Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Bureaucrats Don't "Think Different"
owlgorithm writes "Apple's new store in Montreal has three parking meters on the street in front of it. The city is in the middle of a campaign to reduce downtown parking. In Apple's ever-conscientious attempt to improve design, they offered to reimburse the city for the parking meters and their revenue if the city would remove them. Answer: Non — because 'We've never done it before, so we can't.'"
SlAshDot Guffaw Dept.
You know it's a Slow newsday when "We've never done it before, so we can't." by Montreal burros constitutes news because it includes Apple.
Certainly they can't be ... nooooo ... can't be ... they're suggesting they've never accepted money to
change the way something is done or not done? What next, Gérald Tremblay caught on camera
stating he's giving up his Treo?
Next up: Microsoft's Power bill - 10,000 PC's running at the same time, is Redmond driving global warming?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The meters are there to reduce the number of parked cars, not for revenue. Apple is offering money, not a solution to overcrowded streets.
And this is a story how? Why should a city remove meters because the business is Apple. If Apple doesn't want to deal with the meters they shouldn't have put the store there.
problem solved
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I don't think there is any link between Canadian Bureaucrats and those from Quebec!
Quebec is it's own nation after all! Well, kind of...
he could also stand there looking all sullen and geek chic.
The solution is to stop worrying about parking meters.
Instead, go out and get pissed at the bars on Rue Crescent and Rue Bishop, and then close out the evening leering at peelers in one (or several) of Montreal's legendary tittie bars.
C'mon Apple, think outside the box a little.
This is not news. This is not funny. This is not even mildly interesting. Check the Firehose again editors -- there must be a few tidbits in there that don't go against your personal beliefs and would make better stories to put up front than this lame pos.
The quote "We've never done it before, so we can't." isn't attributed to anyone in the article, I highly doubt it was ever said. Sounds to me like the writer injecting some op-ed in to this supposed news piece. Should it really be cited on /.'s front page in a way that makes it sound like that was an actual reason given?
Reimbursement comes in many forms. Apple could just designate someone to feed these three meters on a regular schedule, so that their customers don't have to.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Now that it's published, they had better hope they never get their way. Bill Gates will pay someone to park some nasty clunker right in front and do various offensive and repulsive things. If you don't believe me, just look at the posts around here.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
01110000 01010111 01101110 00110011 01100100
First, read the article, maybe that's why you "don't quite get things".
The metered spaces would be turned into a no parking zone. That's LESS cars on the street. Unless there's more to the story, it's pretty silly of the city to refuse.
No parking is less cars than Metered parking which is less cars than Free parking.
i.e. A few cheap employees from nearby stores decide to use those spots as their daily parking spots.
They made the right choice for Mill Ave in my opinion. Those spots were at a premium, but on the other end, traffic on Mill Ave is nonstop. The street is primarily known for its bars and it is the busiest at night when the bars are open. Changing the spaces to cab only not only helps reduce traffic on the street, but it encourages students to take a cab home instead of trying to drive home. A bouncer can throw someone in a cab instead of out on the street, which is fine by me. Also, cars parked on the street were damaged more than any car in a parking garage. People leaned all over and fell into cars drunk all the time. On the traffic end, now people do not cruise the street several times looking for space or worse yet, stopping in the middle of road as someone gets in, starts there car, and finally vacates the space.
As for your fear of something being stolen from your car in the garage or the Park It area, that is not my experience in the least. I have never heard of anyone every having anything done to there car while park around Mill Ave. There is a strong police presence on the weekend and security guards are in some of the garages so just find one that has one if you are worried about it. The cost to park has always been 0 for me. Park It charges, but they also validate, as does anywhere else. Your ASU decal usually takes care of any other issues anyways.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
I did read the entire article. If you would have read my post you would have noticed that I am mad about the city government where I live trying to do the same thing.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Deleted a superfluous word in title for you. I live here in Canada, (once lived in Montreal) and I am certainly not surprised.
My rights don't need management.
That "news" story isn't quoting Montreal bureaucrats. It's putting words in their mouths to make a (stupid) point. All the writer knows is that the city refused - they don't actually know why, and there's no sign they actually asked anyone.
Parking meters, as the writer did note, are designed not to collect a little revenue, but to keep parking turning over quickly so more people can share fewer parking spots. "No Parking" signs don't replace them where they're needed (like in front of stores like Apple's) because parking is appropriate there, just not unlimited.
