get OFF the viaduct, quite independent of the light at Citadel Parade, but often aggravated by it.
          As for how significant the delay is, it’s really about the magnitude of the frustration. I note that cyclists find it to be an intolerable burden to be asked to stop at the Citadel Parade light, which would only delay them 30 seconds on what is about a 2-4 minute crossing – other than me, I’ve seen not one stop and wait for the light to change. So when drivers are asked to placidly tolerate idling in place for 10 minutes for what should be a 1 minute drive, you can calculate which of the two parties has more reason to be frustrated.

        9. “The reason that special events clog the viaduct has to do with the bike lane: heavy pedestrian flow blocks both right and left turners, leaving very limited through-traffic capacity. The bike lane therefore reduces the rate at which cars can get OFF the viaduct, quite independent of the light at Citadel Parade, but often aggravated by it.”
          Again, these factors are not caused by the bike lane. There are a result of masses of spectators and masses of SOVs. The same people crossing Dunsmuir are also crossing Beatty and Cambie, which is reducing the ability to turn off Dunsmuir. Stop scapegoating the bike lane because people like to drive and also like to attend mass events. The same scenario would exist without the bike lane in place and in fact did.

        10. “So when drivers are asked to placidly tolerate idling in place for 10 minutes for what should be a 1 minute drive,”
          Again, nope. It is what it is and suggesting that drivers have a right to expect Sunday at 1am travel times at peak hours or when there’s mass spectator events is simply illogical. Should I expect a rush hour trip on Hwy 1 to be the same as off-peak? Of course not. The flawed rationale that says a motorist is entitled to feel upset because they can’t move their vehicle at the same rate at all time and in all places only serves to embed the belief that their transportation choice should be privileged and made sacrosanct… that non-motorists must ‘give way’ and beware the manic motorist who doesn’t understand how cities work.

        11. You know, Chris, you seem to be having a really good time convincing yourself in response to what you think I said. Far be it from me to delay you en route to your foregone conclusion.

        12. Oh, I don’t think so. You’re entitled to your opinion of course, but my remarks are directly linked to your comments and what you said (wrote). If you re-read your remarks, you have made some sweeping and arguably erroneous claims and buttressed them with hyperbolic remarks. Those are the barriers to a productive dialogue IMO.
          I would note that your own comments Karin are very assumptive in nature, and sadly, quite wide of the mark. To wit:
          “One does not solve problems by pretending they do not exist or by devoutly hoping that one’s pet project did not contribute, and it is facile at best to say the bike lane had no effect.”

  12. This all makes sense, but most people (probably everybody not reading this blog) like free street parking. We have free street parking almost everywhere because society values it.
    There are also benefits of street parking. On many streets parked cars improve safety by slowing moving traffic.
    In my mind the biggest problem with on street parking is if it is not removed where space is needed for walking and biking infrastructure.
    I think the approach to parking should not focus on finding a funding source for transit, but the actual benefits and costs of on-street parking in the local context. Solutions vary and include metering, permit (fee covers admin cost), monthly or annual passes, free parking, and parking removal.

  13. 100% agree, Thomas. I also agree with many in the comments that are crinkling about the difficulty of such a measure, but the truth is there are many societies on the planet that have managed to more accurately account for the externalities of private vehicle transportation. Japan requires vehicle shoppers to prove they have a parking space for the car they intend to own before they own it. I like this approach. It places the onus directly on the driver account for the costs they are about to impose on the community around them.
    I know that doesn’t solve the culture shock of attempting to ask Canadians to be responsible for their choice to own a car, but it’s a compelling model.
    Is this problem somewhat of an onion? Do we first need to better align the incentive structure of our politicians so that they are more capable of making decisions that are good but unpopular? Or, do we need more effective means of organizing and education?

  14. Ever gone to a party (i.e. potluck) at someone’s house where there’s resident permit parking in the area?
    You circle around for a long time to find a place to park – (1) because the 2 hour spaces are all full, (2) because you aren’t from the area and don’t know where there might for available parking.
    If you have a club or team event, you’ll have people coming from far and wide, so transit isn’t always an option (especially carrying a casserole dish).

