So, the green party wants money for parking in my city, even from residents. Very green, milking more money instead of improving public transport. I don't have a car, but i'm angry about this anyway.
At least they should call themselfs "The Profiteers" instead.
@chattwjonathan Well, sadly our public transportation is not all that great. I have been to Bern in Switzerland (not too different in size) and i was amazed at how good public transport works there. It makes sense that a car is a luxury item there.
No matter how expensive it is to have a car, if the alternative is not usable, you have the car or don't go to a job where you need one.
So i see a clear bias towards "punish those that do what works" instead of "help people to do better".
To clarify: i would fully support financing the whole public transport system with taxes and improving it. We can all pay for that, even i that rarely leave the house for more than a walk.
@chattwjonathan To clarify further: i do not see this parking fee as the base problem. The base problem was selling out our rail infrastructure, which was promptly scrapped to sell the real estate. Among other things.
This led to a lot more trucks on the roads instead of freight trains. They are building contact wire over highways for trucks, ignoring that this is still not even close to the efficiency of trains.
Now the parking fees for private persons adds insult to the injury of trucks where we could have trains.
@admitsWrongIfProven Is there any willingness from the public to build out instead. None here is why I ask, so we end up having to use the stick.
@chattwjonathan I don't understand completely.
What is unclear is what you mean by "to build out" and where exactly we should apply a stick. Using it on poor peoples backs has been tried and did miraculously not produce any results to adress climate concerns.
@admitsWrongIfProven Sorry, by build out, I mean, is there any public push to put in new public transport infrastructure?
@chattwjonathan Not to my knowledge.
There is a general concern about climate collapse, but not a specific interest in building public transport infrastructure as far as i can see from the media.
My little bubble of friends would welcome public transportation improvements, but media says protests are more general for climate action.
@admitsWrongIfProven I think there is a point to going after cars in a roundabout way.
Charging for parking causes less demand for cars in certain areas.
If there are less cars, would that make public transport faster or more efficient?
In my city, the busses might face less traffic. There would be less traffic to challenge pedestrians or bicycles.
These aren't huge to start
but that's before considering some additional revenue from charging for parking.