There’s a beefeater (UK pub/restaurant chain) in my town that recently made their car park pay and display. Their customers have resorted to parking on the grass verges and pavements leading up to the building, causing safety issues (blocking views of turning onto a 50 road, covering pavement and forcing pedestrians into the road; that sort of thing).
I’m sure if the local council started charging them for the damage caused to the green, or even the damage caused by accidents due to their customers choice of parking, the car parking fee would quickly disappear.
Tbh, I’m surprised it hasn’t already. Their car park is always empty now, so it’s not generating revenue, and they used to have double the amount of cars you see round there now… so my guess is people fucked off somewhere else, and this attempt at squeezing just resulted in a permanent loss of regular revenue
Yeah we have tons of empty beachfront parking lots around here too because people don’t want to pay to park. Instead people park their cars up along the local streets. And even if you do pay to park there, the law requires the lot to be empty by 7pm, so nobody wants to fucking park there even if they pay. Beachfront parking lots are a tragic waste of nature space.
Based on all of those “Trivago” commercials I’ve seen I can only conclude that the whole hotel industry is a scam, trying to trick you into giving them more money than what the room is worth.
the room is worth what people are willing to pay for it. if it was too expensive it would be vacant.
Passive-aggressive bullshit, brought on by emotional immaturity, and social anxiety.
Fucking children running around in adult bodies.
always baffles me how people would pay 100s per night for a hotel and then act like an extra 10 bucks to park is TOO FAR.
I’m always baffled by how cheap most parking is, outside of private garages for event spaces that are jacked up for suburbanites when they come into the city, that’s the only time it seems expensive to me, and yet they are always full so clearly they aren’t pricing it too high.
More like extra $50.
Good lord, the amount of people who are unwilling to state what their issue is and actually take an action that will change the problem is ridiculous. Nothing suggested in the comments or the post will ever make a connection in the minds of the hotel’s owners or managers. You’ll add to their bottom line, sure, but the hotel going out of business isn’t necessarily a good thing, considering the building will sit there for a few years, be sold to another chain, and reopen. The other hotels in the area are probably charging the same parking fee, or just folding it into their total cost. Maybe since the first hotel closed, they’ll get to tack on more fees with less competition. You’ve accomplished nothing except adding more waste to the junkyard/garbage dump.
Get your ass onto a review site, clearly explain what you’re annoyed with, and state you won’t be going back. Go to another review site, repeat. Repeate. Repeatay. One, it makes the issue clearly visible to other people who might now choose to stay elsewhere, and two, it costs the hotel the same (well, maybe the same) amount of money but now they have an incentive to change whatever it is that annoyed you because of people choosing to stay elsewhere until it’s changed.
I’m a big fan of weaponizing hotel reviews. I review almost every hotel room I stay in, and I’m brutally honest. I say what I like, but I also say what I don’t like. I’m not picky, I only expect a comfortable bed, a clean room, a clean operational bathroom, and an operational TV. If any of those are off, it’s a problem, and it’s going into the review.
It’s surprising how many motels don’t have operational TVs any more. I recently had a run of three motels in a row with non-working TVs.
I expect the bare minimum, that’s all. Fuck up the bare minimum, and I’m going to savage you.
I actually left a good review recently when I had to stay somewhere and only had the laptop. Their IT fellow was super helpful in helping me connect to the internet, despite my inexperience with the linux side of internet connection issues.
I leave good, even great reviews, when warranted. I especially like to call out employees by name, when they’ve done something extra for me. That way, even corporate sees it, in case they have that manger who takes credit for everything.
I prefer to leave good reviews, but a bad review is somewhat satisfying after a bad stay.
I propose a compromise: Parking is free, but there’s a discount if you don’t need car storage space.
how ia this different?
Because then the price to stay isn’t falsely advertised.
Reframing is helpful.
this is literally the same thing
Exactly. “Free parking” is a fucking ridiculous concept. It’s just making others pay for it.
Are you unfamiliar with what “reframing” means?
Touché, I see what you mean now.
Psychologically different, humans are loss averse, being charged for something they feel is normal behavior leads to them acting out. Not winning a discount because it’s not worth it is easier to accept. Same bottom line, different behavior outcomes
God forbid your 2 ton hunk of metal doesn’t get free storage everywhere you go.
There are so many places in the US that are functionally impossible to travel to, without some very expensive and impractical transit.
Hotels charge parking to make extra money. They need you to drive to them for vacation, otherwise they would go out of buisness
While I do agree that cars take up far too much space, charging a guest for parking is a bit of a dick move under most circumstances.
Edit: How much of one depends on circumstance. A dense city with a public transit system is a much different beast than a more inaccessible area. The hotel next to the conference center two tram stops from a park-and-ride has a pretty damn good case for charging for parking.
Sadly people seem to struggle with thinking in terms that aren’t black and white. A position like yours seems to blow their mind.
Most hotels would have a good case to charge for parking if we had things like land value taxes.
It still takes up space, that you either have to rent/buy extra as hotel or can’t use for more sensible stuff. If anything, if parking is free, everybody is paying the fee even if you don’t use parking.
While I do agree that cars take up far too much space, charging a guest for parking is a bit of a dick move under most circumstances.
It’s really not. Most of the time this is because the local jurisdiction taxes parking in some way, and as is always the case in the US, the local business isn’t going to absorb those fees.
Either pay for parking directly, or pay for it in the cost if the room regardless if you parked or not.
