Good to know I wasn’t missing some obvious thing! It’s like how the ATM at a bank usually gives you your card back before it closes the transaction and prints a receipt, so you can’t really forget your card in the machine. Design is so, so important but subtle.
People say they hate to parallel-park, but I hate this sort of thing even more. Make paid parking EASY and it becomes a money-maker, rather than driving people away because “there’s no parking there.”
There is a big paid parking lot right by a tiny free lot in a dense area of my city. The cost for 2 hours is only $3 and they make it easy to pay, and yet I see people absolutely squishing themselves into the free lot.
Maybe if the low price was more prominently displayed it would attract more people. But in my experience people will only pick paid if it’s the only option.
To me the best approach is to severely limit on-street parking, price paid parking reasonably, and make those paid lots/garages easy to find and easy to pay. Make it the only option, but a good option.
Excellent point on the meter. Even when working they are a usability nightmare. I just use park mobile and pay the house for the privilege, much easier and less annoying.
Not defending broken parking meters, but, having lived in five major cities in four time zones, I think that in some ways the friction is a feature, not a bug.
When you live in a place, you quickly learn how to deal with all this stuff, and that knowledge makes you a savvy insider. It’s almost a signal or a secret code by which the locals can recognize the outsiders.
You point out that if there wasn’t this friction more people would go to the city - but most cities are already quite busy, and if you live there it’s not necessarily appealing for even more people from outside to be piling in. So in some ways, difficult parking meters and the like are just another minor form of NIMBYism that pushes back on growth.
That doesn’t make it right, but I think helps explain why this kind of problem is so widespread and also not seen as a high priority for most places to fix.
I get that sense too, but I'm as against that as I am against housing NIMBYism. It seems to confirm the anti-urban idea that cities are only for certain kinds of people. The fundamental idea behind urbanism should be to dispel that idea, in my view.
I think one of the biggest things with government and retail these days is, basically, customer service. Just make it easy to use the service for the customer. I'm willing to pay for my time to not be wasted
Thank you for saying this! I live near a beautiful, vibrant city that I wish I could visit more. I don't go there because as a neurodivergent/disabled driver, the cognitive demands of trying to navigate downtown and find parking are too high. I get stressed out just thinking about it! When I choose to stay home, I'm not supporting those local businesses and paying local taxes, so everyone loses.
Not all disabled people qualify for handicapped spaces. We're left on our own to deal with things, and insane parking situations make the world less accessible.
The more I think about it, the crazier it is that automakers have not developed a standard for paying for parking. It shouldn't be hard to implement with inductive loop antennas. All you would have to do would be for there to be a data exchange with the car, which should already be configured with your account. Pricing should show up on your car's navigation screen automatically.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills that this doesn't exist already. Maybe because automakers don't like to make you think about paid parking?
It's kind of crazy that EV charging is going to actually have some of this no app billing infrastructure before old school parking gets it
Very entertaining episode of city friction, a preview of the full life movie? Are residents of the city merely frogs who don't know their way out of the kettle, or are they devoted to the city out of love for it and willing to suffer its many petty indignities?
I think most city residents are there for the proximity to jobs, and secondarily typically for the proximity to fun. I think residents in places where driving is tough either forgo driving as much as possible, thereby suffering less indignities than millions of other Americans, or as you say, love the jobs and fun so much they are willing to deal with the hassles of driving in traffic and dealing with paid parking.
Parking fees per time and place should be set so as to almost assure that if you are willing to pay, you can find a spot. Marginal cost should equal marginal revenue so as to maximize parker-taxpayer utility. And if some of the parking revenue is shared locally, this coud help reduce objections to development because of "parking.
The simplest, easiest paid street parking is coin meters. (I know you're in Frederick sometimes; most metered street spaces in Frederick take dollar coins - the most efficient for the purpose - for either 30 or 60 minutes each.)
In my experience, the only real advantage to an app-based system is in dense, heavy-traffic districts where finding any open spot may be a challenge, and you can ask the app to *tell you* where the nearest space is available, and then pay for it directly on the app.
Coin meters don't work anymore because who carries coins? I also suspect the municipalities have grown addicted to the extra amounts they can can charge on credit card swipes that don't feel like real money.
For this particular application, you don't even need to carry coins; just keep a handful of the dollars in your car. You can also use and receive the same coins from certain car-wash places in the area.
I think I have two different parking apps for the different towns near me in NH. But once you get them, it really does decrease the friction. Often I park, check the zone or number and start the parking session as I'm walking away. No coins, no cards, and it sends reminders when the time is getting low
100% this! It’s bad in the US with now a wide range of parking apps (I must have a half dozen just for the towns around me), and worse in Europe. Once, in Sweden, you had to have an app—which only worked with a local European bank card, no credit cards or Apple Pay.
It feels weird to complain about a little thing like this friction but it sure makes traveling and exploring less blissful
It's not just that kiosk! They're like this all over town. This happens to me every single time.
It's like the scene with the CD in Lulu on the Bridge.
Some kind of E-Z Pass system for street parking would seem like low-hanging fruit in the year 2024.
