At a lot at a shopping mall, sure. At a park in the suburbs, IMO significantly less so. Especially when ostensibly my property taxes are already paying for the fucking park.

I understand your frustration but I expect there are a lot of things that go into that decision. I expect adding a fee to parking makes it possible to enforce time limits, to remove squatting, and to ensure there are actually spots available. I doubt it is for the money but even if it is the park systems tend to be horribly underfunded (and often have to be held up with private donation money). A lot of our broken things are because someone with too many responsibilities and too little resources has to make a choice between a bunch of bad options and I wonder if this is similar.

From your rant we know you'll pick free open spots compared to paid open spots but what if the choice is between paid open spots and no spots at all? Or worse, paid open spots or shady looking cars parked all day selling drugs?

It seems like the more effective change is more parks but imagine the pushback if someone tried suggesting that! You're angry that you already pay taxes and now you have to pay again to have a special spot right at the park you can park your car in. Imagine the backlash if someone had the audacity to suggest raising your taxes for new parks. "I already pay for parks! I won't even use 95% of them! Why should I have to pay just because I'm a homeowner!"

I can hear my dads voice saying some of these things and it reminds me of his complaints about funding schools with property taxes and I see how people like him pivot this into "the socialists just trying to punish the straight white men".

It all makes me sad.

it is a public space. we all pay for it via taxes. if it is criminal ridden, hire police. if there are squatters, hire police. charging parking at a non accessible location to a public resource, I'm sure you could find a solid argument for that being racist. charging for parking at a public park feels like charging to get to the voter polling location. it should be obviously wrong.

> From your rant we know you'll pick free open spots compared to paid open spots but what if the choice is between paid open spots and no spots at all?

I wouldn't know, there weren't any free spots, open or otherwise, for consideration.

> Or worse, paid open spots or shady looking cars parked all day selling drugs?

I'm not sure what constitutes a shady car in your mind. I'm pretty sure no one in my neighborhood sells drugs. I know that cuz I have to leave my neighborhood to buy the drugs I want. All things being equal I'd much prefer to just buy them in stores but for some insane reason we're still carrying on the war on drugs despite it being linked, in ink and in recordings, directly to the Nixon administration wanting to prevent black people and hippies from voting, so we make do the best we can.

> It seems like the more effective change is more parks

I mean, we have plenty of parks. Some days they're pretty damn busy but most days they're not. I'm blessed to be a remote worker so I can also just go there (or you know, used to be able to!) and work for a bit too.

> but imagine the pushback if someone tried suggesting that! You're angry that you already pay taxes and now you have to pay again to have a special spot right at the park you can park your car in. Imagine the backlash if someone had the audacity to suggest raising your taxes for new parks.

I actually pay pretty high taxes for my area. The trade-off is our snow collection is extremely good and the roads are well kept, as are the parks for that matter (now marred with stupid ass parking meters but alas).

I'm not opposed in the slightest to paying taxes. I participate in my local government, and I'm planning to bring this up at the next meeting because frankly I think it's bullshit that we're being asked to pay to park there when we're already funding that department. If they need more money or are running at a shortfall, that problem should be addressed with our community like everything else is, with a tax bump if required. I'm frankly infuriated that this was done not just from the principles of it but also because somehow it was done in a way that completely went under the radar of the city council I participate in. This was a huge change and should've been discussed.

> "I already pay for parks! I won't even use 95% of them! Why should I have to pay just because I'm a homeowner!"

Yes my position would be very unreasonable if it was even remotely this. Thankfully it's not.

FWIW I also am fine with paying for our schools too.

I agree with everything you've said here.

My only contribution was that I've seen folks make these kind of choices in good faith even though it isn't directly a thing they want because it's the best of the tools in their toolboxes.

We should be friends, I like the way you think.

Not at a public location that's too far or unsafe to walk to.

We should have much higher density, high quality housing with plenty of public, walkable green spaces. They calling it "15-Minute Cities" now, but I always called it Tokyo.

I don't remember much "walkable green spaces" in Tokyo or other cities in Japan.