This is a stupid story by a stupid writer. Published by a stupid Slashdot editor.
--
make install -not war
http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8415621500.html
:)
My guess is that part of town didn't upgrade yet, thus they use the old too-ugly-for-apple parking meters
I don't know about Montreal, but here in my city it's illegal to put more money in the meter after the initial feeding. I doubt that it's ever enforced here, but if Montreal had such a law and Apple pissed them off, you can bet that they'd enforce it.
If the meters are to reduce the number of parked cars....how does that work exactly? The number of spaces doesn't change when you add a meter.
If they want to really reduce the number of parked cars they would allow Apple to remove the meters and make them put bike racks in place of the car parking spots.
According to the people in charge of the meters in my city, the money taken in by the meters just about covers the costs of collecting it and maintaining the meters. The real net revenue to the city comes from the fines for parking at an expired meter. So Apple's reimbursement would have to include the fines that would be collected, and maybe the bureaucrats don't want to admit that their meters are just a means of creating fineable offenses.
WHoo-Hoo, another tempe arizona resident! I understand the cab-only to discourage drunk driving mentality, but when me and my roomate want to go to La Pita on a thursday night and get a hookah and some hummus (and to talk to the cute waitresses), I have to park all the way over in the lot next door to city hall.
Boo! BAD FORM TEMPE!
Btw, you can't validate parkit anymore.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
I'm not sure you should judge Canadians by the actions of the Québécois. They are distinct, after all, and should be laughed at as a separate group.
post to cancel moderator points
I guess I really should have left out the whole ignore list comment. But I've been seeing so much whining around and I snapped a little.
To bad there is no Edit button.
Seriously, unless the meter prices are great enough that parking spaces go unused, then they aren't reducing any traffic. This begs the question (i'm sorry begs-the-question purists) but why would they want people to purchase Apple products from USA Apple online, instead of facilitating and promoting their own local economy?
Either way, getting rid of the small number of spaces to being with only helps other, more important issues more than it hurts the parking issue. Personally, I always park at Chili's unless I am going to the other end of Mill, either way it is not a looong walk.
I no longer live in Tempe, though I do visit very often. I resided there for about 4 years, but now I call Downtown Phoenix home.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
The meters would actually benefit Apple, since they allow more throughput, encouraging people to park, shop, and leave the parking spot for someone else to park. The alternative is a local resident parked there for 3 days, generating no revenue for Apple (or any neighboring business). Parking meters make sense in commercial areas; not so much in residential ones.
To do list for Windows
I can hear it now:
:)
"When you join government, you get st00pid!"
"Bureaucrats can't see past their own red taped noses!"
It's not confined to just government, folks. Business has it's fair share of inefficiency and stupidity. My favorite example of this was when I had a long contract at a Fortune 500 company away from home. They paid for an apartment for me to live in, but I saw no reason why I should expense my meals, even though it was allowed. My reasoning was, "I'm going to eat whether I'm here or at home. Why should they pay for it." This saved the company a few thousand dollars over six months. At one point, though, I wanted to expense something odd: boarding my cat for the weekend while I traveled. My reasoning was, "I have no friends here who would take care of the cat, unlike at home, so the company should pay." The refused, saying it wasn't justifiable, even though it was only $50 or so. After that I expensed all of my meals.
To add insult to injury, the entire 3 year long project I was involved in was shelved and started over soon after that, wasting around $60 million. This wasn't the first (or last) time I saw a business waste millions of dollars. I think of these things any time a libertarian says, "Business can do things more efficiently!"
TFA is an editorial, not an article. It is the opinion of the Montreal Gazette. No bureaucrat ever said "We've never done if before, so we can't." The quote was made up to make a point in the editorial. It's not real.
If you want to read the real article, go to the source (sorry, it is en francais. Run it through the Babelfish if you are desperate.)
I don't disagree that the city is being a bit obstinate, but I can see why they wouldn't want to change streetfronts on Apple's request. If they do it for them, they'll have to do it for every other downtown storefront. Besides, and I am not exaggerating, the $35,000 Apple is promising probably wouldn't even cover the cost of tasking a union city crew to remove the meters, rebuild the sidewalk and put the meters someplace else.
