The Adam Smith Institute may be at the opposite end of the spectrum from some people's views on here, but this is an excellent article:
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/were-parking-up-the-wrong-tree
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
"We're parking up the wrong tree"
(6 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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The free-market should be applied to trunk road usage as well.
Sell all the trunk roads and motorways off to the highest bidder.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Not disagreeing with this -
"
With air pollution linked to nearly 40,000 deaths every year, tackling London’s air quality crisis will be one of new Mayor Sadiq Khan’s biggest priorities. It’s a shame then to see that he’s neglected one free market solution on offer. Using market demand to set parking charges could bring emissions down by reducing congestion and encouraging more people to use public transport.
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But calling this suggestion a "free market solution" doesn't help. Apart from the fact that some people don't regard 'the free market" as a solution, this is Mayor/council blaming.
Needs to focus more on 'motorist don't pay their fair share of infrastructure and social costs'.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Things like this leave me conflicted. Instinct says that most of what is wrong with society is down to "free market capitalism"... but any particular thing that is broken often seems to be because of a market failure, with the obvious fix to move towards a free market, and the things that are "wrongest" are generally the things that are least market driven... like road allocation.
Posted 9 years ago # -
" often seems to be because of a market failure"
That's part of the problem - who decides that any particular bit of human (or commercial) activity needs to be seen as a market - and who makes/enforces the rules.
Parking (well the council owned/on road bits) 'can't be' marketised (prices increased) because those 'disadvantaged' would (so it is assumed) vote the politicians out.
'Privatising' the pricing wouldn't be popular either.
Many people don't like 'free markets' -
"
In a statement, Stagecoach chief executive Martin Griffiths said that open access competition with an established franchise was not in the interests of passengers or taxpayers.
"
http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=16385#post-219663
Posted 9 years ago # -
@chdot
"calling this suggestion a "free market solution" doesn't help. Apart from the fact that some people don't regard 'the free market" as a solution, this is Mayor/council blaming.
Needs to focus more on 'motorist don't pay their fair share of infrastructure and social costs'."
I agree. I think this is simply an argument that parking costs are simply too low.
But, as long as there's the belief that any driver should be allowed to drive any car along any street, at any time of the day - and park very closely to where they want to go - then nothing is going to be done.
Posted 9 years ago #
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