Parking is a nightmare.
And look at the price!
Crazy, right?
But what if I were to tell you that this is, in fact, ridiculously cheap?
Let me explain.
London has some of the most expensive land in the world. Every square foot is precious.
In Westminster, one of the richest places in Britain, the space needed for a single
parking spot would cost around £8,000 per year to rent as housing.
But if you’re rich enough to live there anyway, parking your car for the year costs a maximum of £145.
That’s quite a subsidy.
No one else gets to store half a tonne of their property on public land at a bargain price.
And that subsidy to motorists is even bigger in places like New York City
where in many places in the centre, it’s still possible to park for absolutely nothing.
Are you crazy? What are you doing?
Hey, hey, you’re stealing my space.
George wait, you don’t know who this guy is... people kill for a parking space in this city.
The amount of space given over to stationary vehicles would fill 13
Central Parks.
The centre of global capitalism is literally giving away use of its valuable land.
Not only is it wasteful, it’s actually suffocating cities.
At busy times in city centres up to 30% of all traffic congestion is caused by drivers
looking for a parking space.
Cruising for parking is probably the worst kind of traffic
because cars are moving slow, so there’s a lot of fuel used per mile travelled.
And that means a lot of air pollution.
And when climate scientists say we have little more than a decade
to stop runaway global warming, this is really important.
Hey arsehole, you can’t park here, this’s my parking space,
I live right up there.
The real reason is: local politicians are terrified.
Even in the UK parking is an emotive issue.
Nottingham is one of the first cities in the world that decided to increase the cost of
parking and invest the extra money in public transport.
But they still faced a major backlash.
For many people the low cost of parking makes driving into busy town centres much more attractive.
It’s barely even a conscious choice, it’s what they’ve always done.
And so, cities themselves have changed to accommodate
the ever-expanding number of cars.
And get this:
All these cars are barely ever in use.
They spend on average 95% of their existence in a parking space.
We need to be prepared that space is becoming more of a scarce commodity
and somehow we’ll have to deal with that.
What I think is important to consider is to never argue against the car,
And convince people that these are actually better.
And we really have to provide the infrastructure and the mechanisms
that makes that statement true
It’s usually about now that someone says, if you charge shoppers more to park,
even more of them will stay at home and shop online instead.
High streets and town centres are already reeling.
There’s only one problem with this idea, it doesn't seem to be true.
In 2008, Britain’s transport department examined evidence from several countries to see if
taking away parking spaces, or making them more expensive, harmed the local economies.
The conclusion? It just didn’t.
The fact is, it’s not the cost of parking that kills town centres.
… because of the transport infrastructure.
For some, doubling or even trebling the cost of parking won’t make any difference.
Look at this row of supercars parked illegally in central London.
A fine of £80 is seen as a price worth paying to pop into Harrods.
Now, of course not everyone can walk or cycle into town.
But restricting parking for the majority doesn’t mean restricting it for those who really need it.
And with all the evidence pointing towards the need for less parking, and for higher prices,
some cities are taking the plunge.
New apartment buildings in Mexico City used
to need a minimum number of parking spaces.
Now it’s a maximum with extra charges the more they build.
And they’ve invested the money in public transport.
In Oslo, the whole city centre is an almost totally car free zone.
Zurich has a maximum number of parking spaces, so if a developer wants to build a new one,
they have to pay for one to be removed first.
And there’s one more, very important thing.
Technology is already starting to change this whole argument.
As driverless cars become more widespread,
the need to have your own private vehicle is likely to drop.
And if cars can go off and park themselves, they don’t need to
be left in the street.
Just imagine, all that space suddenly free.
You could expand pavements, build housing, bike lanes, plant trees … anything.
Or, of course, we could just carry on like this.
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