San Francisco Bans Parking Spot Auctioning App 404
A couple months ago, we discussed a new phone app being used in San Francisco to auction off parking spaces to the highest bidder. The city has now ordered the app makers to cease and desist, and threatened motorists with a $300 fine for each transaction. City Attorney Dennis Herrera said,
Technology has given rise to many laudable innovations in how we live and work -- and Monkey Parking is not one of them. It's illegal, it puts drivers on the hook for $300 fines, and it creates a predatory private market for public parking spaces that San Franciscans will not tolerate. Worst of all, it encourages drivers to use their mobile devices unsafely — to engage in online bidding wars while driving. People are free to rent out their own private driveways and garage spaces should they choose to do so. But we will not abide businesses that hold hostage on-street public parking spots for their own private profit.
Communism (Score:4, Funny)
Banning this is communism!
This is the free market at work.
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Parking spots are the means of production?
I don't think so.
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Re:Communism (Score:5, Funny)
Parking lots are the means of reproduction, in some cities.
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Banning this is communism! This is the free market at work.
Standard Oil crushing their competition by offering gas at below cost was "free market". Microsoft refusing to license Windows to a vendor unless they not offer other operating systems was "free market". Stock traders creating derivatives that collapsed the housing market was "free market". Slave traders were "free market". The term "free market" can be interpreted as meaning allowing a person to do any business deal without interference from the government, whether morally right or not. The purpose of
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The slave trade obviously violates the rights of the slaves. I think most people ignore the mortgage *recipients* who fraudulently signed mortgages they weren't qualified for (stated too high of an income, etc.) and were unable to pay, thus being unable to pay the mortgage. (I think the companies that made the fraudulent mortgages, and sold the derivatives while betting against them were wrong too.)
The other two examples, however.. even if I don't personally agree with them, why shouldn't they be allowed?
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Yes, but it also eliminates the parking shortage for as long as that parking space is on the market. Remember, a shortage [wikipedia.org] is when you can't buy something at any price, so when you put a price on a parking space when all other spaces are filled, you've temporarily eliminated the shortage of parking spaces.
No it isn't [sfgate.com].
Re:Communism (Score:5, Informative)
if they're privately owned parking spots then this should be allowed
From TFS: "People are free to rent out their own private driveways and garage spaces should they choose to do so."
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Actually, I bet if there was a large enough movement to do this (perhaps something app-assisted), the city of SF would also put a stop to it.
Doubtful, unless it rose to the level of being a problem.
Around here, there's a residential area within walking distance of a local roller coaster park / exhibition site (with concerts etc) -- all summer local residents will get out and offer to sell parking space on their driveways etc.
And for the most part its not a problem.
However, some residents are taking it "too
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I'm not sure it is legal, I just think The City of Vancouver bylaw enforcement team turns a blind eye to seniors waving tennis rackets with "Park Hear" scotch-taped onto them.
Re:Communism (Score:5, Informative)
Why do the neighbors take exception to it, though?
Because some people don't want their normally quiet residential neighborhood looking like a cross between a night market and an impound lot all summer.
Its hardly unusual for there to be bylaws restricting the amount and type of commerce you conduct from your home, especially if it leads to unwanted traffic, noise, or is unsightly.
This situation is all of those.
Re:Communism (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway:
There's a *ton* of options for public transportation in SF. People who drive in and try to park in the most congested areas are doing so by choice.
That's a very strange result. On the one hand, they were easily getting parking before the meter rates were raised. Now, the meter rates are greater than or equal to 1/4 of a day's wages (otherwise they'd just park at the meter and pay the price). Why are the rates so high if the spaces weren't contested to begin with? Are the spaces now sitting empty?
Very easily. You have an algorithm that steadily raises prices as the parking spaces fill up and lower them as spaces remain vacant with the goal of keeping N spaces empty per block of spaces. It works brilliantly (and, BTW, results in some parking meters charging only pennies per day if the place is not busy).
