Heh!! – An editorial in a college newspaper. The problem is that the headline writer didn’t really read or understand the story. I’m sure the headline got a lot more readers, but it missed the point. Market pricing would work, doubling the fees doesn’t.
If you fight your way through the article, here, you find that the writer (and beer critic, we are told), in fact isn’t against paying for parking. He’s against paying twice what he paid last year when half the lots are empty. Sure, he mentions free parking, but he also acknowledges that he would pay half the amount, but not the entire fee, its just too much, when the supply far outweighs the demand.
The lad has a point. Fees are often set by fiat from on high, and seldom relate to the real world on the ground. How many local councils have simply picked a “number” from the air, most often to assist in meeting the budget shortfall, and set that number as the new parking charge. The market, supply and demand, be dammed.
Cal Poly, and most other schools with a plethora of parking space in the summer, would do well to consider “adjusting” their rates. Most likely they would collect the same or amount of money, or more, but they would also have a much happier customer base.
JVH