    1. So are you in favour of higher fees for street parking? This would certainly help your situation, since there should always be a convenient spot if the parking is properly priced. Donald Shoup – the renowned parking expert – suggests that meter parking should beof variable cost depending on demand and should be priced so that there are always some free spots in every block.

      1. Wouldn’t the presence of free spots in every block encourage driving? I can the motivation for free spots in business districts to support retail, but in residential areas one could argue that pay parking would increase the availability of parking, therefore promote driving (including visitors with casseroles who may otherwise use transit).

        1. Sorry – I meant vacant spots. Pricing is set at such a level that there are always a couple of vacant spots. You want vacant spots to prevent people from driving for 10 minutes to look for a place to park. Vancouver should implement this model downtown. I believe that San Francisco is starting to implement this. This model maximizes revenue while minimizing search time for parking. Win-win all around.

        2. Hi Arno, wouldn’t pricing to supply vacant spots in residential areas still promote driving vs. using other modes of transport?

        3. There needs to be some recognition of the opportunity cost of a parking spot, the fact that the space could also be used for something else. That cost will vary based on location, and will establish a base price. If parking fees collected fall below that, the spot (or series of spots) gets converted to a different use.

        4. I understand the opportunity cost of car parking, but there may be unintended negative consequences of charging people for the cost of parking, at least in the short to mid term, until Arno can plant broccoli on the street.

    2. “so transit isn’t always an option (especially carrying a casserole dish).”
      Seriously? Do you think people in more transit-oriented communities don’t have potluck dinners? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at such a weak rationale for motoring.

  15. Jarrett Walker just published a piece in the Washington Post on the dominance of cars in our society, and outlines the solutions after defining the problem succinctly:
    Cars don’t work well in cities, and the reason is simple: 1) A city is a place where people live close together, so there’s not much space per person. 2) Cars take up a lot of space per person. 3) Therefore, cities quickly run out of room for cars.
    This problem is called congestion. When it happens, a city’s options are to:
    (A) Stop growing — because congestion has become terrible and growth will make it worse.
    (B) Widen streets. This requires huge amounts of land, and land in cities is very expensive. What’s more, if you tear down enough buildings to widen streets, you are effectively destroying your city in order to save it.
    (C) Focus on helping people get around using less space than cars require — through walking, cycling and mass transit.
    Given the options, it’s not surprising that urban leaders — regardless of political ideology — eventually decide that C is the only real answer.

    He also addresses the opportunities and constraints of autonomous cars:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/03/02/buses-and-trains-thats-what-will-solve-congestion/?utm_content=buffer5fba8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

  16. Isn’t this “demand for free space” really just the normal expectation of anyone who lives in a place? Ie, the common understanding that there has to be space for vehicles in the place where people are going to have homes, so the city plans with this consideration in mind?
    If a city wants to say, “Well, you can only have space you pay for, including parking,” I would be less likely to consider that place as a place to live, and they’d have to do it before they already had residents, because those residents certainly live there on that understanding.
    Don’t you think?

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      Author

      Yes we need space for cars. The big question is: why is it free ?
      Land has a lot of value, especially in dense urban areas. If we pretend to be “green” and want more money for public transit but then don’t charge car use enough that is a big gap in public policy to me.

    2. Free parking destroys cities. Donald Shoup does a great job of explaining this in his seminal book “The High Cost of Free Parking”. And it is so unfair. As a small example, I live near Oakridge Mall. I either walk or cycle when I visit the mall, but they do supply free parking for those arriving by car. So what happens is that I and everyone else who does not arrive by car help to pay for this free parking which we do not use since the costs are added to my bill through higher prices. I suspect that only a minority of customers arrive by car, so how fair is this? Already over 50% of trips in Vancouver are made by walk/bike/transit, so a majority is paying for the privilege of the few who continue to drive. Enjoy your subsidy while you can. As Tom Prendergast, former CEO of TransLink wisely stated some years ago, “The days of the free ride for automobiles worldwide is coming to an end.”