I don't think so; the streets are paid for by whatever vehicular taxes, the sidewalks are paid for by property taxes, there's income and sales taxes for additional financing; charging for parking is just adding salt to the wound.

In fact... hear me out. It might be that, those that own the paid private parking lots in high traffic areas exacerbate the parking issues in contested areas, creating pressure on free parking areas; then they lobby to put parking meters in those free areas because "the city needs all the money it can get" (ehh, it shouldn't, it doesn't), and voilá, no more free parking anywhere.

Just a thought.

> and voilá, no more free parking anywhere.

Well... yes, that is precisely what's needed to wean America off its unhealthy dependence on cars.

Come over here to Europe, visit our cities where you can actually walk on a sidewalk, where you can live without a car just fine because everything you need can be reached safely on foot, by bike or with public transport.

> Well... yes, that is precisely what's needed to wean America off its unhealthy dependence on cars.

HIGHLY disagree. If you want people off cars, you need to give them an alternative. Granted, I love cars. I would have cars whether I needed one or not, but I know I'm absolutely 100% in the minority on that issue, and like, when I say I would have cars either way, I mean fun cars. I wouldn't keep and maintain vehicles to just get around in my daily life if I didn't have to. I'd very much prefer to have just the vehicles I actually enjoy, and probably one truck and trailer to get around to tracks.

Most people don't like cars and don't like driving which is why most people drive like shit. It's a chore, a required to-do item on the way to doing something they actually want to do.

> If you want people off cars, you need to give them an alternative.

And to provide that infrastructure, you need space. Space that is reserved for parking cars at the moment. Just compare how much you pay per m² for the parking spot in your average city center vs the average rent mer m² that someone has to pay just for a basic shack.

> If you want people off cars, you need to give them an alternative

Never going to happen, outside of few dense city centers. Once an area is platted for detached single family homes and big box stores on stroads, the physical layout is incompatible with non car life, and hence you have to literally destroy everything and start over with narrow streets and smaller plots of land.

The expense of this is not going to win you any votes, especially as results will not be evident for at least 20 years while infrastructure is completely rebuilt and legal disputes are hashed out, hence it will not happen until nature forces it.

> Once an area is platted for detached single family homes and big box stores on stroads, the physical layout is incompatible with non car life, and hence you have to literally destroy everything and start over with narrow streets and smaller plots of land.

Not really. Repave the roads to make them slimmer, use the space gained to provide elevated sidewalks and bike lanes so people can see it with their own eyes that they can now participate in traffic without sharing infrastructure with cars. And whenever a reasonable sized lot goes up for sale, buy it up and convert it to a small store.

It won’t work, because until you provide everything without a car, people will want a car, which means space for a car, and once they have a car, they are going to use the car to travel to big box stores where they want parking for the car to buy their goods at lower prices due to economies of scale.

And you can’t just repave roads, there are utilities and sewer that needs to be moved, and that’s the small problem. The big problem is facing the outcry of very active voters for reducing their road space and making their commutes even a minute longer.

And if all the homes around this repaved area are detached homes with garages in 0.1+ acre lots, you will never have the density of customers to support businesses.

It kind of has to start at a city center and slowly, very slowly spread outward. But as soon as you hit the higher end suburbs with bigger plats, that’s where any of that high density hope stops, because the political will simply isn’t going to be there. Look at any US city and you will see the “trendy” or “hipster” or whatever areas with a few restaurants and whatever in a small walkable area are all in areas with postage stamp houses in tiny lots.

"And you can’t just repave roads, there are utilities and sewer that needs to be moved, and that’s the small problem. The big problem is facing the outcry of very active voters for reducing their road space and making their commutes even a minute longer."

You don't have to redo sewers etc when you just change the surface by removing stroad space and adding bike lane space.

Also you can own a car and still bike to places.

the alternative is here and it's ebikes/scooters/something. it requires a huge culture change so it's gonna take some time, but batteries plus a motor is viable and is going to cause cities to evolve yet again.