Those of you who saw his article a few weeks back will be pleased to hear Kelvin MacKenzie took a remarkable second place in his local council elections. Already the climbdown over parking charges has begun: the cost of a day’s parking at Weybridge Station is suddenly not £5 but £4. It’s the same story in my birthplace of Usk, where rebellious townsfolk recently rejected the idea of paying for parking at all — with the result that the car park is invariably full and hence totally useless.
One thing the denizens of Usk and Weybridge clearly share is an unfamiliarity with the work of UCLA Professor Donald Shoup and his masterwork The High Cost of Free Parking. Shoup, an economist and urban planner, attacks not expensive parking but free or cheap parking, claiming it is a hidden subsidy to the motorist which costs the US economy over $200 billion annually — more than is spent on Medicare.
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