That implies that free parking magically means more parking. If the spaces are full, the same number of people are there. They may be out a few extra bucks for parking, but making the parking free doesn't suddenly allow you to put 2 gallons of water into a 1 gallon bucket.
Gotta agree with it being illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
It's based on holding public space hostage.
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Banning scalping would be like banning retail. Buy goods for less, sell them for more. None of government's business except when the ticket says "not for resale" in which case it's a breach of contract.
Re:Gotta agree with it being illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
But that would mean you -- not the winner of the auction -- were breaking the law. And it would be hard to prove. You fed the meter properly, you're having lunch. Big deal. In order to prove a violation you'd have to prove intent, which is seldom easy.
You're kidding, right? As soon as you use the app you've proven intent. You can't go online and say "I'll sell this space to the highest bidder" and then claim you didn't intend to sell the space to the highest bidder. That's just nuts.
Having said that, I grant that it could be used in ways that are likely illegal... like holding the spot for the person who won the auction.
That's the intent of the service. How long do you think such a service would last if all it did was sell "information" about where someone was leaving a parking spot? The buyer would show up and someone who didn't pay would have already taken it. If it is truly a busy area, then there are going to be people who are watching everyone who approaches any parked car like a hawk, and unless your buyer was also doing that (which defeats the reason to buy the information) he's not going to get an honestly vacated space.
Why would anyone in their right mind bid on "information" that everyone in within fifty feet of the seller can see for himself, and would be there to take advantage of long before any auction could take place, much less the winner driving to the location to accept his prize? The information is worthless within 30 seconds of it appearing; it's only the physical space that makes it valuable.
Re:Gotta agree with it being illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way information received from this application could possibly be useful was precisely if the auctioner held the spot for the winner. Because otherwise it would already be long taken by the time they got around, even if they were just a few city blocks away. Alternatively, San Francisco has an abundance of parking spaces, so what would be the point of this app?
Does it ever make you uncomfortabe how posting this kind of reflexive, unthinking, ideology-based bullshit makes you exactly like the Stalinists of old, just with a different set of keyword triggers? Do you ignore the similarities because clearly, their ideology was wrong and yours is right? Or do you simply lack the self-awareness to notice?
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The way I see it (which also appears to be the way SF see it), this app encourages people to break several laws - laws against using a phone while driving, laws against loitering, et. al.
That said, I'm pretty sure you can't legally encourage people to commit crimes without committing one yourself; for example, if you encourage someone to murder someone else, that's either accessory or conspiracy, depending on locale and to what level, exactly, that you offered encouragement.
They hate our freedom (Score:2)
Specific practices like driver using phone while driving, or curb parking time limits can certainly be regulated. But not the basic fact of people exchanging money for information. Dislike it all you want, but people have freedom to do as they want.
Re:They hate our freedom (Score:5, Interesting)
It occurs to me that knowing where a parking space is available would reduce time spent driving around, itself reducing pollution, excess expenditure on additional fuel, the clogging of streets, and other issues associated with tons of traffic driving in circles throughout the city.
These people are providing the city the great and valuable service of a functional smart parking grid operating when parking congestion is high.
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These people are providing the city the great and valuable service of a functional smart parking grid operating when parking congestion is high.
And all they need to accomplish this great service is sell rights to property they don't own. I wonder how much cell reception in your neighborhood would improve if I sold verizon the rights to demolish your house and put a cell tower in it's place?
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I got a tetanus vaccination last week so that my constant work in the garden won't lead to my unpleasant not-quite-death. And all I needed was a poke in the arm, which was extremely unpleasant, but oh well.
