General Road and Highway Discussion

[plam]

I agree about congestion charges.

As for parking, the problem is, when malls have free parking, there's a huge push towards free parking everywhere.  And as we know, parking isn't free, everyone still do pay for it, but we pay for it in the goods we buy, so in fact, everyone who arrives on transit (or as a pedestrian/cyclist) subsidize those who drive.  That seems rather backwards.

Are you suggesting forcing private land owners to charge parking fees? I don't think that's possible. I agree with you that it's backwards that non-car-driving patrons subsidize the purchases of driving patrons, but I don't see a solution (besides patronising business who do not do that).

I find it really absurd that parking spaces maintained by the public are provided free of charge. I prefer the principle of user pay. I'd prefer that principle with roads, too, though I understand there are a lot of limitations.

I was just checking to see if there are any places where private owners have to charge for parking. Probably not. But I found these comments about people in India being a bit puzzled about how free mall parking could possibly work:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/...065833.cms

I think malls are too profitable to have to look for ancillary sources of revenue; airlines, by contrast, have been pretty good at finding all the ways to make people pay.