~one billion
~1,000,000,000
That's how many parking spaces there are in the USA. For every car? About 4 empty spaces... just sitting there, not absorbing the rain, making flooding worse, making cities hotter as they bake in the summer sun.
Our built environment and laws bend over backwards to make driving the only viable transportation option in nearly every imaginable context.
You need to pay for healthcare, but almost never parking.
(Pointing this out makes libertarian heads explode.)
@futurebird The libertarian response to this would be (I would think) is that free parking is rarely free, but rather an exchange for you to spend money at a business. Sure, parking at a mall isn’t free, but it’s expected that you spend money at the mall.
@blitzen @futurebird we libertarians disapprove of building codes that require parking to be available before new business construction is permitted.
@ech @futurebird would that not be a different issue? Regardless of regulation, I’d presume even a Libertarian-ᴙ-Us would consider providing parking to its customers.