Here are your options:
Default: drive around for hours on clogged streets, not able to get anywhere. Get close to your destination, spend 20 minutes circling the surrounding 3 blocks twice, determine this isn't getting you anywhere. Spend 10 more minutes getting further out. Park, walk for 20 mor
Re:They hate our freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
There seems to be an unwritten premise behind your claim that the space would be unused if it were not for this app. In fact, the reverse is true -- likely the driver "selling" the space will remain in place longer than necesssary so that he/she can sell the parking space. Without the ability to sell a space, it will be vacated more quickly and then immediately filled by another driver who happens to be driving by (because there is a shortage of parking).
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The space going unused isn't the problem; the space being in use *is* the problem.
In a parking shortage, you have two shortages: one of parking spaces and one of information. The shortage of information causes the problems associated with parking shortage.
In short: the driver who immediately fills your parking space finds it by luck. The more severe the parking shortage, the more cumulative distance that driver has driven (i.e. in circles) trying to find a spot by luck. Rather than circling the bl
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Here are some questions about your so called solution:
How do people without access to the auctioning app get access to what is essentially public parking?
Why should someone pay a third party to have a chance to use public parking?
There are other solutions available to the city of San Francisco that doesn't require the use of an auctioning app.
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How do people without access to the auctioning app get access to what is essentially public parking?
The same way anyone else does: don't try to park when people want to go out. In the current situation, it's extremely likely that you'll leave on Friday or Saturday night at 7pm, show up at 7:30, and drive around until 8pm or even 9pm trying to find a parking spot within half a mile of the night life joints. Public parking is inaccessible because it's scarce; this scarcity also denies access to public roadways. This solution frees up some access to roadways, and lets you find out how much parking is be
Re:They hate our freedom (Score:4, Interesting)
No, the city already has parking motion detectors on their parking meters that can detect when a street parking space is vacated and the city also makes available a free real-time api that third party developers can use for republishing that information (for free, or even for a profit if those third party desire). There are already several apps on the market that do this (that the city has no problem with)
What this particular app encouraged was to keep parking spaces occupied, until a particular ransom was paid. This meant that cars with disabled placards (which are not required to pay anything, and not required to move by a certain time) would have the incentive to hold a parking space indefinitely until they got paid. And this also meant that some business storefront owners could hold spaces by placing junk/furniture/pots of flowers on a parking space, so that no other car could pull into it unless they got paid off as well.
Unfortunately, holding parking spaces illegally is already a common practice in San Francisco (even before that mobile application came on the market). Regularly, business owners are caught painting the curb of their sidewalks in front of their store with green, yellow, or red, without having the proper city permits to do so (those illegal markings can be distinguished because they're not stamped with the usual SFPD and the red markings around storefronts/private driveways usually extend far more than they're supposed to).
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We have nothing like that here. Parking spaces don't have smart grids. San Francisco appears unique in this aspect; in Baltimore, it would be a high expense that the city cannot undertake.
My experience with parking congestion is limited to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. In this scenario, the streets are filled with cars so much that a pedestrian OUTWALKS them; I am annoyed at the slow pace of traffic when on my bicycle but, fortunately, most of Pratt carries a bike and bus lane on the right. I'm going 30m
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It occurs to me that knowing where a parking space is available would reduce time spent driving around, itself reducing pollution, excess expenditure on additional fuel, the clogging of streets, and other issues associated with tons of traffic driving in circles throughout the city.
Ah, but you are being logical and not ecological. It has been official policy in SF for years to "get people out of their cars" by any means. This includes intentionally removing parking places [streetsblog.org] (more [sfcitizen.com], more [savepolkstreet.com]), and even preventing new construction from having more than one parking space per unit [livablecity.org].
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Or they need better public transportation so people don't have to drive their cars everywhere.
It needs to be good enough public transportation to allow not owning a car for an owned car must still be parked somewhere.
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Re:They hate our freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
But not the basic fact of people exchanging money for information.
It falls back to 'holding a public space hostage' the moment the seller stays in his spot any longer than he would have without the application in order to get said money/allow the buyer the spot. I believe that the application amounts to being worthless if the seller doesn't hold the space for the buyer, because in my experience somebody will pull into the spot less than a minute later without any intervention.