Good to know I wasn’t missing some obvious thing! It’s like how the ATM at a bank usually gives you your card back before it closes the transaction and prints a receipt, so you can’t really forget your card in the machine. Design is so, so important but subtle.
People say they hate to parallel-park, but I hate this sort of thing even more. Make paid parking EASY and it becomes a money-maker, rather than driving people away because “there’s no parking there.”
There is a big paid parking lot right by a tiny free lot in a dense area of my city. The cost for 2 hours is only $3 and they make it easy to pay, and yet I see people absolutely squishing themselves into the free lot.
Maybe if the low price was more prominently displayed it would attract more people. But in my experience people will only pick paid if it’s the only option.
To me the best approach is to severely limit on-street parking, price paid parking reasonably, and make those paid lots/garages easy to find and easy to pay. Make it the only option, but a good option.
Excellent point on the meter. Even when working they are a usability nightmare. I just use park mobile and pay the house for the privilege, much easier and less annoying.
Not defending broken parking meters, but, having lived in five major cities in four time zones, I think that in some ways the friction is a feature, not a bug.
When you live in a place, you quickly learn how to deal with all this stuff, and that knowledge makes you a savvy insider. It’s almost a signal or a secret code by which the locals can recognize the outsiders.
You point out that if there wasn’t this friction more people would go to the city - but most cities are already quite busy, and if you live there it’s not necessarily appealing for even more people from outside to be piling in. So in some ways, difficult parking meters and the like are just another minor form of NIMBYism that pushes back on growth.
That doesn’t make it right, but I think helps explain why this kind of problem is so widespread and also not seen as a high priority for most places to fix.
I get that sense too, but I'm as against that as I am against housing NIMBYism. It seems to confirm the anti-urban idea that cities are only for certain kinds of people. The fundamental idea behind urbanism should be to dispel that idea, in my view.
I think one of the biggest things with government and retail these days is, basically, customer service. Just make it easy to use the service for the customer. I'm willing to pay for my time to not be wasted
Parking apps are a scourge.
No, I do NOT want to enter all my freaking information in YET AGAIN to your stupid #%(*& app.
Thank you for saying this! I live near a beautiful, vibrant city that I wish I could visit more. I don't go there because as a neurodivergent/disabled driver, the cognitive demands of trying to navigate downtown and find parking are too high. I get stressed out just thinking about it! When I choose to stay home, I'm not supporting those local businesses and paying local taxes, so everyone loses.
Not all disabled people qualify for handicapped spaces. We're left on our own to deal with things, and insane parking situations make the world less accessible.
The more I think about it, the crazier it is that automakers have not developed a standard for paying for parking. It shouldn't be hard to implement with inductive loop antennas. All you would have to do would be for there to be a data exchange with the car, which should already be configured with your account. Pricing should show up on your car's navigation screen automatically.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills that this doesn't exist already. Maybe because automakers don't like to make you think about paid parking?
It's kind of crazy that EV charging is going to actually have some of this no app billing infrastructure before old school parking gets it
Very entertaining episode of city friction, a preview of the full life movie? Are residents of the city merely frogs who don't know their way out of the kettle, or are they devoted to the city out of love for it and willing to suffer its many petty indignities?
I think most city residents are there for the proximity to jobs, and secondarily typically for the proximity to fun. I think residents in places where driving is tough either forgo driving as much as possible, thereby suffering less indignities than millions of other Americans, or as you say, love the jobs and fun so much they are willing to deal with the hassles of driving in traffic and dealing with paid parking.
Parking fees per time and place should be set so as to almost assure that if you are willing to pay, you can find a spot. Marginal cost should equal marginal revenue so as to maximize parker-taxpayer utility. And if some of the parking revenue is shared locally, this coud help reduce objections to development because of "parking.
The simplest, easiest paid street parking is coin meters. (I know you're in Frederick sometimes; most metered street spaces in Frederick take dollar coins - the most efficient for the purpose - for either 30 or 60 minutes each.)
In my experience, the only real advantage to an app-based system is in dense, heavy-traffic districts where finding any open spot may be a challenge, and you can ask the app to *tell you* where the nearest space is available, and then pay for it directly on the app.
Coin meters don't work anymore because who carries coins? I also suspect the municipalities have grown addicted to the extra amounts they can can charge on credit card swipes that don't feel like real money.
For this particular application, you don't even need to carry coins; just keep a handful of the dollars in your car. You can also use and receive the same coins from certain car-wash places in the area.
That retaining wall is fascinating. It seems to have a sort of basement or vault under it, maybe an extension of the store building's basement?
I think I have two different parking apps for the different towns near me in NH. But once you get them, it really does decrease the friction. Often I park, check the zone or number and start the parking session as I'm walking away. No coins, no cards, and it sends reminders when the time is getting low
100% this! It’s bad in the US with now a wide range of parking apps (I must have a half dozen just for the towns around me), and worse in Europe. Once, in Sweden, you had to have an app—which only worked with a local European bank card, no credit cards or Apple Pay.
It feels weird to complain about a little thing like this friction but it sure makes traveling and exploring less blissful