No more free lunch....ummm....parking! (maintenance, taxes, budget)

[Clarks]

1) Due to the society, cultural, and geographic structure created for the last 50-60 years, people will still have to drive to get somewhere. The amount of people who will be "forced" to ride a bike / walk / mass transit in CA due to this measure is virtually ZERO. Zero. People who have driven to work / court house / whereever, are out of shape, and live 30-60 miles away aren't just going to drop their cars all of a sudden. Thinking otherwise is insane.

I am a Darwinian sort of guy, I have no pity for those who cannot take care of themselves, I have no pity for those who think parking meters are a Bolshevik plot. As far as I am concerned, all whiners can walk westward.

Care to offer direct factual data and assertions to contradict what I've said, or are you going to continue to just look down at your nose at everyone

You have mistaken me for someone who gives a ****.

[jkbatca]

Originally Posted by Clarks

I am a Darwinian sort of guy, I have no pity for those who cannot take care of themselves, I have no pity for those who think parking meters are a Bolshevik plot. As far as I am concerned, all whiners can walk westward.

Darwin has nothing to do with this, it's the constant attempt of the CA legislature to, knowingly or unknowingly, artificially manipulate the state economy, usually in horrific ways. The average CA citizen's livelihood unfortunately is the main casualty of this bad economic experiment.

Originally Posted by Clarks

You have mistaken me for someone who gives a ****.

And yet, you continue to post a lot for some reason.

Originally Posted by jkbatca

Care to offer direct factual data and assertions to contradict what I've said, or are you going to continue to offer no rational debate and just look down at your nose at everyone?

Which the obvious answer to this question is "no". Have a great day! Next...

[KC6ZLV]

Originally Posted by jkbatca

OK let me ask you this point blank. Do you think AB32 or the parking bill will reduce any climate change that is being measured right now? Yes/no? If so, by how much?

I don't have enough information to answer that.

And the idiot who wrote AB32 doesn't either.

I will speculate that I think the real motivation has more to do with that hippie feel-good attitude that forcing people to ride on public transportation will encourage more people to talk to, and get to know one another so we can all learn to live together in peaceful harmony.

But again, just speculation on my part. I could be wrong.

[KC6ZLV]

Originally Posted by Clarks

I have no pity for those who think parking meters are a Bolshevik plot.

I see you have never lived in San Francisco.

[Curmudgeon]

It's interesting watching government be at cross-purposes with itself. On the one hand it passes statutes like AB 32. On the other hand it continues to approve zoning that results in empty land turning into suburban sprawl without an infrastructure of public transportation to serve it. The end result is more cars on the road and, if this parking plan gets out, fewer places to leave them during working hours except at a great costs being forced upon those with no viable alternative.

As in most affairs touched by government, follow the money. No doubt developers are rubbing their hands together in glee, as are parking lot and structure owners.

[Clarks]

Care to offer direct factual data and assertions to contradict what I've said, or are you going to continue to offer no rational debate and just look down at your nose at everyone?

Discussing climate change with idealogues is like discussing religion with the religious, facts have no place in their discussion, they believe what they believe, that what they believe is without foundation is irrelevant.

[jkbatca]

Originally Posted by Clarks

Discussing climate change with idealogues is like discussing religion with the religious, facts have no place in their discussion, they believe what they believe, that what they believe is without foundation is irrelevant.

And yet, when I post a logical assertion backed up with facts given BY THE GLOBAL WARMING PEOPLE THEMSELVES (like what I've said below), then many so-called enlightened global warming advocates start running... I guess many people think they are intelligent just because they agree with some scientist which makes a claim, but transitive intelligence or "appeal to authority" arguments are not a basis of a rational discussion.

Originally Posted by jkbatca

3) Maybe the climatology dude who just posted can wade in, but CO2 is actually a positive feedback trigger which generates more gases which are more effective global warming heat trapping mechanisms (methane in permafrost, water vapor all over). So the insignificant amount of change in CO2 in CA due to this bill will not matter if the positive feedback is already occurring. CA does not generate enough CO2 and given the density of overall CO2 in the atmosphere, this parking bill will do squat for global warming.

I'm still waiting to read why what I've said is wrong. I've made assertions based on what I've read from global warming advocates, and came to a conclusion. Where exactly am I wrong? No religion here. Just logic and facts. If I'm so wrong, correcting me should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

Originally Posted by jkbatca

Care to offer direct factual data and assertions to contradict what I've said...?