    3. Justin, the world is larger than one’s small sphere around their home. Moreover, cities are a collective of shared existence, which is larger than our little pockets of individuality.
      Here’s one way of illustrating the problem and costs to society of road space:
      One car shadows about 45 m2 of land. Add 1.5 m at either end and you’ve got a parking space that occupies 54 m2 of land. If each car owner feels entitled to one public street parking space, then our 1.4 million (and growing) cars in the Metro will require 75.6 square km of land just for parking in one location.
      Then you add an additional parking space at each destination (work, shopping, church, visiting friends and relatives ….), and again add in all the roads. You are now up to 30% of the entire land area of Vancouver devoted to public roads and lanes, and about 40% in younger peripheral cities with wider road width standards. Remember that’s PUBLIC land. It’s far more when you calculate the area devoted to private parking and driveways.
      The publicly-owned, taxpayer-supported road space consumes well over 300 km2 of all urban land in the Metro. All public and private land devoted to cars collectively adds up to about 55% of the entire urban land area, or over 450 km2 within the Metro’s Urban Containment Boundary.
      Trying to calculate the value of all that land would be an exercise worthy of its own post.
      We most definitely have a problem.

      1. By the same logic, wouldn’t you have to charge people for sidewalks, parks, social welfare offices and services (which are now “free”)?
        I don’t agree with the logic in your arguments, guys. The space occupied by vehicles on the sides of streets isn’t considered something that should be rented by most people because its part of their understanding of space. Cities (and towns) include cars and parking.
        Vancouver recently has become super-expensive in terms of property and short in terms of space for people, but most of Canada (cities included) is not like this. Cars are a part of people’s lives. For family travel, work commute, errands and shopping, etc. Always been that way, Canadians like (and more-or-less need it that way), and our cities reflect our way of life.
        … Not that it matters, because it’s our way of life and its what our current societies are built on anyway, but cars are only temporarily not-green. In 20 or 30 years or whenever it is, the argument about personal cars and pollution will not even be worth talking about. In Canada, the issue of pollution from cars isn’t that great, and it’s something that will just blow over.

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          Author

          Not quite. Sidewalks, beaches and parks, for example, can be used and are used BY ALL.
          Roads are used only by SOME.
          That is why Vancouver still charges you for pool use or to take an Italian course at the community center. it is partially subsidized through property taxes but people rightly perceive additional value and thus, don;t mid paying for it.
          Free parking is essentially a gift to some to buy their vote. Many that either do not drive, or have a private garage or only 1 car and not three pay for the guy that parks three cars for free near his $3M house in Point Grey. Seems unusually generous to me.
          It’s like going to a restaurant and they offer free beer with every meal. Many people would drink more than they would normally, and as such, the meal price must be increased, at the expense of the non-beer drinker !

        2. “In 20 or 30 years or whenever it is, the argument about personal cars and pollution will not even be worth talking about. ”
          Will they be magically produced without any external inputs from the natural world or emissions related to manufacture? Seems unlikely.
          “Producing a medium-sized new car costing £24,000 may generate more than 17 tonnes of CO2e – almost as much as three years’ worth of gas and electricity in the typical UK home.”
          http://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car

      2. Thomas, this contains a few misapprehensions. Roads ARE used by all even if not directly, since we all utilize goods and services that arrive by road, whether we buy groceries or call ambulances. Second, parks and beaches are NOT used by all, not by a long shot, but we still all benefit from the fact that other people can use them and are happier and healthier for it, and that we can cram them into tiny living spaces on the pretext that they can get their outdoors fix in public areas.
        Arno you are shuttering your view of the value of parking at the mall. The simple fact is that there would not BE a mall for you to walk to if others could not drive there, because there would not be enough business locally for the mall to be built or for its stores to stay in business. It is a convenient and altogether unbelievable assertion that only a minority of customers arrive by car. But by all means offer some data if you have it.
        Someone upthread referred to there being an opportunity cost to this land used by parking. Sure there is – but you can only know what it is if you first calculate the delivered value of the land use as it is used today. My car trips always inject money into the economy of wherever I am parked. My cycle trips do too, but the ratio is different because I can buy more if I have my car with me. If parking is not on a timer, I will also buy more because I won’t be rushed. However, the math says that there is more benefit to the economy if the parking space turns over at a certain rate, so one has to find the indifference point, after which what I spend with more time won’t be as much as the next car-load of people will spend after they arrive. Or to depersonalize, how much tuition does UBC collect, and thus circulate into the economy further, as a result of that “free” parking?
        Tax home parking by all means. But if you tax parking where people park so they can spend, you may shoot yourself in the bicycle tire.

