Quote:
Originally Posted by getbak
Okay, then we agree. User fees for all.
The problem I have is that we all know that people aren't good with nuance and people like Farkas take full advantage of that. So, when he says "they want to charge you to park on the street in front of your house", he knows that will rile up people who will take it at face-value and won't actually look into the details and realize it's a small administrative fee for the small number of homes that are located in residential parking zones and will have no impact on the vast majority of Calgarians who live in the suburbs.
That CTV story on this is hilarious. It has a quote from Farkas that is five sentences long and he uses some variation of the phrase "pay to park in front of your own home" three times.
The funny thing is, until this made the news last year, I just assumed there was already a fee to get a parking permit. So, I was actually surprised when I first heard it, and like most people, my first reaction was, "What, they're going to charge for residential street parking?" Then, I read the details and thought, oh, I thought they already charged for that.
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User fees for things like permit zone parking are a terrible idea to introduce directly because of budget shortfalls. I really wish they would focus on ensuring property taxes are sufficient for services, and if they aren't, then focus on properly budgeting for the services being provided and being up front about what they need.
Pitting Calgary citizens against each other in some sort of deathmatch to see whose subsidized services are more worthwhile is terrible and divisive and is going to lead to some pretty dark places over the next decade if that's the solution to the massive budget shortfall we're facing. It'll play directly into populist rhetoric as you said and will lower the general interest in matters that are actually relevant and important as people get burnt out fighting over stupid #### like residential parking fees.
$300 here, $200 there, etc. etc. depending on where in the City you live is an awful way to govern a City. Run a City, not a set of competing fiefdoms.