It is ironic that they very objectives that municipalities set for programs of Smart Growth very often result in precisely the opposite effects, increasing or exacerbating the undesirable elements that they seek to control. For example, in Portland Oregon they have filled in left turn pockets with planter boxes, installed "speed tables" and other "traffic calming" obstacle courses (if you were in a hurry would you be happy about having to slow down to navigate an obstacle course in your vehicle? Would that make you calmer once you exited the course or would you romp on the gas in anger and frustration to make up for lost time as you entered the freeway or the main traffic corridor?), removed parking spaces, provided too few parking spaces, and done many other misguided things in pursuit of the goal of "getting people out of their cars". After 15+ years what has been the result of these policies? Snarled traffic, increased traffic, traffic idling in slow speed stop and go driving, increased smog from more vehicles operating in the most inefficient speed and rpm range for the internal combustion engine. Basically every problem that they hopped to solve with their "Smart Growth" has in fact been made worse or even created new problems (i.e. dramatically increased smog) on top of the old ones. Portland is *worse* off because of Smart Growth and it would have been better off if they simply done nothing or at least abstained from some of the more no sense recommendations of the "Smart Growth" activists and consultants.
It all boils down to basic economics. People will do what they want and live how they want and you cannot tell them, "The elite smart growth planners are going to tell you what it is that you *really* want (i.e. less parking) and then enforce it upon you against your will." That type of centrally planned, command and control economic or social policy has not worked and will never work. It is the height of hubris and arrogance to presume that you can change other people's lives and preferences through mandates, laws, and enforcement actions. If people cannot work within the system then they find ways around it and the economic results of the workarounds are often *highly* suboptimal resulting in a Dead Weight Loss to the economy.
TFA, and most of the replies here, have missed the point of parking meters.
Cities have metered spaces so you can park there FOR AN HOUR OR TWO, but not all day. The city gets money from the meter and from tickets, daily commuters are encouraged to park outside the core, but those who really need to drive downtown can park long enough to patronise local businesses. It's a pretty good scheme.
TFA is suffering from a case of "I don't understand the problem, therefore people who do are mindless robots".
Tightened it up a bit more for you.
Serve Gonk.
"Non -- because 'We've never done it before, so we can't.'"
If only they had taken that attitude when they were first offered the chance to breathe.
Va chier ! :)
No, silly. That's exactly what Canada does right. Sometimes, the less laws being passed, the better. Especially in this day and age where taking away civil rights seems to be the 'hip' thing for politicians to do.
The answer is not to just go "Oh sure Apple, we'll just take these parking meters down because you asked us with bucketfuls of cash." Those meters are there for a reason, specifically: to cut down on people parking downtown. If the city government starts taking in cash for the removal of these meters, what do you think will happen to downtown parking?
Not sure of the type of meter, but all I've seen will let you put in more than one quarter at a time. So have someone feed it a day's worth of quarters every morning.
"We've never done it before, so we can't."
There is no source for the quote in TFA, and TFA is the only article I can find on the subject with the quote. I believe this is what we call "hyperbole."
Now why wouldn't the city want to play ball? As TFA and the summary say, the entire point of the parking meters is to reduce downtown parking to begin with; it's not about the revenue, it's about the traffic (always a problem in major metropolitan centers built well before the invention of the automobile). If anything, we should be applauding the local government here for not taking the money and instead sticking by their original intent. All too many such governments would have taken the money and turned the other way.
If anybody is failing to "think different," it's Apple themselves, who are trying to take the tried-and-true easy way out of essentially bribing a government to get their way. Something different would be to find a way to encourage all those hipster Apple fans to come to their store by, say, public transportation (save gas, ease traffic congestion, etc.).
Would the story have the same "Boo government, yay capitalists!" slant if we were talking about a Sony store?
If the city officials allow Apple to do this, then they must allow other companies to do this as well. So, imagine if a significant number of companies pay for this "privilege", and the number of street-parking slots is reduced by 50% (or whatever fraction you deem to be significant), can you see the problem this would cause?
Stupid article and stupid writer.
This isn't about free parking. (If it were, they'd be talking about more than 3 meters!) This is about Apple not wanting its pretty, high-tech store sullied by the proximity of ugly, low-tech parking meters. Typical Apple. First because they care so much about looking kewl (their packaging has more fancy "design" vibe than most products). Second because they're willing to spend a lot of money to get that kewlness: they're notorious for buying off (at great expense) people who own the code names they want to use — or claim to.
