Say you live in a high-density, well-frequented area where lots of people come and go to visit local amenities like ballparks, restaurants, and museums. At some point, you get tired of being unable to host book club because your friends can’t find parking in front of your home, or the noise of continual foot traffic along the sidewalk is plain annoying. You decide to do something about it. After all, this is your home—right?
The voluntary action taken to rev up the neighbors, petition your city council, and air your grievances across social media platforms can, in sum, add up. It is an opportunity cost to you. You’ve engaged in volunteering and spent some of your time and talents to improve your environment. In fact, you’ve done such a good job that there is now a team of neighbors- Team A- all on the same quest.
Traditionally, streets and sidewalks are open-access town amenities. It’s too inconvenient to block passage for those from afar and those nearby. Hence, most roadways in the US are public in the most generous sense of the term. The free flow of people circulates around for their various needs, whether it be for a commercial delivery, a commuter getting to and from work, or a family out and about doing what families do. People in the know might adjust their schedule and stay off the roads at rush hour or following a Taylor Swift concert, but otherwise, it is a free-for-all, first-come-first-serve type commodity.
Team A, in the neighborhood wants more control than the anything goes, and engage their city to intervene in the spirit of preserving their neighborhood. They make a material claim to the pavement outside their doors. In order to make it official, they need the blessing of an official body with authority. The constraints change once a sign goes up on the block limiting parking hours, or requiring a parking pass.
Imposing minor inconveniences like restricted hours, passes, or even meters might make street parking more orderly. It’s a way of relaying information. A restriction might be just what someone needs to make an effort to drive through the alley and put their car away in a garage. A small charge encourages people to walk further and park on a less busy street.
The time to take note is when a restriction pushes other groups to form. Then, there are more preferences to consider than simply those of the neighbors who want ownership benefits of the street spots in front of their homes. Take the recent change implemented for those who wish to drive into Manhattan. To listen to this guy, it’s all a great success to charge $9 and discourage entrance by vehicle. He appears to speak on behalf of the commuting group.
What other groups are in the mix? Shoppers who would come into the city, but now the surcharge discourages them? Small shop workers like home repair people? Tourists who decide against coming in for the day? What is the cost of their behavior in the face of this new constraint? It seems that retail shops and restaurants could see a decrease in business. Less competition for small-scale home repair services results in higher prices for homeowners. Fewer tourists, as pesky as they seem, weakens the arts and museum support systems.
Time will tell. But it seems that gaining a little bit of ownership of the asphalt might cost Team A more than the time it took to lobby for the change. Commuter Team B may benefit the most, as the $9 is a fraction of the income they earn in the city. And the others—workers, shoppers, and tourists—all lose out. After all, there’s no free lunch. But more importantly, is this matrix of tradeoffs between various interest groups the desired outcome of implementing the surcharge?
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