This leads to less efficient use of space due to lingering, which is what the city wants to avoid.
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On the subject of holding public spaces hostage, I wonder what you think of occupy movement and all the other protests, which are especially common in San Francisco?
Practically speaking, if parking spaces are popular, seller will not have to hold them for long. Since the buyer also has the app installed, he/she will have incentive to leave sooner, during prime time, to make the money back.
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You think the same people are both buying and selling spaces? I envision a person driving around looking for spaces all day and pulling into them, bringing up the app on their way back from the newsstand to re-sell the space as soon as they have secured one for free/with some delay so as to promote some appearance of not being a plain old squatter abusing the commons and rent-seeking with free public resources. A second person with more money than time enables him by installing the app and buying the spac
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I wonder what you think of occupy movement and all the other protests, which are especially common in San Francisco?
Complicated. Keep in mind that the situations varied by different locations. Still, on average I believe that they enjoy more protection simply by being explicitly political/non-monetary in nature. For that matter they probably had those locations more highly populated/used than normal.
Where I start drawing the line is where they start causing damage.
Since the buyer also has the app installed, he/she will have incentive to leave sooner, during prime time, to make the money back.
It also gives incentive to be a professional parking-keeper if the rates are high enough. Drive around looking for a spot. Take it, immediately list &
Re:They hate our freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
I pay taxes that are used to build and maintain roads including public parking, why on earth would I allow a third party to make money off public parking if it's not re-invested into the road system (hopefully to address problems with parking).
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why on earth would I allow a third party to make money off public parking if it's not re-invested into the road system
You mean why on earth would you allow the tow truck driver that removes a car thats been parked in a spot too long to make money off public parking?
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As long as voters can still vote and elections aren't terribly rigged/diebolded, I don't really consider protests that hold public spaces hostage a good thing. It's fine if they rented out a public space (stadium or field) for their "event".
If you want to protest publicly you could wear a particular hat, shirt, colored item, etc as a sign of protest and move about without preventing others from going about their normal daily lives. Causing massive disruption does not endear me to your cause. If you let rand
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On the subject of holding public spaces hostage, I wonder what you think of occupy movement and all the other protests, which are especially common in San Francisco?
False equivalence.
Sitting in one spot in the park for 3 days is not the same thing as sitting in one spot in the park for three days, demanding that anyone else who wants to use said spot has to pay you to leave.
Having to pay people a ransom to vacate public spaces is probably not a precedent we want to set.
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Who's going to prevent the fistfights when someone spots you getting into your car and waits for you to leave the space - and you just sit there. If I'm waiting for you to move and somebody else pulls up who insists on taking the space 'because he paid for it', it's not going to be pretty.
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If efficiency is really the goal, then the city of SF should raise the fee for parking to a market rate. But I suspect that certain interest groups would oppose that...
Yes, like the public who pay taxes that support the system and think that public resources should be available to the people who pay to create them at cost and not some inflated rate.
You want inflated parking rates and profit, buy some land and make it a private parking lot.
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The accuser has the burden of proof.
They have it.
Loitering is illegal. Selling use of public spaces is illegal (if you're not the government). Dicking with a cell phone while in the driver's seat is, in many place, illegal.
This app encourages people to commit all the above crimes and likely more, which makes the app developers co-conspirators at best, and directly liable at worst.
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Loitering is rarely illegal and anti-loitering statutes have been ruled unconstitutional.
Unless you are loitering with the clear intent to commit a crime you are pretty much free to hang out on any street, as Souter said, "...just to watch cars go by."
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Yes, the cop can arrest you for anything he wants. That doesn't make it a lawful arrest.
The cop can ask you to leave but that doesn't make it a lawful order.
Sitting in a legally parked car would make it very difficult, under otherwise normal circumstances, for a police officer to issue a lawful order to leave.