It would be nice if they could demonstrate that other cities have accepted such an offer - keep in mind that the Gazette is Montréal's leading English language, right-leaning paper. The sense that they are also delivering a slight poke to the French spoken city officials is unmistakable.
Yeah, i moved away too...old town scottsdale now :)...the HOTTEST women you have ever seen in your LIFE!
:)
:( :(
win
Tempe had to many freaking crack-head bums (not to be confused with regular bums, or turpentine huffing bums), but scottsdale has no rula bula, what with its tuesday night open mic night
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
I just think it's good to highlight the inflexibility of our city governments.
So if this is the low value news for a "slow news day". What is high value news?
Intel marketing brochures released as "news" ?
Maybe the latest benchmarks from an overclocking website?
VMWare is running VMWorld right now at Moscone center in SF, you could check that out online if you want some real tech heavy news.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
But I am in California. Same shit, different place.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Parking spaces serve one main purpose: to allow people to park. As some others have already stated, placing a parking meter in a parking space forces turn over. You want turn over: people coming to a downtown for a short period of time, then leaving, so the new shoppers who are arriving will find a place to park. That is the main reason few parking spaces allow for long term parking (even if you were willing to pay the price).
The secondary effect, of course, is city revenue.
Overall, the city has a duty to maintain a business place, not to provide parking.
Let us assume that all stores do the same, and buy their storefront parking spots. The income for the city will remain the same, but the number of potential customers might be reduced, having secondary consequences for the stores themselves.
I am not sure I approve or disapprove on Apple's idea. What I am sure is that it is not as simple as the posting (and some replies) argue.
That bureaucrats think at all is news!!!
bah, unless your off the grid your power is the same as everyone else's. It's a interconnected grid, if you remove your PC's their not going to turn down that hydro plant first, their going to turn down the plants with the highest incremental cost, which is probably a natural gas turbine plant (maybe in Pennsylvania.) IE any excess power in your area will be pushed to the next city over, etc, etc to a high cost producer.
kudos to your Tax dollars for producing a good source, but your power is just as dirty/clean as everyone else's, turn down that usage.
By that logic, if I've never died before, I am immortal.
Although...the highlander had to die first to become immortal.
I'd trust the highlander more than Canadians.
Please don't paint all of Canada based on what happens in Quebec. It pains me to say it, but they are bass-ackards here. French language laws, bonuses for having children, etc.
Looks like a socialist with modpoints and a grudge got to your post. I do so love when people mod down to express disagreement.
Here's hoping I get this one in M2.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
They don't want to get rid of the meters to make way for free parking, they want NO Parking.
So, parked cars are ugly - Apple's solution; Don't allow cars to park. Applying a little reductio ad absurdum, one would conclude banning parking everywhere would be nice... until you have no customers.
Wanting to remove a limited resource like down-town parking spaces is a selfish and arrogant move on Apple's part, IMHO.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Transmission losses mean that even with wheeling, the power from my neck of the woods never reaches the East Coast. You can look on my local utility's distribution page and see where the power goes (much to north california and seattle)
After 15+ years what has been the result of these policies? Snarled traffic, increased traffic, traffic idling in slow speed stop and go driving, increased smog from more vehicles operating in the most inefficient speed and rpm range for the internal combustion engine.
Frankly, my friend, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about if you're so pampered as to think that Portland traffic is ever "snarled."
Try driving in Atlanta for a couple of years before complaining about traffic. Portland is paradise in comparison; I tell you this from experience. You don't know what snarled or stop and go driving are like until it takes you 45 minutes to go 10 miles on a 8- to 10-lane interstate every damned day.
I've been shocked by the total lack of aggression in drivers here. They usually drive at or below the speed limit (like the law requires) instead of tailgating and trying to run off the road anyone doing less than 10-15 over the speed limit like they do in Atlanta. People here are also a LOT friendlier about letting people over to merge. As much pooh-poohing as you do of traffic calming devices, I seriously suggest that you live in an area that doesn't have them before dismissing the idea that traffic engineering can modify the behaviors of drivers.
