Everywhere we should start changing parking charges to “by the foot”. The longer your car is the more you need to pay. That will incentivize smaller, safer cars for people that don’t really have any need for something big.
Cubic feet would be better, especially as taller vehicles are more dangerous to pedestrians.
Let’s ban archaic units like feet and stick with cubic meter.
Plus there are vans, so the more accurate metric would be a cubic meter per passenger.
Problem is it’s much easier to have someone just take a measuring tape to a car when ticketing and get the length. You can get the footprint, sure, but you have to ensure you measure from the same point twice, and that you’re pretty much perfectly perpendicular. You could also have a database of makes and models but then you have to have somebody set up and maintain the database and that causes all sorts of headaches
I need the length in my car right now. I’d rather charge by weight. I like sedans (currently in a wagon). What I’d like to get rid of is big trucks for no reason
But the cost of constructing parking infrastructure is more directly related to square meters than weight (in HCOL areas especially). Sure more weight means beefier structures and/or pavement are needed, but that tends to average over an area vs a large object requiring a larger investment regardless of whether it’s light or not.
Lol behold the root issue:
Everyone thinks their situation is valid, and other situations are ridiculous.
While still punishing larger families that absolutely need the space. I’m not against the concept generally speaking but we need to consider those kinds of ramifications. Low income families can be large too, afterall. Not even talking about with kids - many families have the grandparents/cousins/etc. around as well.
people had larger families in the era where cars were smaller. no one needs an SUV in a city, they’re meant for hauling firewood to the remote cabin where there’s no paved roads
Cars are not the only way to move people around. They are, however, the worst way to move people around. Take a bus and/or train, and you’ll never have to worry about parking again.
In response, more and more of our streets can be reclaimed for pedestrians spaces, adding walking/biking paths, adding greenery, adding outdoor patios, etc, instead of it all just going to ever increasingly large and crowded parking spaces and One More Lane™
As an avid fan of Cities Skylines, buses are not the answer. Give me a decent metro system.
The other issues is that I don’t mind people taking away lanes as long as they present other alternatives. Currently, my area is taking away a lane WITHOUT giving me an alternative.
Yes, I understand, but a flat fee regardless of size of car as it now, is effectively a subsidy directly toward the development of car dependent cities. Also families don’t tend to travel downtown by car on weekdays where space is a premium, those are usually single drivers going to work and often in NA, those lone drivers are often in large pickups and SUVs.
Large families taking the train have to pay roughly proportionally to the size, which is one of many reasons why many families opt for car culture. It’s not those fault the options are this way but my point is that it can be changed.
I agree that in this particular case it makes sense. But the person that responded to said that everywhere should adopt this rule.
The only place on the world where low income families have big trucks is the US because of debt and extremely car dependent infrastructure. French poor families use public transit.
People raised families through the 90s without the space of an SUV. You will survive.
Station wagons and minivans were hardly compact lol
But yes many modern vehicles are ridiculous.
Here in Italy the FIAT 500 was the first “family car” and was less than 3 meters long, the FIAT 500 Giardiniera was the station wagon version and it was 3.1 meters long. If you look at an old 500 now, you’d wonder how would a human fit inside.
Today’s average SUV is over 4 meters long, with some going over 5 meters. In Japan there are Kei cars used as trucks, people movers, vans etc. The fact that you need a Jeep compass to be able to pick up your kid from school is absurd
Human overpopulation is the biggest cause of anthropogenic climate change, and the root cause of almost all existential and major ethical problems facing us.
Becoming a biological parent while our fertility rate is catastrophically and unsustainably high, causes by far more CO2e pollution than anything else.
We shouldn’t just tax these omnicidal people, we should vote in parties that’ll make laws to jail or hang people making the world unlivable.
Ok just so I’m not misunderstanding you, are you saying we should jail people who have kids? I feel like I’m not following the thread of your point here and I think it is very unlikely that is what you’re saying. But it’s kind of coming across that way in your comment.
the birthrates are falling arguably too fast now, one estimate says we’re no longer on track for 10 billion people by 2100, down to 9.1b now
