Comment on Student Parking
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 day agoWhy burden the kids who don’t require parking with paying for parking for kids with cars?
Parking lots are one of the most expensive parts of modern infrastructure often requiring massive vaults or ponds to offset stormwater runoff increases from paving over large areas and rendering huge swaths of land ( 30% in some places) unusable.
Imo parking is subsidized way too much and bus routes are not subsidized enough. The solution before car companies lobbied mandatory parking minimums into existence was simply provide more busses per person
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That may be fair in an urban environment where there is little space and there is transit or walkability, but you can’t just wish it into existence by making a few lives harder.
In particular, many universities in the US are in small town or urban areas. They’re great at not requiring cars to get around campus. But students should also have a way to leave campus or even travel, or have a choice to commute from cheaper or better housing. It’s not a prison and they don’t control their surroundings
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ok but how does that help the students that don’t need parking? You still haven’t justified why they should be saddled with subsidizing commuting students?
A better bus system seems like it would solve both problems, why is the only acceptable solution special priveleges for car owners?
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Adequate transportation is a need for anyone living independently, and yes we share expenses for common resources including needs that don’t serve us personally. If my contribution can go toward a physics lab that only serves a subset group of students it can also go toward taking that serves a subset of students
No one said parking is the only solution. Buses work decently even at everyone else’s expense, but if you’ll read my responses you should see I advocate for going further, even at everyone else’s expense: many universities are even better served by trains. There’s a difference between advocating only one solution vs advocating for one solution that works now vs one you hope eventually works. And both are far better than just depriving a subset of people of basic transportation
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’ve pointed this out in other threads but bus investments tend to be best for colleges and universities and especially in the US where there is a 3 month summer break. Some places have year round school- those are good candidates for trains.
Because the traffic at higher education varies seasonally, its easier to reroute buses than trains or force car drivers to pay 33% more for parking (because the parking will be unused in the off season but it will still need to be maintained annually).
Also investments should recoup some benefit to society. Education has obvious benefits, it makes sense that an educated society is more functional than one without. Trains have obvious benefits. Bike paths have obvious benefits. Roads have obvious benefits. Parking lots do not.
Leonardo_da_Vinci@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Taxi.
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Not realistic. Taxis barely exist in small towns and rural areas. You might try to claim that ride shares could respond to actual usage and they do in urban areas, but the one time my kid tried that it was a 2 hour wait. Also not realistic
Leonardo_da_Vinci@lemmy.world 1 day ago
They do more than barely exist in small towns where people actually use them. More demand, more supply.