From: tilley@fsh.UUCP (Tom Tilley)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Re: Socialized parking
Date: 17 Dec 92 17:11:01 GMT
Reply-To: tilley@sunfse.ese.lmsc.lockheed.com
Organization: LMSC, Sunnyvale

In article <92351.26509.J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM> J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes:
>In <tl7uf8k@sgi.sgi.com>, Jeremy Higdon writes:
>
>>In article <19754@sunfse.ese.lmsc.lockheed.com>, tilley@fsh.UUCP (Tom Tilley) w
>>> In article <tk3npn0@sgi.sgi.com> jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon) w
>>> >The problem today is that supermarkets are forced to provide free parking.
>>>
>>> Supermarkets are "forced" to provide free parking by their customers who
>>> will not shop at stores which do not provide free parking.  They have the
>>> legal right to charge for parking: they choose not to.
>
>>I don't think you are correct.  Current zoning regulations require a certain
>>number of parking places depending on store size, don't they?  ...
>>...  If a supermarket decided on its own to charge for parking, its
>>neighbors would complain mightily, since they would get the cars from
>>shoppers.  Even if it isn't in the law (but I think it is), it is a current
>>business requirement that supermarkets provide free parking, except in a few
>>downtowns.
>
>"Not a law, but a business requirement?"  I would agree with that.  I'd hate
>to be a merchant in a shopping center which decided to start charging $5 for
>parking.  I'd say that like it or not, free parking is a big draw for your
>potential customers and will result in more business and higher profits.

This was my point: merchants choose to bundle parking costs with product
costs because U.S. consumers prefer this.  Before we had the "shopping mall"
we had the custom of "validated parking" which was the same type of cost
bundling (sometimes only part of the cost was bundled, but the concept is
the same), so I would say that this consumer preference predates the suburban
shopping mall.

Note that, if U.S. consumers tended to take transit, other "business
requirements" would apply.  In that case, a business located near a transit
stop would be far more successful than businesses located far from transit.
Perhaps, in an area that actually sees winter, underground passageways from
the business to a subway would provide a competitive advantage.  These
business requirements derive from the transportation infrastructure, not
vice versa.

If business is not allowed to charge for parking, I agree that that situation
is wrong and should be changed.  I would suspect that measures such as metered
street parking with neighborhood resident exemptions (neighborhood permits)
would allieviate the concerns of neighbors.

>My point is (and has been) that government meddling almost NEVER (with the
>possible exception of anti-trust regulations) improves on the free market. ..

Personally, I think the government does have a reasonable role, and can
improve on the "free market" in ways other than anti-trust legislation.
Most environmental costs are associated with a commons (the air, the regional
ecosystem, etc.), so the costs are not allocated to the market.  I regard the
two examples noted above as a "natural commons" (if you own "air", you cannot
pollute it without also polluting "my" air, if you damage "your portion" of
the regional ecosystem, you also damage "my portion", etc.).  Government can,
in these cases, 1) ignore the problem, 2) implement policies to allocate
costs, or 3) regulate the manner of use of the commons (such as is the case
with federal wilderness areas as a means of preserving wilderness).  With
respect to automobile-generated air pollition, I regard option 2 as being
more reasonable, but I think the costs should be allocated as closely to the
problem as possible (the costs provide information to the market about the
commons, and the information should be as accurate as possible).  If the
problem is air pollution, I regard proposals such as registration fees based
upon "amount of pollution emitted during the course of the year" rather than
"value of car" to be more reasonable than requiring that costs associated
with parking be unbundled.  The latter strikes me as being too far away from
the actual problem.  The former is still imperfect (what if part of the
mileage was in another, less-polluted region like the eastern Sierra: the
CO2 charges still apply but the other charges would not apply), but at least
it is closer to the actual environmental cost being allocated.

Tom.
#--------------------------------------------------#
| Tom Tilley                                       |
| Internet : tilley@sunfse.ese.lmsc.lockheed.com   |