And the answer apparently is still no.

[uptown_urbanist]

I don't have time to read through all the responses right now, but anyone interested in this topic should read the book "The High Price of Free Parking"; the author (Donald Shoup at UCLA) goes into great detail about the hidden costs of parking. It's certainly not just an environmental issue. I haven't read it for awhile, but there's some nice comparisons there between Westwood and Old Pasadena. He claims, and I've talked to enough people in Pasadena to know others agree, that Old Pasadena's management of its parking is what led to its revitalization. Plentiful free parking is not only not good for the environment, it's not good for business.

I believe proposal provides incentives for cities to move away from free parking, not mandates that they do so. There's a difference there. Most people haven't thought through the big picture, and don't fully realize the indirect costs of providing free parking. It's never really free.

I think the politicians here are wrong to be playing up the environmental angle, though, even if that's an important point. They should be hammering away at the economic issues.

And yes, I'd agree that zoning and similar regulations have also got to change. The current model found so many places where you have to drive to one store, then leave, drive to the next, and so is bad for the environment, bad for customers, bad for business, and ultimately, bad for the community.

[Clarks]

I'm still waiting to read why what I've said is wrong. I've made assertions based on what I've read from global warming advocates, and came to a conclusion. Where exactly am I wrong? No religion here. Just logic and facts. If I'm so wrong, correcting me should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

You apparently missed the part where I said, I don't care what you think, once a person states climate change isn't happening. I think of them like the homeless guy mumbling as he walks down the street, whatever they have to say after stating climate change isn't happening, is going to be de-minted.

You may as well be a creationist, they have some superficially logical arguments in favor of their de-minted position too.

[jkbatca]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

I don't have time to read through all the responses right now, but anyone interested in this topic should read the book "The High Price of Free Parking"; the author (Donald Shoup at UCLA) goes into great detail about the hidden costs of parking. It's certainly not just an environmental issue. I haven't read it for awhile, but there's some nice comparisons there between Westwood and Old Pasadena. He claims, and I've talked to enough people in Pasadena to know others agree, that Old Pasadena's management of its parking is what led to its revitalization. Plentiful free parking is not only not good for the environment, it's not good for business.

I believe proposal provides incentives for cities to move away from free parking, not mandates that they do so. There's a difference there. Most people haven't thought through the big picture, and don't fully realize the indirect costs of providing free parking. It's never really free.

I think the politicians here are wrong to be playing up the environmental angle, though, even if that's an important point. They should be hammering away at the economic issues.

And yes, I'd agree that zoning and similar regulations have also got to change. The current model found so many places where you have to drive to one store, then leave, drive to the next, and so is bad for the environment, bad for customers, bad for business, and ultimately, bad for the community.

Although I'm not a land use planner, it's intuitively obvious that much of suburban Los Angeles area's car based infrastructure is extremely inefficient. However, if everyone really wants this to be fixed, the correct solution is to change the infrastructure, not just slap on a fee and expect the end user to change their ways. People choose where to live / work / play based on a set of criteria, including cost of living from due to infrastructure (like distance to drive to work => price of gas for example).

My contention is when the CA legislature merely slaps a fee on parking and tells taxpayers "well, you're just going to have to adjust", that stinks. The target of that fee still has to get to work and wants to get to places they want to go. If there isn't any alternative infrastructure to get to point A, the end result is that person will just have to pay more.

Lets face it. Due to the low density of land use in CA, pretty much the whole infrastructure revolves around driving still. The bus systems and trains are very limited in scope compared to, say, major cities in the east coast. For example, I have absolutely no problem taking the Metro in Washington DC, and even illustrated the difference to my wife the difference between the Metro and driving in downtown DC. In the LA area, the bus / train systems here are extremely limited in scope and destinations, and absolutely do not work for me and others. Therefore, slapping a parking fee and expecting everyone to just drop their cars is just insane.

Everyone who has already thought about alternative transportation has already done it; others cannot change their mode of transportation due to various reasons (distance/weather/etc).

The ONLY and I repeat the ONLY way to effectively get people out of their cars is to have a well planned decent infrastructure which covers ALL parts of a person's life (work/food/play). That takes planning and decades of time to invoke. We cannot expect to take an infrastructure that evolved over 60 years and expect people to abandon it overnight because some idiot CA senator and his minions wish it to be with a tax. And let me guess, the money collected from those parking fees will NOT go towards new infrastructure, it will go to pay off public employee salaries and pensions.