        1. Karen, there may be more people arriving at the mall by car, but it is still unfair that I have to pay extra almost everywhere because of free or subsidized parking. Also, the emphasis on the car causes shopping destinations to be larger and more dispersed which makes walking and cycling to them more problematic. I would rather have lots of local shops than a few large malls. The argument about roads being used by everyone due to deliveries is a weak one, since deliveries probably account for a small fraction of road use – I would guess less than 5%. We could do with narrower roads and less of them if car use were diminished. Also, bicyclists are better customers for local businesses:
          http://usa.streetsblog.org/2012/03/23/why-bicyclists-are-better-customers-than-drivers-for-local-business/
          In one study, people walking and cycling spend more at local businesses than those taking transit or driving:
          http://www.cleanairpartnership.org/pdf/bike-lanes-parking.pdf
          See also:
          https://ecf.com/sites/ecf.com/files/shopping-by-bike.pdf
          Cycling is great for business.

        2. You’re very prone to guessing at numbers, Arno, and my guess is that your guesses are wishful thinking at best. I venture to say you maybe have no idea of the inputs that, for example, Oakridge Mall alone requires, including the use of tradespeople and infrastructure maintenance. Anyway, I’m not here to force you to broaden your scope; if you are happy with your extremely narrow view, then why do you engage in discussion?

        3. Public transit, bikes and walking are far more efficient at moving humans than cars using public roads and infrastructure costing hundreds of billions and occupying a vast amount of land. There is no operating cost recovery on roads, whereas transit has a permanent operating cost recovery rate of ~50% here. Transit, biking and walking are far cheaper, use less or even negligible amounts of land, and have very positive effects on the city and health. Building more transit, bike and walking amenities also has a direct economic return in development and zoning, and will free up road space for commercial vehicles by getting rid of SOVs. People shop and support local and regional economies. Cars are inanimate and do not.
          There is also a little thing called climate change that needs to be dealt with in earnest someday, and one of the best places to start is within our cities. Walkable communities possess emission rates lower than if everyone in them drove a Prius.

        4. Karen: In this Pricetags article:
          https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2015/11/19/for-comment-what-causes-traffic-congestion-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/
          Jeff Leigh shows data that light and heavy trucks in Vancouver comprise 2-5% of all motor vehicles. This does not account for passenger vehicles used for commercial purposes, but it shows numbers close to what I mentioned.
          I did find mode split for Oakridge:
          http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/oakridge-centre-rezoning-transportation-assessment.pdf
          It shows that during peak hours, cars account for 55-65% of visitors (2013 numbers), so I was a bit off on my estimates.
          Why do I comment here? It is to provide facts based on research as that is the only way to have a rational discussion. I may have been a bit off on my Oakridge estimate, but for smaller businesses only about 15% arrive by car. This was shown by city surveys on Hornby Street and also the Bloor Street study I referenced in an earlier comment.
          Now it’s your turn to show some research to back up all your statements. War on cars? Elitist cyclists? Bike lanes clogging traffic? Economic value of driving? Evidence please.

        5. Non-drivers subsidizing parking at malls is probably not a black & white issue. At least I’ve never noticed that products are cheaper at the Home Hardware without parking than at Rona with a large parking lot. Rona like other big box stores and malls likely have economy of scale helped by the parking lots. Over time parking demand will likely reduce as land use at and around the malls change.

