Parking will be cheaper for car-sharers
Car-sharing users will get a break on parking costs as of next year.
I hadn’t noted another parking story earlier, because it wasn’t specific to Montreal, but it affects people here: Quebec plans to make the first two hours of hospital parking free, but we don’t know exactly when.
Chris 10:09 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
The result will be predictable: it will be harder to park at hospitals. Supply is fixed. Demand is large. Reducing price is just going to make it worse. It’s also a subsidy to the rich, as the poor don’t even own cars to park at hospital.
Spi 10:16 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
Offering the first 2 hours for free is fine, short and longer-term parking is generally clearly separated and the turnover is high enough that it won’t fill up. Capping the whole-day rate at $10 a day will inevitably cause problems. Hospital employees and commuters will start using it as parking.
Chris 10:18 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
Spi, even the first 2 hours being free will result in stays that would have been 1 hour becoming 2 hours, thus reducing available parking for others.
jeather 10:22 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
There are ways to ensure that the whole-day rate is used by patients, but that would cost money. I don’t think people are going to hang out at the hospital for an extra hour just because the parking is free, though.
Uatu 10:31 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
A lot of the patients are elderly and because of the high price of parking have turned to volunteer driver car services. Jeather is right nobody wants to stay unless absolutely necessary. I see lots of patents wishing they could leave but have to wait for the car service to show up
Uatu 10:40 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
Also appointments sometimes are delayed. So a 10:00 turns into a 11:30 or worse and people are already steamed without having to pay extra for parking…
jeather 10:43 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
Exactly, Uatu. My father has biweekly appointments at the hospital and he gets there at 8 (I think) and is sometimes out by 9:30 and sometimes waiting around until noon, depending on the doctor.
Spi 10:49 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
Parking at Sainte-Justine is currently $18 for more than 4 hours, l’UdeM charges $20 for all-day parking. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that $10 parking will draw in drivers from the surrounding area.
Chris 11:09 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
jeather, patients may not want to hang around longer than necessary, but visitors sure will. Are they also planning to start getting proof for reason of visit? No. Thus, as I said, this price reduction will lead to the limited parking being used *more*, thus leaving less for everyone. It happens every time everywhere parking prices are reduced. There is mountains of empirical evidence for this.
Does parking have value? Yes. What happens when a valuable thing is free? It’s used. It’s that simple.
jeather 11:22 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
Again, they can easily block free/cheap parking by non-patients, if they want to. Will they? I don’t know. But it’s not a particularly hard problem if you want to fix it. (They might not, as a way to argue against the policy.)
One article describes how they do it in Ontario (you can buy one parking discount pass per patient and use it however you want, I haven’t looked into the details).
Making hospital parking cheaper for everyone so they become cheap public lots is a bad idea. Making hospital parking cheaper for patients is not.
dwgs 20:47 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
So Chris what are you recommending? If reducing the price is bad then what is a better idea?
Michael Black 21:28 on 2019-10-31 Permalink
I had an appointment yesterday at tye General, getting there just befor 1pm, and not seeing the doctor till 3pm, finally leaving at 5:20. I don’t drive, but that variable could be a bother to those who do.
When I was in the Royal Vic and my sister was in town, she could park for 30 minutes fre, which wasn’t much time for a visit after she got upstairs.
No, it’s not good if people used the parking to go somewhere else (or when coos drive over the terrace) but this is not an “ordinary” situation. Blanket response doesn’t apply.
In other news, Wegener’s disease has been renamed since I first heard of it in April. The doctor yesterday called it something else, and a search now shows the new name, I’m sure it wasn’t as prominent when I looked in April. Wegener was probably a nazi, so I’m glad his name has been erased. It’s not nice having a disease named after a likely nazi, not that having the disease is nice.
Michael