There is a VERY marked difference in aggression between Portland and Atlanta, and I suspect that difference in how traffic is engineered here has something to do with it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
born in B.C.
We all think weird.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Two words: meter maids. The real revenue from parking meters isn't the quarters people put in them: it's the fines they pay if they don't put in enough quarters.
rj
Apple would have had better luck if they worked through an Ad Agency, instead of approaching City Hall directly. It is all about spreading the graft around, you can't just pay the City, that is not the French way.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Apple can employ staff to feed the meters. Most cities take exception to other people paying for parking, but this would be a nice means of protesting a system of nickel and diming the consumer.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
APPLE wants to put the parking meters in the basket
Sara Champagne
The Press
The APPLE giant, who projects to open his doors with the downtown area of Montreal soon, tried in vain to make remove parking meters in front of his future store. Concerned of its image design, the American firm offered to the Town of Montreal the equivalent of the receipts of these apparatuses considered to be not very aesthetic, is nearly 35 000$ per five years, learned the Press.
Waste of time and effort. The district of City-Marie, who confirms to have received the demand for last March, refused this preferential treatment considered to be "unacceptable". The three electronic terminals, located opposite 1321 Sainte-Catherine Ouest, and close to the Ogilvy house, are thus there to remain.
"We are opened with certain compromises, as to transform a terminal of parking doubles in simple terminal, but from there to remove them completely there is a margin which one cannot cross", explains Jacques-Alain Lavallée, in charge of communication of City-Marie. It adds that APPLE Canada did not give sign of life since this end not-to receive, also approved by Stationnement of Montreal, which manages the spaces tariffed on street, to 3$ the hour, the downtown area.
The arrival in Montreal of the future flagship APPLE became an open secret in the world of the aces of data processing and the Mac products. The room, rented in the District of the museums, has a surface of 9300 square feet, and rises on two stages, with a mezzanine out of glass. The place is occupied at present by the Mens shop, which moves its home in November, boulevard De Western Maisonneuve, close to the street Stanley.
"I know that APPLE already visited the room with architectural plans, known as Boujmada, manager of Lie, who confirms to have yielded his lease to the data-processing firm. But I do not know when their opening is envisaged."
Motus, stops bent!
Faithful to its tradition, APPLE Canada did not want to comment on its establishment in Montreal, nor the presence of the terminals on the front of its room. The giant did not indicate either that following the refusal, it planned to find a site more "aesthetic" for his new store.
"APPLE never makes comments on its projects of businesses, explains the spokesman of the company in Quebec, Jean-Guy Rens. We speak only about our products. There will be thus no comments."
According to information's on MacQuébec and APPLE insider, of the sites of bitten APPLE products, the store of Montreal will open its doors the next summer or with the autumn 2008, and will become the shop headlight of the giant in Canada, with the image of APPLE Store of the 5e Avenue, in Manhattan.
On his side, the spokesman of the company Parking of Montreal, Michel Philibert, adds that the parkings tariffed on street are used to ensure the rotation of the vehicles, and by the fact even a bearing of the customers which attend the trade.
"I think that the district did not have to study a long time the demand for APPLE before refusing to withdraw the terminals, Mr. Phillibert says. These spaces belong to the public domain, and cannot become of exclusive use. That is not done quite simply."
Not bad for Babelfish.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Hydroelectric is the most expensive form of electricity generation, followed closedly by wind power, then nuclear, with gas and coal falling way, way down the list.
The main benefit of hydroelectric power is that it can be stopped and started so quickly. The coal and gas plants take the best part of an hour to ramp up or down, so you use the hydroelectric plan to carry the burden until the more efficient (and slow, cumbersome) plants come up to speed.
Of course, if you live in a country that has to import most of its coal from Australia, especially if you live in a mountainout region with a high annual rainfall, the story may be different.
The high cost of nuclear power is what is driving the Howard government to consider "carbon tax" on all coal and gas fired power plants, so that the nuclear plants that Little Johnny wants so desperately can be built by commercial interests without extensive government subsidies.
All of this is extremely off topic, of course. I expect the burough's true motivation for denying Apple's request to convert three parking meters to a "no parking" zone is the loss of parking fine income.
