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.

@Dbrauer @april I'm a former UPDC board member. When someone says, "I hate parking," I hear, "I hate poor people."

@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 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.

@april @Dbrauer Where people can use a car, they have an opportunity to remove themselves from poverty. BTW, the cars poor people buy are typically quite cheap. $1000 will get you one.

@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!