Reply to Parking no longer free on Saturdays in MoCo lots starting 7/8/23

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

But charging for parking doesn’t enhance other characteristics.  Maybe it’s easier to find a spot when you pay for parking, but maybe it’s harder.  Maybe there’s a particular store you like where they charge a parking fee, maybe there are 2 stores you like even better where parking’s free.  The point is that there are an infinite number of variables to balance and people will prioritize those variables differently.  Charging for parking introduces a negative variable into the associated locations.  That variable may have minimal importance for you, but other people may feel differently.  If you could hypothetically contrive two identical locations, differing only by parking charge, I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who considered it a positive deciding factor.  You may only be able to think of a few times you chose between two equal destinations based on whether it cost money to park, but I will generally avoid it whenever possible. Not only do I consider it a pointless waste of money, I consider it particularly galling to be charged for the privilege of patronizing someplace.  [b]If they’re going to charge me for bringing them business, I’ll take my money elsewhere.[/b][/quote]

So do. As you say, people make decisions about where to go based on all kinds of things. Not everything has to be for you. If you refuse to go out to eat in downtown Bethesda because you don't want to pay $1-2 an hour to keep your car in a municipal parking garage, well, there are plenty of other places for you to eat, or you can stay home and cook.[/quote]

And so I do.  But what has charging for parking accomplished?  Do I drive less?  No, if anything I drive more.  Instead of going to the closest restaurant I like, I’ll drive further to one I like that doesn’t charge parking.  The only difference is that the restaurant I would have gone to before they implemented the parking charge has lost my business.  It’s good news for my new restaurant choice, but the charge hurt the local business.[/quote]

Great, that works for your. And it makes sense as you are not passing on the externalities to us. Taking responsibility, nice!

And no, the change doesn't hurt local biz. Any place that is considering this obviously knows most of their customers can get there without parking. Not that hard to understand champ.[/quote]

Except in this case it wasn’t the businesses that decided and it wasn’t because parking was scarce. The county decided to charge more just because they could. [/quote]

They should charge market-rate, so the space (owned by the tax-paying public) is most optimally used, not given away to car owning freeloaders.[/quote]

The county garages in Bethesda are underutilized so market rate is less than what they charge now. [/quote]

Agreed, there is way too much parking in downtown Bethesda. It would be great if some of it could be converted to more productive use.[/quote]

There's already tons and tons and tons of empty office space in Bethesda because the county has anemic economic growth. Why target parking garages when there is tons of available office space no one is using because doing business in the county is so difficult? [/quote]

Hey, how about converting empty office space AND empty parking space to more productive use? There's no need for either/or, we can do both!

Also, no, that's not why there's empty office space in downtown Bethesda. All of the downtowns in the US are having the same issues.[/quote]

The stupidity of this idea is the fact that no one is going to move to coveted office spaces, etc. if there are no jobs! That's what you urbanists always ignore.  The county is so bad at growing the economy and creating new jobs and businesses that no amount of affordable housing or new apartments will solve anything. [b]No one wants to move where there are no jobs.[/b][/quote]

There are no jobs in Montgomery County, lol.[/quote]

MoCo loses tons of jobs and businesses to NoVa.  MoCo losses jobs and growth to even other counties in MD now:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/prince-georges-has-overtaken-montgomery-as-top-job-creator-in-maryland-suburbs/2020/01/19/218c3646-38b6-11ea-bf30-ad313e4ec754_story.html

Keep on drinking the council's Koolaid and enjoy never ending tax hikes because of no economic growth. Again, who is going to pay for all of these delusional infrastructure projects if the bulk of the taxbase leaves, which they will at the rate MoCo is going? [/quote]

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