If you had to take a guess at which US state has the highest cars per capita (that’s cars per person), where would you begin? Many people would consider traffic congestion.

Well, Los Angeles has twice as many cars as people. Haven’t I heard that before?

You have, and you might have heard it here. But the Golden State doesn’t hold the highest cars per capita.

Chicago has the third worst traffic in America, according to The Sun-Times, but ranks surprisingly low on the list of states with the highest number of cars per person.

New York City is brutal when it comes to not only driving, but even finding parking: “Bruce Schaller, a deputy commissioner at the Department of Transportation found that 28 percent of drivers in SoHo were looking for curb parking. A similar study conducted by Transportation Alternatives in Park Slope concluded that 45 percent of drivers were cruising,” according to Streetsblog

Still, New York isn’t close to being the state with the most cars per person. In fact, it has the fourth lowest cars per capita in the US.

The state with the highest cars per capita is actually Wyoming. Cars and residents aren’t so evenly matched in “The Equality State”: Wyoming boasts 1.27 cars per person, meaning the state actually has more cars than people. Other states with more cars than people include: Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Alaska, according to the US Census. All of these states have low population densities, and this certainly factors in to their rankings.

When you think about it, it makes sense that large states with few people have small public transportation systems; this means residents are responsible for their own transportation, hence, more cars per person. Likewise, states known for their public transportation like the District of Columbia (not a state, I know), New York, New Jersey, and Illinois have relatively few cars per capita.

That title may sound may sound counterintuitive, but the premise is simple. I’ll explain:

You’re downtown and you need to find a parking spot where you can leave your car for just a few minutes in order to pick up some new clothes or grab a cup of coffee, or whatever it is that you do. After scouring the block as intently as your roadrage will allow you to for over half an hour and still finding nothing, you finally just bite the bullet and park in a spot that is nowhere close to where you need to be. And on the walk back to where you were in the first place you see at least 4 perfect spots! It happens to everyone, but that doesn’t make it any less irritating.

Moral of the story: Don’t stress out over parking. If you don’t find what you need immediately then stop looking and just relax. The right parking spot will find you when you least expect it. Either that or plan ahead before you get stuck in town without anywhere to leave your car just to make sure that there will be a parking spot waiting for you.

That’s probably your best bet actually.

6 ways to avoid parking tickets

1.)Â Â Keep change in your car at all times. If you routinely park in an area with meters, this spare change can save you from an expired meter and a parking ticket.

2.)Â Â Check the information on the parking meters. The information should include the hours in effect and any restrictions.

3.)Â Â Read the signs for any restrictions. If it is unmetered parking, signs should be posted with available times the space is to be used for parking. Check for both permanent and temporary signs.

4.)Â Â Get a receipt or parking tab when parking on a lot with an attendant. Most receipts must be placed where visible in the front windshield to avoid tickets or towing.

5.)Â Â Stay away from fire lanes or bus zones, even if only briefly. Both of these areas will likely get you a ticket or may possibly cause damage to your vehicle if there were an emergency.

6.)Â Â Learn the difference between “No Parking” and “No Stopping.” You may stop in a no parking zone for up to five minutes for the loading and unloading of a passenger, but a no stopping zone will get you a ticket even if the vehicle is occupied

The Short Answer: I am quickly becoming one.

If you don’t know Dr. Shoup, you should become acquainted with him as soon as you can. I’ll give you a little introduction. Dr. Donal Shoup is an economics and urban planning professor at UCLA who thinks that there needs to be a sort of parking revolution in our country, and he has a pretty persuasive argument. His main position is that parking is simply too cheap in the United States. Why should it be free in most places? We pay for all of the other property we use or own, why shouldn’t we pay for our parking spaces? Although we the drivers pay very little (or nothing at all) someone is paying for it. Namely the government and private companies. The government, in fact, pays more for all the property we use for parking than it does for Medicare! And when you park at McDonald’s for free, for example, you have to pay more for a burger because of it.

The idea is that if we accept that we have to pay for parking, then A LOT of good can come of it. For one, Dr. Shoup believes that local government should charge the MINIMUM amount for parking that will generate an 85% occupancy rate. That would mean that 15% of all parking spots in the cities we visit would be vacant and available for our use. This is a simple market-based parking system that Dr. Shoup describes. And the price would vary based on the market (for example, less demand equals less cost and more demand in the peak hours means higher cost for parking). The money that is spent on parking (in meters, for example) would go towards beautifying and bettering pedestrian life. The money would contribute to planting trees, cleaning sidewalks, erasing graffitti and so on. These efforts would make a place like Boston and even more desirable place to visit and tour. The more desirable the place, the more likely people will want to pay a little extra for parking. It’s a highly productive cycle. Likewise, it would actually decrease traffic congestion as more and more people would start carpooling and taking public transportation. Not only would the traffic decrease, but people would spend less money on gas and would decrease their own contributions to global warming (ie greenhouse gases that are found in car emissions).

Dr. Shoup has seen his results generate tons of revenue and outright happiness in places like Old Town Pasadena and other LA neighborhoods, so it definitely works. And it’s catching on in San Francisco, Washington DC and New York City. We at ParkingSpotter are located in Boston, and we want to see it happen here.

The whole ParkingSpotter mantra is FIND PARKING BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE. The idea we have is to get people who need parking in touch with people who have parking. By doing this we can decrease traffic congestion because everyone who needs a parking spot will have one ahead of time and won’t spend costly time and money (on gas) circling city blocks looking for space. Parking in Boston, parking in San Francisco, parking in LA, parking in Chicago (the list goes on) would become easier and the cities would be better off for it.

