Nice problem to have: too many new followers to keep up with last night. If you’d like me to follow you, and I haven’t, please reply so I know to! And still welcome introductions, mine is pinned to my profile. Thanks!
@Dbrauer Hello, I'm the same April King here as there. :)
(I'm on the UPDC in Saint Paul, and hate parking.)
@april hello, I hate parking too! Enjoy following you.
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer that's weird because there are absolutely immense amounts of studies that have shown that car-dependent cultures and excess parking hurt the poor more than any other group of people.
what do you base your "I hate poor people" understandings on?
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer for example, poor people are considerably less likely have cars and be dependent on walking, bicycling, and public transportation and so the benefits of "free" parking disproportionately benefit people who are wealthy.
@april @Dbrauer The studies say that car ownership is worth $10,000 per year in wages.
Also, think about where development does not include sufficient parking. It is only in poorer areas. Parking regulations have no impact on the wealthy. Business makes sure there is sufficient parking where the demographic brings enough money.
@april @Dbrauer Here is a journal article, a study showing the impact of providing cars to 30 individuals who were without a car. There were major quality of life impacts. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0739456X20950428
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer fully half the space in my grid is devoted to street parking and parking lots. half! That is space that isn’t generating much in the way of taxes to improve city services, it’s space that isn’t housing or businesses or parks. it sits empty 90% of the time, draining wealth from the area and from the city.
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer Allianz Field has roughly the same 50% distribution of parking that the entire grid has.
@april @Bertrecords fwiw I’ve never driven to Allianz from Minneapolis - the bike & bus options are solid.
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer UP has a higher percentage of space devoted to parking than Roseville, with some areas in UP approaching almost 60% parking (and way higher if you include roads as well)
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer here is my grid, the area highlighted in blue is parking.
do you think converting more of this space to parking will improve the lives of the people who live and work here?
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer straight up giving people money also removes people from poverty, and surprisingly effectively.
you haven’t been able get a good used car for $1000 for years. even ones for $2-3k are beat to heck and are massive money pits. these kind of cars hurt the poor and cost oodles per year. these cheapest clunker within 20 miles on cars.com is $2k.
but anyways this is a very enlightening example of how you think life is for the poor.
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer and I should note that your study gave people working cars in good condition, very different from the imaginary $1000 workhouse cars that you seem to think exist.
@april @Dbrauer I'm relaying the experience of friends. Maybe, they get better deals than your experience. Maybe, I'm out of date on that factoid.
Go on hating parking. The UPDC Transportation committee is a monolith typically and you'll get no pushback there.
But, please do interact with your neighbors and the people these policies impact. If per chance, non-professional working class people show up at your meetings, please listen to them. Your peers like to think for other people.
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer we definitely listen to them, we've had quite a few folks in poverty come on and not one of them has complained about parking.
(complaints about parking almost exclusively come from homeowners. 🤷♀️)
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer but yeah, I’d love to hear when, what car, and for how much your impoverished friends bought their vehicles for. it would be super helpful data for me to do a better job. thanks!
@april @Dbrauer I agree this is a key point. Policy makers assume cars cost more than $2500, if we use your number.
BTW, "impoverished" is your word, not mine.
And, I would distinguish between educated young adults without much money and long-term low wage earners. We saw more of the former than the later in my UPDP term.
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer impoverished simply means in poverty and I thought that’s who the conversation was about? are you talking about middle-class friends sharing anecdotes about buying a $1000 car?
@Bertrecords @Dbrauer wow, that is shocking stuff. giving a people access to free cars improved their quality of life? did they also give a different 30 people $15000 and checked to see if that helped too? most poor people don’t have access to people giving them free cars, and parking is completely useless to those without them.