San Francisco Bans Parking Spot Auctioning App

A couple months ago, we discussed a new phone app being used in San Francisco to auction off parking spaces to the highest bidder. The city has now ordered the app makers to cease and desist, and threatened motorists with a $300 fine for each transaction. City Attorney Dennis Herrera said, Technology has given rise to many laudable innovations in how we live and work -- and Monkey Parking is not one of them. It's illegal, it puts drivers on the hook for $300 fines, and it creates a predatory private market for public parking spaces that San Franciscans will not tolerate. Worst of all, it encourages drivers to use their mobile devices unsafely — to engage in online bidding wars while driving. People are free to rent out their own private driveways and garage spaces should they choose to do so. But we will not abide businesses that hold hostage on-street public parking spots for their own private profit.

Comments

Communism

[Anonymous Coward]

Banning this is communism!
This is the free market at work.

Re:Communism

[tsqr]

if they're privately owned parking spots then this should be allowed

From TFS: "People are free to rent out their own private driveways and garage spaces should they choose to do so."

Re:Communism

[vux984]

Why do the neighbors take exception to it, though?

Because some people don't want their normally quiet residential neighborhood looking like a cross between a night market and an impound lot all summer.

Its hardly unusual for there to be bylaws restricting the amount and type of commerce you conduct from your home, especially if it leads to unwanted traffic, noise, or is unsightly.

This situation is all of those.

Re:Communism

[Darinbob]

Parking lots are the means of reproduction, in some cities.

Gotta agree with it being illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

It's based on holding public space hostage.

Re:Gotta agree with it being illegal

[Obfuscant]

But that would mean you -- not the winner of the auction -- were breaking the law. And it would be hard to prove. You fed the meter properly, you're having lunch. Big deal. In order to prove a violation you'd have to prove intent, which is seldom easy.

You're kidding, right? As soon as you use the app you've proven intent. You can't go online and say "I'll sell this space to the highest bidder" and then claim you didn't intend to sell the space to the highest bidder. That's just nuts.

Having said that, I grant that it could be used in ways that are likely illegal... like holding the spot for the person who won the auction.

That's the intent of the service. How long do you think such a service would last if all it did was sell "information" about where someone was leaving a parking spot? The buyer would show up and someone who didn't pay would have already taken it. If it is truly a busy area, then there are going to be people who are watching everyone who approaches any parked car like a hawk, and unless your buyer was also doing that (which defeats the reason to buy the information) he's not going to get an honestly vacated space.

Why would anyone in their right mind bid on "information" that everyone in within fifty feet of the seller can see for himself, and would be there to take advantage of long before any auction could take place, much less the winner driving to the location to accept his prize? The information is worthless within 30 seconds of it appearing; it's only the physical space that makes it valuable.

Re:Gotta agree with it being illegal

[ultranova]

Having said that, I grant that it could be used in ways that are likely illegal... like holding the spot for the person who won the auction. Then you might be said to be actually holding it hostage. But that would mean you -- not the winner of the auction -- were breaking the law. And it would be hard to prove.

The only way information received from this application could possibly be useful was precisely if the auctioner held the spot for the winner. Because otherwise it would already be long taken by the time they got around, even if they were just a few city blocks away. Alternatively, San Francisco has an abundance of parking spaces, so what would be the point of this app?

Does it ever make you uncomfortabe how posting this kind of reflexive, unthinking, ideology-based bullshit makes you exactly like the Stalinists of old, just with a different set of keyword triggers? Do you ignore the similarities because clearly, their ideology was wrong and yours is right? Or do you simply lack the self-awareness to notice?

Re:They hate our freedom

[bluefoxlucid]

It occurs to me that knowing where a parking space is available would reduce time spent driving around, itself reducing pollution, excess expenditure on additional fuel, the clogging of streets, and other issues associated with tons of traffic driving in circles throughout the city.

These people are providing the city the great and valuable service of a functional smart parking grid operating when parking congestion is high.

Re:They hate our freedom

[Firethorn]

But not the basic fact of people exchanging money for information.

It falls back to 'holding a public space hostage' the moment the seller stays in his spot any longer than he would have without the application in order to get said money/allow the buyer the spot. I believe that the application amounts to being worthless if the seller doesn't hold the space for the buyer, because in my experience somebody will pull into the spot less than a minute later without any intervention.

This leads to less efficient use of space due to lingering, which is what the city wants to avoid.

Enforceable ?

[markus_baertschi]

The company is based in Italy and does not target San Francisco specifically. I don't think San Francisco has standing to sue them.

Re:Enforceable ?

[Wycliffe]

Is the money collected in person? Or does the spot holder wait for a specific license plate?
Either way, a sting operation should be easy enough to set up. The spots are physically
in SF so I don't think they can ban the app but they can certainly fine people for using this app
or any other method to require money in order vacate a spot.

Re:They hate our freedom

[whoever57]

These people are providing the city the great and valuable service of a functional smart parking grid operating when parking congestion is high.

There seems to be an unwritten premise behind your claim that the space would be unused if it were not for this app. In fact, the reverse is true -- likely the driver "selling" the space will remain in place longer than necesssary so that he/she can sell the parking space. Without the ability to sell a space, it will be vacated more quickly and then immediately filled by another driver who happens to be driving by (because there is a shortage of parking).

Re:They hate our freedom

[pr0fessor]

I pay taxes that are used to build and maintain roads including public parking, why on earth would I allow a third party to make money off public parking if it's not re-invested into the road system (hopefully to address problems with parking).