I’m certainly a “Shoupista.” Are you?

Find a list of articles about and by Dr. Donald Shoup at his UCLA biography page.

I guess it’s getting to be something of a theme for me here on the ParkingSpotter blog, but a recent article from the Boston Globe caught my eye and I felt like it was time for me to post another blog about one of my favorite subjects: parking tickets. If you remember my last post, I was complaining about how expensive my parking tickets had been on a recent trip to Philadelphia. That was bad but once I got back to Boston I thought all of my troubles were over—boy was I wrong. When I opened the Globe and saw the words “Drivers would be slapped with tickets as high as $100” my jaw dropped, my face went pale and I almost passed out.

When I came to, I realized that we Bostonians will manage to cope with the new Boston Parking situation, but some changes will need to be made. No more parking in fire lanes with the blinkers on hoping that the meter maids will just assume I had a lot of stuff to load into my car. No more parking in a handicap zone and just paying the ticket because it would be cheaper than leaving my car in the garage all night (just so you know that isn’t the case anymore). No more sliding those obnoxious orange tickets down the sewer and then pretending that I had never seen it. No, it became clear to me that the Boston parking establishment means business and that it was time to get my act together. And the first step would be getting a permanent parking spot.

I realize that the ticket increases are going to be used to fund city improvements and the “T” so that public transportation will be more readily available, but for people who are regular drivers the increase hurts financially. I mean first gas tops $4 a gallon and now this! Finding legal parking in Boston isn’t as hard as it sounds and now that the parking tickets are so expensive it’s never sounded like more of a bargain—especially with the discounted Boston parking that you can find on ParkingSpotter!

About three years ago I moved into my first apartment and, apart from the incredibly high rent and even higher concentration of rats, it seemed like the perfect place. It had a big kitchen, high ceilings, and even a small resident’s parking lot out back that I could use as long as I applied for the pass. I was pretty young at the time and I didn’t really know what I was doing back then, so I wound up making the mistake of telling our landlord that I didn’t have a car and wouldn’t need the spot. He played it cool and told me that it was no big deal, he could give the spot to someone else. What a huge mistake! When I found out how much people in my neighborhood were paying for a spot just like the one I could have had, I was kicking myself. If I had been smart and taken that spot I could have paid for a full third of my rent just by leasing it out! And its not like I didn’t need the money.
I guess when it comes down to it there are two morals to this story. First is that I am pretty much an idiot. I was mad at my landlord for a while because I was sure that he was making the money that should have been mine off of that spot…but I’ve come to realize that he was just smarter than me about the whole situation. Which brings me to the second moral of the story: if you have a spot or a lot that you don’t really need, rent it. Parking is a hot commodity these days, and if (like me) you don’t see your spot for what it’s really worth, then you may just be sitting on a gold mine and not even know about it. Don’t make the same mistake that I did, because renting your spot is just too easy to pass up on.

P.S. I’m finally getting that car so if you have any parking that you don’t feel like charging any money for…you know who to contact

So I took a trip to Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and finally got around to paying for the parking tickets that I got while I was down there just yesterday. Two tickets for expired meters, plus fees for paying after the first 15 days, plus online payment fees for—well, actually I have no idea why they charge those— and the grand total came to (and I’m not kidding here) 94 Bucks! I know, I know, I couldn’t believe it either, so I decided to do some research online to see if everyone gets hit like this or if it was just me. I came across some pretty funny youtube clips from a new A&E reality show called Parking Wars which (ironically) follows Philadelphia meter maids on their day to day duties handing out unreasonably expensive violations to otherwise law-abiding people like myself. I saw this video and had to laugh…looks like I’m not the only one after all. Check it out:

The best part about it was that while I was watching that video I was holding an exact copy of the ticket that the kid in the video had, same amount and everything. Oh well I guess it happens to the best of us. Anyway I’m looking forward to seeing what that show is all about, and I’m sure I’ll blog about it once I do.

DRA (alex)

P.S. If you’re heading down to Philly anytime soon…be careful.

Parking is ridiculous these days since the fact that so many people fight for spots and the amount of spots are limited. Wherever you go, it seems as if there are never enough spots, especially being a resident of the boston area, spots are always limited. You spend more time looking for a spot than you do just taking care of the few errands and such that you have…Something must be done!!!

Ever receive an unfair parking ticket? Here’s one way to deal with it:

Last Laugh

On second thought, might want to cancel that check…

Parking Fine: $5, AND a Written Apology

We’ve been promised new-fangled parking garages where all we have to do is drive in, stop, park, get out, and allow some multi-million dollar elevator to stack the thing automatically. But who knows when that idea will come to fruition? We’ve also been told that newer, smaller cars will someday replace the big SUVs that make driving and parking such hell in cities such as Boston, New York, L.A., Chicago — you name the place. Take a look at what some M.I.T. students are thinking of next: The City Car (c.f. The Boston Globe, 2/18/2008). Unfortunately, while we wait for these developments to be… er… developed, the millions of us living in traffic-congested cities will continue to circle around the block dozens of times looking for a space — only to find that it’s Resident Parking Only or the meter’s out of order.

The fact is that preparation’s the key. I’d rather spend a hundred bucks a month on a spot than two hundred bucks wasting gas and pulling my hair out. Unfortunately, when it comes to parking, we can’t all be as savvy (or as lucky!) as this bugger: