Why cities should be working with parking apps

Preventing apps like Haystack and MonkeyParking from existing might make cities miss out on beneficial solutions for their inhabitants.

Parking apps like Haystack, MonkeyParking, and others have stirred up a lot of opinions of late. When I first heard about these apps I thought they were interesting ideas, I actually had thought about building them myself, but really didn’t give them any further thought. After having a discussion about them at work, however, I have come to realize that many people find these apps not only wrong but downright offensive.

The most public outcry came from Boston’s Mayor Martin J. Walsh whose biggest complaint was that the apps were artificially inflating parking prices and giving some drivers an unfair advantage over others. They have also been called out for brokering the sale of public property. Haystack’s founder, Eric Meyer, has countered they are merely providing a cash incentive for drivers to swap information.

I completely understand where Mayor Walsh is coming from and feel those are valid concerns that need to be addressed, however, I don’t think a cease-and-desist letter is the correct response. Instead of trying to prevent these apps from existing, the cities should work with them to come up with a solution both parties can agree on. There is some talk that might be what’s happening but so far it seems like the two sides are still far from collaborating on these ideas.

At the heart of these apps lies a problem even the people against them can understand, trying to find parking spots nowadays is a major pain. I believe that this is the problem these apps are ultimately trying to solve.

To try and solve this problem, they have taken the low-cost approach. Instead of having to buy/build and install expensive hardware at every parking spot in a city, they created an app where people can find out information about a city’s current parking situation. This is understandable since they are a young company with probably little or no funding.

You might not like the marketplace that exists with the exchange of information they have created, but you have to understand the incentives for why it exists. I am not going to pull out my phone every time I am about to leave a parking spot just to provide this information for free, but if there was a little monetary value when I did, I might be more willing to do so.

In my opinion, cities need to allow these platforms to exist because we all stand to benefit greatly if they are allowed to evolve and grow. The final implementation will not be the way they exist today, that’s true of every technology, but killing it now will prevent it from ever realizing its full potential. Imagine when the streets are filled with self-driving cars. Wouldn’t it be great to have a platform where the parked cars could communicate with those driving around to tell them when they would be leaving and to fill those spots when they are needed? City transportation and parking would be much more efficient and make all of our lives better. We’re not going to get there if we prevent people from trying out ideas and instead ignore working with them to come up with the best solution.

Cities owe it to their citizens to try and work with these platforms and focus on solving the real issue: finding parking in an ever more crowded city.

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