See: Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham [justia.com]. This was a 1965 case that found, generally, that a police officer's order to "move on" had to be related to another function and made legal as it related to th
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The accuser has the burden of proof.
This amounts to the city trying to extort money out of people. In short, the city is just mad they don't get a piece of the pie.
Coercion is a crime, and the city official in making such threats is not in performance of his duty, but is in comission of a crime.
The accuser indeed does have the burden of proof. What proof do you have that the city official committed a crime?
Re:They hate our freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
"People have the freedom to do as they want."
Your opinion will change when you grow up.
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You completely missed the point.
People would deliberately find prime parking places and park there, then use the app to get money to relenquish their parking spot. It turned a public resource, something paid for by tax dollars, into something you had to pay an individual to get access to.
It's the same as domain name squatting. It was a completely fucked up and greedy concept.
Please use your brain and actually think about things before posting.
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I think stealing is a little incorrect here.
I am currently legally occupying a place, because I've paid the parking meter or am still within the period I can be parked for free.
What I'm selling you is the information that, for the next 20 minutes, the opportunity for you to get dibs on legally occupying the same space is up for grabs.
Now, understandably, if you had a whole bunch of people who camped out on these spots first thing in the morning and sold the spot to the highest bidder then nobody could ever
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It's more like hoarding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A feature of hoarding is that it leads to an inefficient distribution of scarce resources, making the scarcity even more of a problem
It's in the interests of the city to have parking spaces that are used for only as long as they are needed.
Allowing this "auctioning" thing causes parking spaces to be held longer than otherwise just so that someone can try to make money from it.
There is no significant increase in efficiency if parking spaces are in great demand - the moment you leave your spot, someone else is likely to take it. And even if there is some inefficiency there are othe
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I think stealing is a little incorrect here.
I am currently legally occupying a place, because I've paid the parking meter or am still within the period I can be parked for free.
What I'm selling you is the information that, for the next 20 minutes, the opportunity for you to get dibs on legally occupying the same space is up for grabs.
You don't get to "call dibs" on public space; this isn't fucking pre-school, there are no frontsies, backsies, or seat-savies in adult life.
Think of it this way: would you be OK with it if I set up a roadblock between the street you live on and the next, and demanded you pay me $50 to pass my checkpoint? Because that's essentially what this app does: encourages people to illegally squat on public land, then try to fleece the rest of the population by forcing them to pay for the privilege of parking in a spa
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Except, it's nothing like that.
If I'm parked in a parking space, and will be vacating it soon, I'm not denying you access to it, because it's not available to you at the moment. What I'm selling is the fact that I will be vacating it.
If you block me in a public street that's an entirely different thing. That is actively preventing me from doing something I'd otherwise be able to do -- you woul
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Specific practices like driver using phone while driving, or curb parking time limits can certainly be regulated. But not the basic fact of people exchanging money for information. Dislike it all you want, but people have freedom to do as they want.
They aren't making the exchange of info illegal. You can still say "For $30 I'll tell you where a perking spot is.." it's the "and I'll hold it for you until you arrive ..." that is illegal. I think the city is justified in this position.
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They aren't making the exchange of info illegal. You can still say "For $30 I'll tell you where a perking spot is.." it's the "and I'll hold it for you until you arrive ..." that is illegal. I think the city is justified in this position.
Absolutely. People cannot sell things they do not own. That is public space they are trying to sell.
And before some wag tries to write "If it's public space, I own it.
I suggest that person try to build a house there.
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Specific practices like driver using phone while driving, or curb parking time limits can certainly be regulated. But not the basic fact of people exchanging money for information. Dislike it all you want, but people have freedom to do as they want.
They aren't making the exchange of info illegal. You can still say "For $30 I'll tell you where a perking spot is.." it's the "and I'll hold it for you until you arrive ..." that is illegal. I think the city is justified in this position.
Also the "this app is only useful if you use it while behind the wheel" part. Not sure if dicking with a phone while driving is illegal in SF, but it is where I live.