        6. And dollar sales per travel modality? How do you know who is subsidizing whom? Maybe the drivers are subsidizing Skytrain. Honestly, your assumptions are so thick on the ground it’s like the Gish Gallop. If you want data on the behaviour of cycling advocates at the mere suggestion that drivers are human, you can search this blog and read the record of responses to me, or look up the post by Bob… Lilley I think it was. And don’t forget to establish a comparative framework by contrasting that to how the more virtuous posters are responded to.
          And yes, missing that little piece about passenger cars used for commercial transport or service functions just might be significant. It’s usually safer to assume you don’t have all the data than that you do. Also – again – emergency vehicles?

        7. Or course drivers are human. Where did you get the idea that cycling advocates think they’re not?
          And what are drivers anyway? They’re just pedestrians who happen to be in a car at the moment. To declare that pedestrians and drivers are natural enemies is just plain false. They’re the same people who at the time of labelling them happen to be doing a different activity. Ten minutes later they could switch roles. We can’t blame the people for the bad design of the infrastructure that puts them in conflict. We need to blame the design.
          We’re all just some folks typing away about stuff on a website. It’s kind of divisive at times but nothing like you’d find on the Sun’s website for example. The discussion is good to have.
          It’s a dead end to start talk about who’s subsidizing who. We’re all subsidized and we’re all subsidizing others in one way or another. It may or may not even out.
          I think what’s going on is an attempt to recover from the past 80 years of monomodal design to have more options available to people. It can sometimes get into the type of debate of defensiveness and attack. That’s not the way to do it. Fortunately there are no plans by anyone to make things monomodal of a different mode. If you look at the City’s Transportation 2040 plan, they fully expect and will plan for continued motor vehicle use.
          People may gripe about the privilege and subsidy that motorists get and wish something could be done to balance things. That’s gonna happen.

      3. Justin, it’s not just rent, but about cost. It’s also about geometry. There is a ceiling on the amount of public land that can be devoted to private car storage, the return to society being in the negative.

  17. Thanks to repeated requests from Karin to state facts and not opinions or estimates (thank you Karin for keeping me honest), I finally found an estimate on the increased cost of purchases from a store due to free parking:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/29/how-cheap-parking-makes-a-lot-of-life-more-expensive/
    Esimate is 1% of total cost, but this is higher for areas with higher land values and also depends on the type of parking – surface or structure.

  18. Thanks, Arno. I think the issue is that the conversation about the value of parking morphs at some point to a conversation about something else, which in this case is shopper behaviour and retail cost analysis. I don’t think the blog post referenced does particular credit to “Simon Frasier” University because it doesn’t effectively make that transition. Because unless one knows what percent of purchases is made by drivers vs. others (a number that your earlier mode-split sidles up to but doesn’t provide), one cannot evaluate whether the business in question could exist at all without its driving customers.
    Once one starts to talk about who is subsidizing whom, another interesting question pops up: When I pay with cash, am I subsidizing those who pay with credit cards, and if so, by how much? So am I carrying my weight if I drive but pay cash? Or am I a leach if I ride my bike but use a credit card? It’s complicated, and I think if we look comprehensively enough at the environment we have (as opposed to, say, Japan or Finland) we may find that we are not subsidizing each other so much as building synergistically a community that can support a thriving retail and service sector. Bicycles, after all, require concrete too, and their parking infrastructure actually requires more construction on a per-shopper basis.
    I am not a defender of motordom as a standard for design, but nothing in the change process is served by bad data or bad analysis. So thank you for raising the bar.

    1. A car requires about 54 m2 of land per parking space. You’re looking at about 60,000 m2 including access roads, drive aisles and driveways to accommodate 500 cars at $3,000 (surface) – $50,000 (underground) per stall, and $300 (surface) – $1,500 per m2 of road and drive aisle space. Operating costs are extra, and quite significant at that.
      Bicycles require about 0.8 m2 for parking and several orders of magnitude less land for all their related infrastructure. Operating costs a re negligible.
      There is no comparison.

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        Author

        Bikes are for a minority of users, for a minority of areas in hilly Vancouver. Please do not expect any serious merchant to only cater to them.
        The core issue is mis-pricing of public land. Why should the province grant cities the right to meter road use (i.e. tolls or bridge tolls or congestion charges) if the cities are unwilling to do their thing within their control, i.e. toll parking properly ?

