I never claimed it works in actuality (because not everyone will ever play by the rules, nice caveat, huh? Gotta be careful what you claim around here, because some asshole of a nerd will always look it up), nor that I support them.

I was referring to the theory, even gave an example of how it’s supposed to work in theory. Now, if you sell parking meters, and you run my scenario past the City Council and the Chamber of Commerce, you’re gonna sell some meters.
Because greed outweighs statistics, and they’ll convince themselves they can produce legislation which will maximize the “potential” you just sold them.
For the record, I don’t mind them. They’re a great deal as opposed to a pay-to-park lot.

Thanks for confirming that the theory of the parking meter making for more efficient traffic flow/parking is in fact a real theory. One studied by civil engineers, et.al.
I’d hate for anyone to think I was blowing smoke out my ass, and I’m glad I gave you a nice little project to delve into for your amusement. Guess you had some free time on your hands.

Thanks for the invitation to educate myself (I presume you meant about parking meters, but then, I’m an assuming SOB), but the subject is a bit too boring for my tastes.

http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2009/09-0728_rpt_cao_3-31-09.pdf

http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/04/15/lessons-from-chicago-what-could-happen-to-parking-in-la/#more-2010

http://www.scottforchicago.com/pdf/32ndWardParkingMeterPrivatizationAssessment.pdf

http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2009/09-0728_rpt_cao_3-31-09.pdf

http://www.ivt.ethz.ch/vpl/publications/reports/v025.pdf

And a book called “Some theoretical aspects of road traffic research” Proceedings Institute of Civil Engineers

You will notice that academic, policy and city research from civil engineers and economists who had assessed the long-term effects of parking meters tend to agree that parking meter does not improve the parking efficiency overall.

If you read between the lines and the data of the reports, it is clear that the argument (especially reports from the cities) normally goes back about the revenue instead of efficiency for public goods.

All in all, parking meters supporter claims to create 1) efficiency 2) jobs 3) revenue. All of those are dismissed.

Since parking meters really under public entities don’t statically (significant) improve the efficiency of traffic flow nor safety, that begs to the question of the original policy intent. So in effect, implementation and enforcement of parking meters are wasteful activities.

In particular, jobs created under park meters are essentially the Batiast’s Broken Window Fallacy: someone breaks a window, so a business or the community has to hire people to clear up the mess. Job created? Yes. Is this job really increased the welfare of the society? No.

That person would probably contribute to the society by actually engage in productive activities that are valued-added to other members of societies and society as a whole.

When it’s just us healthy folks, I seek out those parking spaces waaaaaay in the back of the lot. I want to park where the likelihood of someone dinging my car or bike is minimized. What I hate is after going through all that effort I sometimes see a car parked immediately next to mine when I exit. There’s lots of other spaces, closer spaces, to choose from but they chose mine. Oddly, they are usually minivans or SUVs, frequently with kid-oriented stickers or window shades. Over the years I’m betting these are dads who are driving a mom-mobile but really want that sweet motorcycle or low sportscar I’m driving. They park next to me because they want coolness by osmosis or something. When I drive my beat-up old truck and park in those same places, I don’t get people parking next to me like that! (Suits me; that truck doesn’t have power steering and has a full size bed so I’d like the extra room to turn it out of the lot.)

No wonder you scampered away from Chicago.

The fact that they only need a 65% conviction rate (65% being quite a low rate) to be profitable is testament to the fact that there are more than enough legitimate parking violations to support the need for their agency. And that their operations budget isn’t very costly to the city relative to the benefits to the city. Government well done for once. Something to be happy about.
It speaks to a certain degree of efficiency that they don’t need a 95 or 100% conviction rate to justify the cost of their agency.

There are so many parking violations, they don’t even need to gain convictions on 35% of them to still be of use to the city, and are not a waste of taxpayer money. Isn’t that what we want of a government agency?
Their efforts should be applauded, not condemned.

It kinda makes us hate you a little inside, but that’s a transitory feeling we know better than to have.

Y’all know I ain’t lying, just keepin’ it real!

“…I can blame someone for choosing said job. If you choose it, you have no right to complain about people …”

Didn’t you know customers come with the job of tending bar?

All satisfaction of a crap well-laid was lost, but I quickly got over it…because no wheelchair-bound men work in my office!

Thank God for my stepdad and his handicapped placard and the fact that my mother rented a wheelchair to push me around in. Not to mention my stomach was covered in bruises from my blood thinner shots I had to take and that the babies were pushing on my lungs so bad I was having oxygen saturation issues.

This is one of my triggers, but YES some pregnancies are extremely fragile and difficult and do make you temporarily disabled. I was not off trotting around shopping, I just needed to go to my prenatal checkups without babies falling out of me till I got to 36 weeks. I think that qualifies as fairly disabled.