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But not the basic fact of people exchanging money for information. Dislike it all you want, but people have freedom to do as they want.
There was already a law on the books against what this company is trying to do.
Have you considered that there might actually be a valid use-case for such a law?
Re:They hate our freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Specific practices like driver using phone while driving, or curb parking time limits can certainly be regulated. But not the basic fact of people exchanging money for information. Dislike it all you want, but people have freedom to do as they want.
It is illegal to exchange money for all kinds of information. Credit card and Social Security numbers, for example. Insider trading [sec.gov], for another. It continually amazes me the degree to which crackpot libertarian ideology is so consistently blind to extremely common legal practice. Do you people spend all of your time in the basement?
Furthermore, a law banning the parking app would be trivial to enforce. Just have police answer the ads, find the douchebag who is blocking the spot in order to charge for it, tow their car, and give them a nice big ticket. Can't happen soon enough.
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Though to be honest, I'm morally opposed to confiscation with no intent to return to the proper owners after evidentiary needs are met.
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Dislike it all you want, but people have freedom to do as they want.
'Free country' doesn't mean what you think it means.
Eg:
Free Speech Zone [wikipedia.org]
Good luck proving this in a court of law... (Score:3, Interesting)
I can see this type of service continuing on.
1: Parking spaces are in demand.
2: People are willing to pay cash for one.
3: Other people want money.
All that needs to happen is that the server gets moved offshore, and the app be made as a Web app so it survives being pulled from Apple's store.
I remember this exact same thing happening at a place I worked at when in college. They were such sticklers about being on time for shift that a second late on the phones meant a six month denial of promotions, and being late for any reason three times is an automatic termination. So, people from the neighborhood would fill this place's parking lot up about an hour before shift changed and demand cash... and the employees of this firm would pony up to a C-note in order to get a place, drive a car about a half mile from the office and park in a seedy neighborhood, or be late and stuck on the phones for another half-year with a freeze on raises.
I applaud SF banning this app, but in reality, it won't help, and this is just the start of it. I won't be surprised to see a black market for parking spaces, with people sitting for hours to "sell" theirs, happening soon. Especially home games in university towns or other places where people go for an event.
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That protects... the web server. It doesn't protect the guy on the street. And catching them is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Already protected against by signs/laws prohibiting parking for more than 'x' hours and the enforcement
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All that needs to happen is that the server gets moved offshore, and the app be made as a Web app so it survives being pulled from Apple's store.
The problem with the "just move the server offshore" answer is that the system depends on having a local actor -- the person blocking the parking space until the buyer shows up. You can't outsource or offshore that part of the process.
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the poor sod who will get fined/arrested will probably be just a man\woman who cant get any money in other way, he has just been told by someone by the phone to be there and let x have the sport when he comes around
I think it's funny how some of you guys seem to be under the impression that there will be enough demand in this not-yet-existent black market, that it would be profitable enough for people to use cartel-like tactics such as paying patsies to risk jail time by holding spaces.
What's next, parking space coyotes? Chopped-up bodies hung from overpasses to send warnings about snaking parking spaces other people paid for? Seriously, this is San Fran we're talking about, not Juarez.
Anyone who knows street parking in San Francisco (Score:3, Interesting)
Will understand that this app is a solution, not a problem. It's much safer to drive to a parking spot that you know will be available and sufficient to fit into than circling blocks for half an hour while paying more attention to the curb than traffic and pedestrians. It's city's fault for not designing streets for both residents and expected number of visitors. They shouldn't scapegoat the app for providing a service that people want.
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You are wrong. The car that would have taken the spot the instant it was available is now circling the block for half an hour instead of the person who used the app. And don't forget that using the app means a parked person stays in the spot longer than normal, which adds to the parking problem. It is bad in every possible way.
Re:Anyone who knows street parking in San Francisc (Score:4, Funny)
Yes - damn the city planners of the 1870's for not anticipating the conditions of 2014.