        1. Hi Thomas, the core issue isn’t that merchants are “catering” to people driving cars. The issue is the laws (including laws that mandate free/below market curb parking) that force retailers to build parking rather than leaving this to a real estate market like in other areas of economic life.
          No one cares about businesses that voluntarily say, “I want to use 50% of my land area to provide free parking to customers” or “I want to use 25% of my building volume to provide free parking to customers” Any business can and should be allowed to make a decision like this, of course with the attendant result that their real estate costs (whether purchasing or leasing) and operating costs will be much higher. Presumably high margin businesses could very well decide to provide such a service in a free market.
          However we are mandating these decisions out of a fear that if we don’t, drivers will use street parking because we have other laws that mandate below market pricing for the street. This is not unlike blackmail – build us free/cheap parking or we’ll clog up your neighbourhood.
          Your continued references to hills are irrelevant. No on here is suggesting that we are one step away from some sort of 100% bike mode share. But getting drive mode share from 90% to 70% or 70% to 50% or 50% to 45% pays massive dividends in reduced congestion, reduced noise, reduced pollution, and lower prices for goods and services formerly inflated by hidden parking costs. Bikes are not and will not be a 100% solution, but in combination with transit and walkability, they are part of the solution.
          And before someone mentions that Vancouver now often mandates bike parking – we only do that as an attempt to counterbalance the mandates that reduce the cost of driving. I’d happily give up mandated bike parking if we also removed all parking minimums and went to market curb parking or no curb parking (use the land for something else, let private market provide parking)

      2. …and thanks, MB, for lowering it again. Because bicycles just materialize out of thin air, made from all natural ingredients, and biodegrade at the end of life cycle. They’re lubricated with spring water, which is harvested by hummingbirds, and travel on natural ground in complete harmony with the earth. Because bike racks are made from food waste, and no one who rides a bike ever wears anything but natural fabrics or steps out of line with the climate change agenda or is anything less than one with all humankind.
        Unless they admit to driving a car of course, in which case their status as human is called into question.
        You could find so much common ground and learn so much from people with different experiences and perspectives, but you just have to enjoy your little villain-hero fantasy.
        And it’s so easy from behind your handy veil of anonymity, isn’t it?

        1. Hi Karen, of course bicycles are manufactured goods and involve waste and pollution in their production and eventual disposal. Did anyone deny this?
          Are you suggesting that the material, energy, and labour costs that go into making a 3500 lb vehicle are similar to those that go into a 30 lb bicycle? Because it sounds like that’s what you are suggesting and that doesn’t seem very likely. Of course perhaps you are looking for documented facts and I don’t have a handy report on this but by this logic, we can also conclude that a tricycle and the space shuttle have similar impacts.
          Just because a bicycle isn’t zero impact that doesn’t suddenly mean that we should all just throw up our hands and say that there is no point in trying to improve or change anything about our world.
          I think cars are great and very useful.
          But they are not great or useful when 2.5 million people want to use them all at the same time in a small geographic area. Nor when all want free parking mandated by government. All anyone here is proposing is applying normal real estate economics to the land area used by transportation, rather than treating it alike a special case where land cost is free. You wouldn’t see cars disappear, you would see people making rational economic decisions about their costs, just like we do in every other area of economic life.

        2. Karin, once again your projections are hilarious. I don’t know a single person who cycles for ecological reasons. Most people I know do it because it makes the most sense for a particular trip they want to or have to make.
          But hey, this reminds me of the time I was accused of being a vegetarian extremist because I was eating humous. (My actual motive is because humous tastes good.)

    2. Karen: “Bicycles, after all, require concrete too, and their parking infrastructure actually requires more construction on a per-shopper basis.”
      That seems at first look to be an absurd claim. I am sure you have a source for it. Could you provide it?