For a hotel in the US, Yes.
???
These people don’t even consider by mistake the impact that their childish retaliation has on the environment, I find it deeply depressing
My first tought. Dickheads.
Of all the extra fees, parking fees seem like some of the most sensible…
Out of town I can understand getting upset, but city centre hotels usually only have tiny car parks, if any at all.
One of those nuanced things the internet doesn’t do very well at, I feel.
Honestly, hotels are the one place where I think parking should be free (included in the price, anyway).
I stay there when I’m traveling. There’s a decent chance it’s either a road trip or I’m flying somewhere and probably renting a car to get around. I don’t make a habit of staying at hotels near my home.
There’s a bunch of places where you go in your own city, those make more sense to have paid parking because you could more reasonably use public transit or walk.
When cars are sacred :)
Even better, a bit of melted ice cream poured down the air conditioner vents of your polluting rolling hunks of metal will make your car smell like vomit for eternity.
Jesus, I swear some people are incapable of understanding other places.
I would love to take a train to my vacation destination. Not possible in the US at all. An 8 hour drive can become a 16hr bus or train ride that costs double that of driving.
I live in a country now that has good trains and buses. I love it, it’s 100% better.
But I can’t bring myself to be so pissed at someone that wants a family vacation and has to drive due to their country’s failure to implement public transit.
Most people in the world grow up in a country that is fraction of the size of America, and developed in the era of history before cars. If a city developed and grew in the Middle Ages, it is going to be a tightly organized place, so people can get to other parts of the city by walking or horse draw transportation.
But America had most of its development during the car era, and cities adopted a larger sprawl, even creating suburbs, from which people could drive.
Now that we’re built up this way, with lots of suburbs, it’s common for people to live 30-60 minutes, by car, to their workplace. Stores restaurants, schools, etc., are all too far to walk, or even bike, and the route may be dangerous due to traffic. Cars are essential to live a normal life.
There is an effort to upgrade public transportation, but things like trains are always going to be better within the cities. Traveling between cities is just too far, and even current trains aren’t sufficient. It literally takes the same time to drive, and is probably going to be less expensive than a train ticket. If we had maglev bullet trains it would be faster, but the price would also be much higher.
We’ve already developed as a car society, and our geographic size makes trains and busses problematic anyway. We can try to add bullet trains, and a other efforts to relieve traffic, but we will probably always be a car culture in America.
I have to say that’s simply not true.
America is car centric not because it has to be, but because it was lobbied for.
Back in the 1920s we actually had a more robust transit system. Until Ford and the other auto manufacturers pushed for more roads. I know of places growing up that are now 1.5hrs away by car, but they used to have an affordable train that took 1 hour. I don’t remember those trains, but my grandparents did.
And you are right about some points. The density and distance in the US is a challenge. There will never be a bus route near my childhood home. The nearest gas station was 3 miles away and there were not enough people to justify it. But there is no reason why there couldn’t have been a bus near that gas station to take people into town.
Also you are 100% wrong about trains. City to city travel is where they would be the most useful in the US. Trains can travel large distances very effectively if given the proper infrastructure. Amtrak is a joke, but it is not even close to good rail infrastructure. Rail can be so much better and is so much better in many countries. And you may say these countries are smaller than the US, and you’d be right, but they are similar in size to many states. If we had travel that efficient within state it would be a major improvement.
A system of hubs designed to take people into cities and between them would be the ideal solution with the current density.
I want American car culture to die. I hope it does, but I won’t hate people for needing a car because it is necessary in America.
Absolutely valid, although I disagree with:
I want American car culture to die.
But at least you had this qualifier:
I hope it does, but I won’t hate people for needing a car because it is necessary in America.
I don’t mind cars remaining (and even you acknowledge that they are necessary in America), I just want better, faster, cheaper alternatives, so that their use is diminished significantly. When I visit relatives in NYC (often), I love using the trains and busses. My car usually sits unused most of the time I’m there. I would love to use mass transit in my own city if it was decent. About all I use it for is to go to the airport, which has been a terrific convenience. It’s nice to be able to tell someone to drop off or pick me up at the local train station instead of the airport.
Your history is correct, and the auto and oil companies even encouraged and incentivized cities to abandon their electric trolly lines, in favor of gas-swilling, smoke belching internal combustible engines. It’s really a combination of all the factors we both mentioned, and a whole lot more besides.
A big problem is that travel within cities and suburbs is one kind of transportation problem, and traveling between cities is a different kind of problem, and they often require different strategies and solutions that can be in conflict with each other. Regular trains and subways may work in the city, but not maglevs, which are better for long distance travel. So how do we have both, when new railways are hard to create, and the old ones are already crowded?
Add to that the simple fact that the sheer enormity of the country is an immutable variable that makes transportation alternatives necessary, but also very problematic.
I think a national bullet train infrastructure has to be America’s next big improvement, if we could keep the oil companies and their stooges from stopping it.
But I can’t bring myself to be so pissed at someone that wants a family vacation and has to drive due to their country’s failure to implement public transit.
you could use that exact same argument to justify a lot of bad things and systemic failures
I can be pissed at the system and not those forced to live in it
But I can’t bring myself to be so pissed at someone that wants a family vacation and has to drive due to their country’s failure to implement public transit.
Is that an X.com ad or what!
A small knife can take away some of the caulk around the bathtub if you like to play the long game.
