Too Much Free Parking In CA? (San Francisco, Oakland: lease, crime rates, buying)

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

What happened to you to make your world view so narrow that you can't fathom others making different choices than you?

What happened to you to make you judge someone you don't know like that?

[Ceece]

Well the cities where I live were built waaaaaay post-automobile and were intended for automobiles. Otherwise neighborhoods wouldn't be way up in the hills 2 miles from any stores with big, wide streets.... And I don't see that changing any time soon.

[jkbatca]

Originally Posted by wburg

The "free" parking at your employer's, supermarket, mall or curb in front of your house isn't free. Someone is paying for it: the customer at the store, the employer, the property owner...or the taxpayer. All this calls for is a pay-as-you-go model.

Maybe they should start calling so-called "free parking" something else, like "Socialized Parking"? They'd get the Tea Party folks on their side for sure!

What the ...?

Um, my employer leases (pays money) to a PRIVATE entity which PRIVATELY owns the land and that PRIVATE entity uses part of that money to maintain a parking lot. The supermarket leases (pays money) to a PRIVATE entity which PRIVATELY owns the land and that PRIVATE entity uses part of that money to maintain a parking lot.

Where in that last paragraph was there any mention of socialism? All of those cases were private entities exchanging money for goods / services, nowhere was the government involved (except of course to scrape money from all entities to fund various 'services'). Do you even know what socialism means?

If a gov't entity funded some of that land to either get sweetheart deals with developers (which is often the case around here), then blame the government for yet another example of unintended consequences. But don't lard up one unintended consequence with yet another with a government ""fix"".

In the case of your curb, the concept was that you paid various taxes, and a line item in the city budget was to maintain that curb. Thanks to how funding is structured in CA and the ever increasing demands of public employee salaries and especially pensions, those maintenance line items are going away. Now the CA gov't is playing "budgeting chicken" by constantly whittling away at vital services line items until the CA taxpayer breaks and says "go ahead, tax me more (1)". This despite the pension systems are so broke and the taxpayer is on the hook to pay for this with a finite pot of money. But no, the CA senate / assembly isn't going to address that issue...

(1) even though CA is ALREADY one of the most taxed states in the US (the only thing that keeps us from being #1 is property tax)

[drshang]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

As a non-driver, I certainly WOULD rather have to pay for parking when I need it rather than have it bundled into the cost of my groceries or into the costs of building developments. "Free parking" isn't free, and it's not a right. It's a subsidy that comes with a hidden cost. The focus on zoning and car requirements and the building in of fees hurts everyone, including small businesses.

If people want a guaranteed free parking space at home, for example, then why should they assume that they can use their public street as free storage for their car? That should not be considered a right.

This sounds good in theory, but if such an law would be passed, they would simply charge for parking and not reduce the price of groceries. That said, if we promote and encourage local travel methods such as bikes and walking trails, it would, in theory, decrease the cost of road maintenance and reduce the need for huge parking lots.

One might also argue that free parking on the streets is paid with gasoline taxes and auto registration fees.

[Snort]

Every time you take a wizz, expect to start paying a waste disposal fee.

[KC6ZLV]

Originally Posted by wburg

You already pay to park in front of Safeway, when you buy groceries there. You already pay to park in front of your house, when you pay property taxes. The only difference is that you would directly pay that amount, instead of paying it as taxes

Correction:

You would pay directly in addition to all the other taxes. That is what they are really after.

[wburg]

jkbatca: It doesn't matter much to me whether the six bucks goes to a public, private, government or corporate entity or the King of France, the bottom line is that I'm paying for someone else's parking lot whether I use it or not. If I'm walking and you're driving, I'm subsidizing your parking space.

[vdy1985]

Originally Posted by KC6ZLV

Correction:

You would pay directly in addition to all the other taxes. That is what they are really after.

True. If this were to pass, do any of you see your taxes going down, since now you are directly paying for your parking. I don't. The taxes will stay the same, grocery prices will stay the same, and you will have less cash than before. You think the grocery stores are going to drop prices just because you pay for your parking now? No way, they will just take a bigger profit. Stop letting this state jack you of your money.

This is the same mentality that has caused bridge tolls to rise to 6 bucks.
Everyone thought it would be a good idea to raise toll back in the early 2000s when it was 2 bucks, now they raise toll whenever they want without asking for voters opinion.

Our taxes in this state already are high, we are nearing Canadian levels of taxes, yet have less services to show for it. Something is wrong here.

[jkbatca]

Let me see if I get this straight. Some are complaining that government is taking money out of MY pocket (not just yours) to either (a) fund highways, or (b) get into bed with a developer to subsidize a housing / commercial development.

And, you want government to ""fix"" this by taking MORE money out of MY pocket to pay for the things that I've already paid for (ie, paying for parking)?

How about this instead, how about we fix government instead so we don't have all these unintended consequences and leave the taxpayer alone for once?

[jkbatca]

Originally Posted by wburg

jkbatca: It doesn't matter much to me whether the six bucks goes to a public, private, government or corporate entity or the King of France, the bottom line is that I'm paying for someone else's parking lot whether I use it or not. If I'm walking and you're driving, I'm subsidizing your parking space.

Please define (with links to valid articles) on how your subsidizing my parking space.

Hey, there's tons of stuff that I'm subsidizing through my taxes that I'm not fond of either. Join the club...