      1. I don’t think it’s a source you need but a clarification of the assumptions on which I based the comment.
        I’m assuming a rack for the bicycle vs. a piece of flat asphalt, perhaps with paint, for a car. Less asphalt required per shopper, but more installed steel. Seems like more construction to me.
        Some parking lots have more infrastructure – walkways, trees in planters, lights, dividers, what have you – but a lot of them are just flat asphalt with paint. Heck, they can even just be dirt, grass, or gravel. The asphalt is more necessary for comfortable walking to the destination store than it is for the car itself.

        1. I suppose if you start with the assumptions that both require an asphalt pad, and that it is no more work to make a space many times larger for the car, then the installation of the bike rack would require more construction. Two anchor bolts, for example.
          But in the real world, cars require much more construction because they weigh more. The pad isn’t free. And the car pad requires much more reinforcement. And construction costs are calculated per square metre, so the car space, and associated ramps, take much more construction. Add in the ventilation systems for the exhaust fumes. And the protected walkways to ensure the safety of the people leaving their cars, from, well, other car drivers.
          Lots of info available on the cost of providing bicycle parking vs car parking.

      2. Jeff, this is an interesting study in both comparative statistics and the art of dialogue.You’ve just moved from the question you asked me about the statement I made, which was about the AMOUNT of construction. Not cost. Not space taken.
        Then in trying to understand my comment, which I appreciate you doing, you conveniently ignored the rack itself and just factored in the bolts. Then, for comparative purposes, you ignored the fact that the car spot can be down-engineered, and instead you up-engineered it – by the end of your paragraph, you’ve built yourself a parkade for the car and are comparing it to two bolts and a non-existent rack.
        If you DO want to compare COST of bicycle vs car parking, you don’t have to go searching all over the internet for competing studies done for vested interests and political agendas. You can do it in your head by looking at the simplest versions of each, and figuring out in your head how they would be built, and what the supply line would look like in both cases. If you want to pave both spaces, there is uncertainty both in terms of land cost (which this thread is sort of about) and unit cost of laying asphalt. But the bike rack might require concrete for security, not asphalt, so factor that in too, as well as that you might want a thicker surface for the weight. But the bottom line is that unless you lock your bike to a tree (and this is discouraged), the cost of building one bike rack vs. the cost of providing one car spot might be about the same or higher. If the land cost is taken out – we were talking about Oakridge, where the space is a given – then you would only have to get the cost of pavement for each project to do the actual math. If you build a rack that holds several bikes, the ratio changes yet again.
        But before you do any math, you need to know WHY you want this information. If you have your conclusions all worked out in advance about wanting to discourage car use, you don’t need any information or arithmetic at all because the information is not going to affect your decision.
        Which is why it is so much easier to advocate for bicycle infrastructure without ALSO trying to elbow aside and vilify or negate cars. There is without a doubt an economic case to be made that attracting cyclists will attract additional shoppers, and if it is such a good thing, people will choose to ride rather than drive and the infrastructure will grow. Why should the business have to decide whether it should build for cyclists OR drivers when it can build for both?

      3. Karin, there are many points here, I don’t know if I can cover them all.
        You made a claim about the amount of construction for bicycle parking. The cost of construction is a pretty good proxy for the construction effort required. Construction can be measured in hours of labour, and labour has an hourly cost. I don’t understand your objection to comparing costs.
        You object to the consideration of the size of the construction project when calculating amount of construction. Most would consider that building something eight times as large involves more construction.
        I only ignored the bicycle rack because in the general scheme of the construction of a parking space, it is inconsequential. But if it is a problem, no worries. Bicycles can use kickstands. Leave out the bike rack.
        If I up-engineered it (to a parkade) it is because the thread is talking about parking in areas where surplus space for parking is not unlimited. That implies urban centres to me. My bicycles are all parked in an underground parkade at the moment, as is my car. If we wanted to consider non-urban centres where there is unlimited space, fine, but then we should probably have a new thread about rural parking. But my parkade example applied to both car and bicycle, and the building of the bicycle parkade involves much less construction for the reasons given above.
        So your claim that bicycle parking requires more construction than vehicle parking appears to be unsupported, after all that.