Apple doesn't want to remove the parking meters so their customers can park for free. They want to remove the meters so that no one can park in front of their store at all! They want to turn the three spots into a no-parking zone and offered to reimburse the city for the revenue lost by the three spots, while simultaneously helping with the city's goal of fewer parked cars downtown.
It's not as unwise as it might seem. Entanglement of business and state is something that should bear a lot of scrutiny to avoid privilege. A second, weaker reason is that parking meters make for a nice means to allow uniform handling/detection of abandoned vehicles.
The state has an obligation to try to keep its administration reasonably consistent without playing favourites. Apple shouldn't expect ties like this to happen without careful consideration.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Although initial setup costs of Nuclear generators might be much more expensive AFAIK the cost per MW of a nuclear generator is far lower then just about anything else available, if anybody has some numbers that says otherwise they're welcome to correct me. BTW How the hell did a discussion on parking in front of an Apple store turn into a discussion on power generation, this has got to be the most extreme slashdot non-sequitur I have ever seen.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
...
It is the height of hubris and arrogance to presume that you can change other people's lives and preferences through mandates, laws, and enforcement actions. What utter baloney. Of course gov't can alter aggregate behavior, to argue otherwise is to ignore the world around you. Laws work, taxes work, mandates work. Not for 100% of people or 100% of the time, but in aggregate they certainly do. It *is* basic economics, where individuals factor in their preferred behavior (I want to ride my motorcycle through north carolina without wearing my helmet), the risks associated with it (getting pulled over & getting a $100 ticket) and decide whether or not to do it. Helmet laws work, changing "other people's lives" very effectively. You can argue that land use planning does work very well, and in many cases that is true (though not in all). But to jump from there to claiming that a government can't change behavior is long, incorrect leap. if you were in a hurry would you be happy about having to slow down to navigate an obstacle course in your vehicle? Would that make you calmer once you exited the course or would you romp on the gas in anger and frustration to make up for lost time as you entered the freeway or the main traffic corridor?
Well, actually if it were me, I would get pissed off the first few times and then try to find a different way to get where I was going. In fact, I've done exactly that in response to traffic calming additions where I live. This is the rationale behind such things...people are adaptable and will act to minimize the aggravation caused by external factors beyond their control (like speed bumps every quarter mile). In fact, you say the same thing: "If people cannot work within the system then they find ways around it."
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
In Montreal's defense, there is free parking ... near McGill University. And probably near Concordia as well. Both are well within walking distance of the location, although granted, I don't think Apple wants their customers walking the kilometre it would take to get the free parking. Not that you really want to try and park on Saint Catherine's, or Crescent near by. The city could remove the "meters" (they aren't even actual meters AFAIK, just signs that indicate which parking spot to pay for at the actual meter 20 feet away) and replace them with less conspicuous signs. Everyone's happy, except the poor schmo who didn't see the less conspicuous sign and now has a parking ticket.
In a city where everyone is looking for places to park, if people know that they can get free parking in front of an apple store, they will. It will be next to impossible to find those spots freed because people who work in the neighborhood will take them before any customers could, and they will stay there all day. Then comes the issue of enforcement, which is a nightmare unto itself and will create more issues than the money apple is willing to pay is worth. Not to mention the fact that it gives other companies license to request the same thing. It sounds like a really good idea without the common sense. I can understand why the city would respond negatively.
I'm surprised that no one has seen/mentioned the work Donald Shoup at UCLA has done covering the very high societal costs associated with free parking. I'm further surprised (although I guess I shouldn't be) that the "progressive" Apple is pushing for free parking given the conclusive evidence that free parking is very harmful to the environment, increases traffic, and wastes everyone's time.
Seethe high cost of free parking in the SFGate. The research behind this article can be found on the professor's UCLA page.
Babelfish translation:
The APPLE giant, who projects to open his doors with the downtown area of Montreal soon, tried in vain to make remove parking meters in front of his future store. Concerned of its image design, the American firm offered to the Town of Montreal the equivalent of the receipts of these apparatuses considered to be not very aesthetic, is nearly 35 000$ per five years, learned the Press.
In other words, parking meters are icky.
They're just trying to avoid people fighting over the "free!" parking spots.
No sig today...
