Canadian Bureaucrats Don't "Think Different" 427
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.'"
I don't quite get it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
kdawson spam (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't quite get it.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't quite get it.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems someone at the city has missed a way to make a buck, and fix their traffic problem.
Bad quote... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't quite get it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The city didn't miss an opportunity to make money. Apple wanted to pay the equivalent of the parking fares for the next 5 years. However, the city makes way more money from parking tickets than from parking meters.
Retarded Story (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Have a store employee continually feed meters (Score:3, Insightful)
Remove meters, install bike racks. (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:Have a store employee continually feed meters (Score:1, Insightful)
No Parking And "Smart Growth" are Flawed Concepts (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org] to the economy.
Re:Not really a quote (Score:3, Insightful)
There's the matter of cars taking up the spots all day, unless it's posted Car Park limit 1 Hour, also having a parking warden come along and chalk tyres and monitor vehicles where the old meter was simply expired or not. (Though were I live they keep a limit of two hours on a vehicle in the same spot, meter paid up or no.)
I call bullshit. (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Cue the anti government rants! (Score:5, Insightful)
In defense of libertarians: the nice thing about business is that they go out of business (i.e. bankruptcy) whereas governments are much harder to get rid off once they are entrenched into an inefficient position (i.e. governments cannot go bankrupt, at lest not in the traditional sense that the entity is dissolved). Businesses come and go and that is fine as the market weeds out the less efficient players, but governments are always there and can be very difficult to remove or replace once they get into a spending program funded by taxes and backed up by police power to collect.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:1, Insightful)
> a way to encourage all those hipster Apple fans to come to their store by, say, public transportation
I think you've missed the point. Apple didn't want to get rid of the traffic meters so that customers wouldn't need to pay; they wanted to get rid of them because (they think) they look ugly.
It's Apple, so it must be okay then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid article and stupid writer.
Re:I don't quite get it.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would rather see a government avoid using brute force measures where gentle persuasion would suffice. Especially when the latter earns money rather than spends it on more traffic cops.
Besides, if it were primarily about the income, the city government would have jumped at the cash offer.
Gotta love those English speaking Canadians. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You know it's a Slow newsday when ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cue the anti government rants! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't quite get it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cue the anti government rants! (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone has a different definition of efficient because everyone has a different cost structure.
You can't "kill" an inefficient government short of staging a coup and killing people.
You can "kill" an inefficient company by creating a MORE efficient company.
Re:It's Apple, so it must be okay then? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My farts don't stink. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:My farts don't stink. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not really a quote (Score:2, Insightful)
RTA: Apple's goal is NO CARS, not free parking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not really a quote (Score:2, Insightful)
1. The city can support bicycles year 'round, instead of only having 5-7 months of bicycle-capable weather
2. There is sufficient parking during winter months (nevermind the mega-city incompetance resulting in the snow-removal contracts which leave snow in parking areas for days at a time).
If you work downtown - but don't live close to a metro (subway) - or train stop - you're f***ed.
To be fair, Quebec and Montreal gov't bureaucracy is narrow-mindend and limited beyond the scope of what is normally accepted for those mentalitites (hell - look at the idiocy for what's going on with St. Laurent Blvd. - different companies working on projects spanning over a year - every one rips the road up, does their sh**, and replaces the road, before the next company takes over and does the same thing). I know several businesses which have closed up simply because of this idiocy.
Just to work I pay in the order of $500 in parking tickets, as it is - because 2 minutes late = parking ticket, and conference calls are seldom forgiving. I don't see any road improvements - we have third-world quality roads.
So the article, although an editorial, really does ring true.
If Apple can pay for those spots fulltime, let them.
Re:I don't quite get it.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't quite get it.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's Apple, so it must be okay then? (Score:3, Insightful)
offensive yet boring and stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:Not really a quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not really a quote (Score:5, Insightful)
No they don't. In real cities, people don't need cars at all (I don't know for sure whether Montreal is a real city, but from what I hear, it's not too bad).
Apple is clearly a bit confused by this concept (being headquartered in Cupertino, I suppose it's understandable).
Sorry folks but the answer is building green cars not in banning parking spaces.
No. The fundamental problem with cars is that they suck up space, and "green cars" do absolutely nothing to address that.
Re:Not really a quote (Score:3, Insightful)
It must also be "lower-gravity Sweden" or you do your grocery shopping at least 5 times a week. I also have a family of 5 and every week we fill the trunk of a hatchback Renault Clio. But I live in bike-unfriendly Brazil and I also live 18 km from the nearest decent supermarket.
Re:You know it's a Slow newsday when ... (Score:1, Insightful)
The story made the news here on TV. Apple says (fake numbers) "Since you make an average of 6000$ per parking meter in a year, we will pay you for all parking in the area, and remove the meters".
This does not make sense for 2 main reasons:
1) The city makes a lot more money with parking tickets, than your "average 8 hour a day at 2$ per hour" meter.
2) The meters are there to insure "movement"; 5 or 10 potential customers circulate in the area for ALL stores in a wide area to profit from. Apple Free Parking would simply be filled with workers of the area parking from morning to midnight. Or should the city also pay for some sort of time limit validation system?
3) Private parking businesses make a lot of money with parking too, mostly daily workers. As much as I hate them (they are almost criminals) this would affect their business.
If apple wants more parking, do like other businesses, make a deal with a local private parking and validate their tickets. BTY parking ticket validation is NOT something very common here. There is a lot of free parking (pure chance to get one) and private parking makes you pay on entry, good luck to get any money back if you return before the max time.
What they SHOULD have asked, is to ask for the meters to be replaced by "Maximum 1 hour parking" signs, like at numerous other places in the city.