      4. Sorry Jeff, but that’s pretty sad. Cyclists who do not have kickstands cannot carry them along and quickly install them where they do not find a rack, and even if they could, rack-less bicycle parking is simply not on for security reasons; if the vigor of the advocacy for bicycle parking doesn’t convince you (and the construction of the facility at Main St. Skytrain) then the near-complete absence on Vancouver streets of any parked bicycle not locked TO something immobile should. I was parking my bike in the block of Georgia St. east of the Bay on Tuesday and noted that there is precisely one bike rack in the entire block both sides (nothing in front of the new Telus building, I was surprised to see). Every single bike in view was somehow wedged into and locked onto that rack.
        No, I don’t think the rack is inconsequential, whether in cost, in effort, or in utility/necessity.

        1. You have completely avoided the point, which was your unsupported claim that bicycle parking requires more construction than vehicle parking.

        2. It is remarkably difficult to prove the obvious to someone who is determined to remain oblivious to it. What’s the Upton Sinclair quote… “it is impossible to convince a man of something when his salary depends on him not understanding it” I think. I don’t know what you do for a living, so I don’t know if that is a factor, but ideology can generate the same behaviour pattern as money does. I have nothing at stake here, just to be clear. I just don’t like public policy decisions made on the basis of bad data or bad analysis.

        3. When I worked for a salary, I was in the business of supplying heavy equipment to construct, among other things, items like parking facilities. It didn’t take as much equipment or effort to construct a bike parking facility, of course. Which is why I couldn’t understand your claim that it takes more construction for a bicycle parking facility. It continues to fly in the face of logic. Still awaiting your acknowledgement of that, or backup for your claim. I don’t understand your pronouncement that it is obvious. Hopefully you can clarify your statement, now that we have dispensed with distractions about my presumed bias. Are you perhaps projecting your own biases? You are claiming that there is bad data or bad analysis, while providing none.

  19. Reading back through this thread, I can’t help but recall a recent post on Pricetags, which included this paragraph:
    “As in New York, we have seen a head-snapping turnaround in the public conversation here about bikey stuff. Strong positivity in some strong places, and benign indifference in others, has replaced near-universal negativity. Granted, a few cranks continue to whale away at discredited negative tropes, but they are fading fast into a tiny minority, and are really only found now in online comment sections and smoke-filled partisan back rooms.”
    https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/when-it-starts-to-go/

  20. We live on a street with so little traffic that people play badminton there.
    When we first moved in 11 years ago, our neighbour became our nightmare. He ran a skanky blue collar business out of his house which included a large pickup with two trailers. Just the truck and one trailer attached were longer than 33′. He would set up this toxic (it reeked of toluene) combo during the day, to go to work in the middle of the night.
    Also belonging to this house were three other vehicles; plus visitors to his kids and wife, who ran a bogus financial planning business, and one or two employees. It was not unusual for them to litter the street with 10 vehicles.
    Our quiet little street was his free parking lot. It was busy.
    We had a war over this territory. There were officials involved.
    It was incredibly difficult to shut him down, but once the work from home lifeline was cut, they sold their place and bought elsewhere.
    As I look out the window now, you could easily park a dozen cars.
    If residents had to pay for parking, none of this would have happened.

  21. Clearly, Thomas, you have never been a squatter or you would already know that the squats that are being lived in are in such disrepair that the owner has almost always abandoned them. I regonize that there are alway contradictions to the rule however the comparison you present is piss poor. You suggest that the city is giving away the worst kind of pot hole filled trenches to park in for free. Surely there is a line waiting to park in a sinkhole, Im sure it is miles long. Maybe it is a parking garage that is falling in where only the first level is available due to the ceiling giving in? I fully agree with your perspective of the issue at hand in that parking fees could generate enormous revenue. I think you are a far call from providing evidence that the squats that homeless adults and kids are staying in are somehow being paid for by the public, otherwise they wouldnt be squatting at all. I say much of this in jest but with a mildly serious tone, there are real serious problems at hand on the streets and people are dying in already condemned residences. Its not quite the same as parking.

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