Just wanted to drop in one thing that I don't think has been stated here. The idea of traffic calming devices is not to make individual drivers calmer; the idea is to calm traffic on the aggregate. This might mean slowing it down, but more likely it implies reducing it in the first place. The environmental ideas are well known; sometimes however there is even the impetus of increasing sales by allowing people to more easily reach the stores they want to reach (ahem jaywalking) or simply to feel more comfortable. You encourage pedestrians and mass transit. Parking meters have nothing to do with this. As has now been said umpteen times, the parking meters are set up so that more people are able to park, if for shorter periods of time.
In fact let me just say that I heavily doubt that there is anything in this article that even vaguely has anything to do with smart growth. There is interest in Montreal in urban projects (a new tram line, the replacement of a freeway), but I can't recall any in that neighborhood. This Apple store will be right on Saint Catherine street, one of the busiest shopping drags in the town, which runs straight through downtown. Metro and pedestrian connectivity in the area is already very good and well-used, and you can only cut use of a major downtown artery so far. At best, implementing traffic calming here would be futile.
/sigh
It doesn't work that way. There is a central hub that you pay for all the parking spots on a street block. This means that when you leave your spot, their is no indication that the space still has time left on it. People parking there have to go pay as nothing tells them how long they have.
It's also the reason that $3/hour is not realistic. It's actually more.
Jason Lotito
As a Canadian I find this article and half the comments about it kind of offensive.
... well let's just say it is "unique" and quite different from the rest of Canada so you are tarring all of Canada with a brush that should be meant only for a small minority. It's also offensively implies that "Canada is doing something wrong here" or that we are unimaginative, backward etc. when in fact the reverse is the case.
In the first place this is Quebec, which is
The fact that a company could not bribe a municipal government to go against it's own bylaws and provide special treatment to a high-end retail establishment is something to celebrate, not berate.
I am a big Apple fan, but this is really a kind of outrageous request. If this kind of stuff is common in the United States, well then I feel sorry for you. Horay for any government that is above the petty manipulations of the business community I say.
Lastly, as others have mentioned, how much more of a boring non-story could there be?
I should also note that the intent of the new parking meters in Montreal is not only to increase revenue (it's now more expensive, and you can't piggyback on other people's time), but also to encourage mass transit. It's now cheaper to use the metro system then to try and find a parking space downtown and pay the prices. As a resident, I really don't mind this. While I'll sometimes take the car down there for particular reasons, it's also just as easy to park near the metros and take them in.
Jason Lotito
Because main reason in that meters is not to make revenue, but to convince automobilsts not to use cars in the city for ecological and traffic reasons.
I don't mean to nitpick, but coal generation stations take much more then an hour to start up. Depending on the size of the facility, it can take from 24 hours to several days to get all turbines to capacity.
Cars impose a net cost on society. Perhaps it's time to tax cars based on the roadspace they use as well. And the pollution they spew into the air.
People can live where they want, but commuting in a private vehicle is not a right. Sure, you can choose to drive, but perhaps the right solution is to look at something else.
To make another analogy, stop whining about Windows being insecure and riddlable with spyware and viruses and switch to something else. (A computer analogy on a car thread).
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Actually, hydroeletric is one of the cheapest sources of energy. The facilities last way longer that the alternatives, there's no much personnel involved in operations and there's no fuels to be bought. Usually, operating cost per Kw/h is one quarter of that from coal. Really, I have no idea where you got this idea of hydro being the most expensive source of energy, it's one of the silliest comments I've ever seen here.
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I think parent meant that CHANGING output to meet demand takes about hour when facility is already running.
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umm. yea.... i think you dont know what you are talking about, i mean come on, you dont even know!!
How did the whole country get labeled for something the City of Montreal did? It's like saying all Americans are taking sport enhancing drugs because a few do.
Microsoft buys countries to get their votes. Apple buys... parking meters?????
So of course your source of electricity is going to find it's closest ground, and that is never going to be too far, but still removing your source to ground raises the voltage level on the entire circuit, regardless that their are a 1000 Voltage sources, and a million paths to ground.
I was thinking more of the social economic cost. IE for record keeping (I assume) whoever owns the lines that your municipality sends their excess power to pays (and passes the cost on).
I agree your electrons are not making it to the East coast, but my assumption is that if Oregon doesn't sell it's power to CA, then Nevada will. If Nevada doesn't sell it's power to CA, then it would sell it to NM...
So a KWh not consumed in Oregon will release that capacity to anywhere in the Grid, thats the point of the Grid.
