No more free parking for you.

Today after my run I happened to notice a modern artifact on the sidewalk that I hadn't seen before. Let me rephrase that. I happen to notice a modern artifact that I have seen before in other areas of the city. Specially on those where there is limited parking "free" space so you have to pay to have the privilege to park on the street but not on these small part of town where there is not that much traffic, we are close to the University and a community college.

Why would the city want to start charging us?

I asked myself, and I was kind enough to response myself with another question.

Why do you think you can park for free on the street?

Well, I have my theories but I am not going to share them with you. OK if you insist I will.

• Numero 1: There is not enough money in the city to pay for all the bills so they have to place these artifacts on the street so we can help with the bills

• Numbero 2: Some of the neighbors complained of too many cars parked on the street, so this will keep people away from parking all day on the street

• Numero 3: The city figured out that a lot of students and workers were using the streets as a free parking and came up with a plan to charge us all (due to the schools being in the area along with small businesses).

I am inclined to think the third option did it for them I believe it went something like this:

"Myself (the city talking to itself), look at all those cars parked on the street! now if I could only figure out a way to have the owner pay me the small amount of money per hour they are parked there, I will even be willing to give them evenings and weekends for "free", in any case they will be at home on evenings and weekends with the cars in their own garage or street."

Well, I guess they came up with the "perfect" formula. Accordingly to the Downtown Austin Parking website, the price to pay per hour is just 1 dollar. Yes, 1/5 of what you pay for a cafe-latte at a coffee shop, so not a big deal at all (right).

Lets break it down to a simple math:

1 (dollar per hour )
x 8 (hours per day)
= $8
x 1000 (estimated cars parked at any given time on the street)
= $8,000
x 5 (days of the week)
=$40,000
x 4 (weeks per month)
= $160,000
x 12 (months in a year)
= $1,920,000

Interesting number there, but I am sure I am way off and I might be over exaggerating the number so lets round off the number to just 1,000,000 per year for people parking on the street.

But don't take my word for it, another website states that in 2007 (three years before this post) there were more than $100 million in penalties that haven't been paid. I mean common people! pay your fines. They are only $35 bucks a ticket, the city needs you.

I hope that money is being used well and that its able to hire lots of people to clean... the machines, or something. Because the roads - to my point of view- they all look the same.

So what we have learned here? A good business model always works. As long as it is done well it will pass unnoticed to the general public and bring a lot of revenue.