San Francisco: a free market in parking begins

[brooklynite]

Source: Human Transit

American parodies of San Francisco as leftist and socialist may soon need some revision. San Francisco will soon have the most aggressive free-market parking policy in the nation. And it should become easier to find parking.

Conventional American policy says that parking should be made available at subsidized discounts, or even for free. The fact is, 12 square meters of real estate in a dense city has a land value, and that means it has a fair rental value. What's the value? Easy. Ask the market.

Under SF Park, the cost of parking on-street will vary by time of day based on observed demand. As their website describes it:

To help achieve the right level of parking availability, SFpark will periodically adjust meter pricing up and down to match demand. Demand-responsive pricing encourages drivers to park in underused areas and garages, reducing demand in overused areas. With SFpark, real-time data and demand-responsive pricing work together to readjust parking patterns in the City so that parking is easier to find.

The goal is to ensure that there's always a space available, so that people stop endlessly driving in circles looking for parking. People will be able to check online to find out the current parking cost in the place they intend to visit. Parking garages will have a better chance of undercutting on-street rates, so that those garages can fill. If you've ever driven in San Francisco, you know that it's hard to decide to use a garage because, well, if you just drive around the block once more, you might get lucky. Under SF Park, if you just drive around the block once more, you'll probably find a space, but it will cost more than a garage, especially if you'll be there for a while. So drivers are more likely to fill up the garages.

Read more: http://www.humantransit.org/2010/08/san-francisco-a-free-market-in-parking-begins.html

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Why do I have a feeling that most free-market loving conservatives are also the strongest advocates of free parking?

[Lightning Count]

1. Parking rates that are constantly changing?

I predict chaos.

[zipplewrath]

2. I presume

That the rates are stated WHEN you park. Once you "start the meter" I assume the rate doesn't change. If that's not how it works, I can start writing the column now on the first "outraged" parker who had the rate quadruple on them when they parked it for 8 hours.

[damntexdem]

3. As I recall (lived in SF 1977-89), when one couldn't find an on-street place, ...

one just pulled onto the sidewalk and parked.

[caseymoz]

4. This sounds like potentially a total mess.

You're not supposed to operate your iPhone or your Smartphone while you drive, but you more or less have to do it to inform yourself of parking prices and spaces. Either that, or pull into the parking place and check the price on the meter to find out you have to take out a second mortgage, then get back in and drive some more.

And it sounds to me like just the way to inflate parking prices even more.

[DissedByBush]

5. That's not the market

The market would be if several companies owned the various parking spaces and set their own prices.

This is just one entity setting variable prices to try to force a change in parking habits to a desired end.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. is there anything SF won't do to make the city unlivable for ordinary people?

Because parking just isn't expensive enough...