I was in Toronto in early 1974 while the tower was going up. I was there to teach Canadian National Telecommunications personnel how to set up timing equipment using an oscilloscope to view LORAN waveforms. The class started at 8:30. Just after 8AM the welders up on the tower would strike their first arcs on top of 1200 feet of rebar and the LORAN signals would disappear below the noise level. I asked the class to come in the next day at 7:30 so I could show them the proceedure. They acted as though I was asking to date their wives. Their day started at 8:30, period.
Gods, no wonder the traffic is so bad. I've found that doing 10-15 miles above the speed limit here in San Diego helps traffic. Terrifying older people or slower people into staying on the surface roads. While tailgating strictly speaking is a bad idea (dents sucks, dying does too God-bless my airbags) it's a fairly effective way to get snoozers to stop using the passing lane as a roomier slow lane. Plus theirs nothing better then using my fuels friendly Yaris with it's compact body to swiftly cut-off cellphone addicted BMW drivers and block those ungodly "I'm so big I don't need to signal" trucks from pulling into your lane (ya, I've probably got a short life expectancy).
Quack, quack.
A gas tax is for the not-easily-recoverable gas you consume. A pollution tax is what it costs society to clean up your mess (think global warming, pollution related diseases, etc). The road space tax would discourage driving in urban areas, because there land is scarcer/more densely populated (and you have to only consider peak population densities, especially in office areas).
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
I don't know if this is a "Canadian" behavior rather that a "Quebec" one. Remember what happenned with Le Cirque du Soleil project in Montreal... The fall of a beautifull project because of bureaucrats ! They are making me sick...
It's like a commuting moped. But gas less expensive and I get to laugh at my friends.
Quack, quack.
sure does ruin your day.
That any better?
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In Victoria, film crews often get the city to cover up parking meters so they can park their equipment trucks and trailers during filming. I don't understand why the city cannot accept money to simply cover up the meters and install a sign saying "For Apple Store customes only".
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I can't speak for Redmond, but here in Montreal (where that shiny new Apple store will be), that's not the case.
Quebec, due to the success of our government-owned power company HydroQuebec, has its own interconnect. Texas does too, IIRC. HydroQuebec is the single largest producer of hydroelectricity in the entire world, and tends to produce much power power than we use. Quebec makes quite the pretty penny selling that excess power to other provinces and the US.
However, you can twist your logic a bit to make it still apply. Because Hydro sells their power to people with much dirtier sources (like the US), by reducing power usage HERE, there is more available to sell THERE. And if some place like the US then buys more power, they're using their own dirty sources less.
Of course, that's IF the extra capacity is sold. Does Hydro sell all excess power, or just as much as people are willing to buy? If excess power doesn't result in increased sales to outside grids, then reducing our power consumption doesn't really do anything for the environment.
OK, so Hydro-Quebec actually does have some non-hydro sources. Out of their 35.19 GW capacity, 2.145 GW are produced through other means (thermal, gas turbine, and nuclear). Still, 94% hydro isn't too bad, especially considering that a decent chunk of the non-hydro is that CANDU nuclear reactor.
I'm disappointed nobody has promoted the obvious solution: Get Paul Newman to reprise his "Cool Hand Luke" role, and cut down the parking meters. Win-win -- even the MPIAA might like it, if they can sell a few DVDs of an old movie (but a classic, IMO). I doubt Paul would get the jail time Luke did, but that might be the one drawback.
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The really funny thing that nobody has seemed to mention is the a montreal "parking meter" is a post with a number on it now. All the "metering" happens at the electronic pay stations. the actual post with the number just marks the spot where you parked. Apple could coveivably ask to make custom posts, or put sidewalk plaques or something like that with the space number. How the system works is you park your car, take note of the number where you parked, find a pay station punch in the number of the parking meter, then pay for the time you want. You don't even put your ticket on your dash. The system has a pretty big flaw too. You can reset the time on a "parking space" by typing it in at any pay center and then making a minimum payment of a quarter. So if someone just paid the 6$ max fee for 2 hours of parking you can reduce that to about 15 minutes.
You're wrong.
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"....Really, if Ville-Marie were in charge of designing computers, the world would still be using quill pens." Well said. Indeed. I could enter one of many French jokes here, but out of respect will not.
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