Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car
This topic is discussed at length in the book, &quot;Green Metropolis&quot;. It&#x27;s part of a bigger issue of always putting cars first. You can&#x27;t build a large building without first doing a traffic study. If you bring too much traffic, you can&#x27;t build it. Never mind that traffic is about the only cost in America that you can increase to make public transportation more appealing.<p>Generally U.S. building codes include a maximum building height, and require minimum parking spaces. Many European cities have maximum parking spaces, and minimum building height. The latter produces higher population densities which make public transportation possible.<p>We need to push back against suburban sprawl and the car-first design. No required parking, no free curbside parking, and a carbon tax on gasoline. Once cities get a population density &gt;7 people per acre, public transportation becomes viable. Population density follows a logarithmic curve with miles traveled per person, so you get as much of a reduction from moving from 2 to 20 people per square acre, as from 20 to 200.