Enforceable ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The company is based in Italy and does not target San Francisco specifically. I don't think San Francisco has standing to sue them.
Re:Enforceable ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is the money collected in person? Or does the spot holder wait for a specific license plate?
Either way, a sting operation should be easy enough to set up. The spots are physically
in SF so I don't think they can ban the app but they can certainly fine people for using this app
or any other method to require money in order vacate a spot.
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Plenty of standing to sue them, and win a default judgement since nobody will show up.
Not so likely to collect on that judgement, however.
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The company is based in Italy and does not target San Francisco specifically. I don't think San Francisco has standing to sue them.
That doesn't matter.
It issued them an official cease and desist letter. Now, they said they're going after the users of the system (which is going to be easy enough). How many $300 fines will it take for the users to start rating the application 1 star? Not many, I can tell you that.
Pursuing them in a US court won't be a problem either, because once a judgment is given, the city can go after the US-based app stores that distribute their app, and they can go after the application's US-based credit card payme
This is painful to watch (Score:2)
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It's also worth remembering that with congestion pricing, there were plenty of places where parking was really cheap
Shows that parking spaces are mispriced (Score:2)
The fact that this app exists means that parking spaces are mispriced. If they were priced correctly, there wouldn't be a black market for them.
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...and preventing access to public property is illegal in San Francisco. You're agreeing with the person you're arguing with.
Free lottery weighted by karma? (Score:2)
One massive problem with scarce parking and no smart system to distribute it is that a lot of vehicles spend a lot of time driving in circles looking/waiting for a spot to turn over. If there were a system that was essentially a free lottery, it could avoid a lot of wasted time and pollution. You'd have to incentivize the occupant somehow though.
something like this:
1. Occupant is about to leave and sends an alert of near term availability.
2. N subscribers get the alert and enter the lottery, lottery execu
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That's just silly. There right now is a much more efficient "lottery", which is "the one looking for a parking space that happens to be nearest the vactated space takes it". This obviously minimizes the driving and waste over any other scheme.
Also pretty unclear what should happen in your scheme if the "winner" does not show up.
subject (Score:2, Interesting)
I've yet to see downtown parking in any city that wasn't already predatory and a scam. Usually, however, that's perpetrated by the city, not some app.
The city intentionally zones and permits businesses to concentrate tax revenue within a small area.
Buildings get taller, roads get narrower...
Then the city complains about congestion, charges insane fees for parking, trys to charge to even bring a car downtown.
I know! Bycycles will fix it! So they take away the parking lane and turn it into a bike lane... Now
Law (Score:2)
That sounds like a great response from the police...
And what exact public law is being broken now?
Re: (Score:2)
And what exact public law is being broken now?
Well, for one thing, it's illegal to loiter. It's also illegal to intentionally disrupt the flow of traffic, stare at a cell-phone screen while driving, and block-then-sell access to public lands.
So... take your pick. For me, it's the selling access to publicly owned property that's the key issue.
Something more defensible... (Score:2)
I wonder if someone could aggregate and sell realtime information about empty parking spaces.
It's not as powerful (or sleazy) as holding parking spaces ransom, but it's probably a lot harder for SF to fight, due to First Amendment issues.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder if someone could aggregate and sell realtime information about empty parking spaces.
As long as they aren't actively encouraging people to break laws, like the app in question, I don't see where there would be a legal issue.
Conference room app (Score:2)
1. Reserve all the conference rooms in the building for the next 10 years
2. Build an app to auction conference rooms
3. $$$ Profit!!!! $$$
Problem was the auctioning. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can't sell something you don't own.
Well, there goes my idea for this neat innovation I was going to call short stock sales.
Hostage? (Score:2)
But we will not abide businesses that hold hostage on-street public parking spots for their own private profit.
So, they are going to make car carriers unload on dealer's lots?
