The Price of Parking

As we mentioned a few days, many of us at Wenzel cut our teeth as parking lot attendants, and the experience gave us many insights into the workings of the industry and some of capitalism itself. Many people complain about paid parking, and we heartily agree. Paid parking is one of the ugly realities of capitalism. A parking lot is a patch of land devoid of productive capability, but still manages to generate wealth. Parking lots made from vacant neighbourhoods act like a cancer, disrupting the vitality and senes of community those neighbourhoods once had, as in Victoria Park, near the Stampede. However, the easy profits to be made from paid parking, only encourages their proliferation.

Thus, we were not surprised to find out that Calgary is the fourth most expensive metropolitan city to park in, according to a recent story in the Calgary Sun. Calgary has always prided itself on its low-density residential areas, resulting in one of the highest single city urban sprawls in the Western world. Furthermore, this low density makes it difficult to build up ridership in the public transit system, since people have too far to walk to the nearest bus stop (the low housing density makes it too expensive to run enough bus routes). Add in the fact that poor urban planning has concentrated the majority of jobs in the central core, and you have a private vehicle occupation rate of 1.1 people per car. The rate actually decreased between 1990 and 2000!

Therefore, Wenzel would like to continue to encourage its readers to try and work near where you live. Not only will it contribute to making your neighbourhood healthy, but it will also cut down on your parking bill.