Yes, this. If cities are going to donate half of our road space to car storage, it should be to cars usable by everyone, not private ones.
End free parking and build more car share schemes.
Well you could make parking metered. And residents could pay an additional tax to receive a permit to park without restriction. Then you are no longer donating half of your road space and I won’t be forced to share my car
> I won't be forced to share my car This is a selfish way of looking at it, and exactly why these schemes aren't growing. I'm more than happy to share my vehicle with others, but the companies managing these schemes need to actually make sure they keep up with the demand.
This isn't free parking, it's heavily subsidised (residents permits for my area are £100-£300 p/a depending on car emissions). If you go maybe half a mile farther out of the city it is free, but there's even less of these car share scheme spaces available.
There are some car clubs in the city I live in. You sign up in advance, give them your details/card, and use an app to book the car. They're scattered all over the city, and you book it by the hour and pay for mileage. You get a fuel card, and are asked not to leave it back empty. If you pick one up empty, fill it up, and tell the app and they'll nag the previous person about it (but I only had to do this once in the 2 years I used it). It's great!
When I signed up at first it was great, there were 5 cars within 1/2 a mile of me. 2 years later, there were still 5 cars within 1/2 a mile of me, but the number of people using the service had increased so there was no availability on a weekend.
On my current street there's ~100 cars parked on it, and at least 10 of them haven't moved in the last week (my own included). If we replaced (even) half of those cars with for-hire cars, it would be a perfectly usable system for me.
> 1. I already paid for my car, so I use it kind of for free, except gas.
If you're not using your car for work, then this doesn't apply really. Even assuming you own it outright, maintenance/checks/cleaning/washing my current car are in the region of 30-40 bucks a month.