Too bad. I had a great business plan for a shipping company that needs no loading dock space because we were going to load and unload in the middle of city streets.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, I've got an app that for $300 you can park anywhere in san francisco! Even someone else's driveway! For $3000 we'll even sell you parking on the bridge!
Good point.
It works when money is no object, and if that's the case, only the city collects. Never move in on the government's racquet - its like moving in on a mobster's racquet - never profitable for long.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:So much for that idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
It still has some use, but they're just not doing it right. The City admitted that people can rent out their driveways or private garages as parking spaces, so I could easily see a revision of this app that works sort of like Uber but for parking spaces.
People who have parking spaces to spare (apartment blocks, businesses, private homeowners) sell their driveways or parking lots as parking spaces. The people buying pay the property owner a given amount, and a percentage of that comes back to the company as a "finder's fee". You could even have businesses buy parking spaces in people's driveways nearby that are only valid for that business, ie;
Business A has a parking lot that isn't big enough to meet customer capacity at peak hours. They're in a position that would make it very difficult to expand their parking ,but there are nearby homes that have large, unused driveways. Business A can rent some of those driveways and mark them as specifically for use for their customers, so that their customers now have a place to park during peak hours.
I bet you could still make some pretty good money with it, since I'm sure apartment owners would love to get money for letting people use spaces that would otherwise go unused. The only real problem would be enforcement, but I'm sure there's some way around that.
Re: (Score:2)
I lived in a town home in a college town. Our landlord rented our parking lot out during football games. The landlords made big bucks, but residents had to prove they lived there in order to avoid the parking fee.
Re: (Score:3)
ianal, but damn, there are some things that are pretty bloody obvious and well documented to even the public.
Levi stadium situation (Score:3)
A counter-example to this would be the parking situation at the newly constructed Levi stadium for the SF 49'ers. They don't have enough game-day parking spaces for the stadium and they were assuming that some of the surrounding office complexes would be willing to become pay-parking lots on Sunday-gamedays... Sadly, only a few of them "bit" on this opportunity. The purported reason for this is the increase in liability insurance and maintenance (e.g., cleanup costs) involved would not make it worth the
Re: (Score:3)
So it is also illegal to offer somebody money, in person, to let you know when they leave their spot so you can park closer? Technically speaking, you're not paying for the "public" spot, you're paying for the opportunity to park in a more convenient location for a period of time, at which point you leave.
No, it's illegal to squat on a public parking space and demand money to move. Get the difference?
Re: (Score:3)
To a 3rd party observer there is no difference. Person A gives money to Person B who moves their car so A can take their spot. How are you going to prove B would have moved earlier if not for A? Reading their mind?
Re: (Score:2)
How are you going to prove B would have moved earlier if not for A? Reading their mind?
Um, they advertised the space on the app?
Re: (Score:2)
How are you going to prove B would have moved earlier if not for A? Reading their mind?
Um, they advertised the space on the app?
Also, the fact that we just watched this hypothetical exchange.
If I saw someone pull up to an already-parked car, then exchange money with the person loitering in said parked car, then said parked car leaves, making sure that new car gets the spot he just vacated, I'd think I have all the proof I need that someone just sold access to public land. The ad records from the server are just icing on the cake.
Re: (Score:3)
You're assuming a secret offer from B to A and secret acceptance from A to B. But B has published their offer on the app -- which can be shown to the third party observer -- and no mind reading is involved.
The legal basis for regulating this out of existence is, quite simply, keeping the peace.
Pe
Re: (Score:3)
I've had parking spots that I claimed (blinker was on!) stolen from me. I didn't call the cops.
Jamaica Man Killed in Gun Battle Over Parking Space [dnainfo.com]
Miami Barber Shot, Killed Over Parking Spot [cbslocal.com]
Man Sentenced in Shooting Over Parking Space [wfmz.com]
Man critically hurt in Gold Coast shooting over parking spot [myfoxdc.com]
People are insane. Never forget this.