I’m fascinated by the modalities of owning a car in NYC. I’ve read that most people don’t have assigned parking spaces and use garages, which often have 24-hr waits for accessing one’s vehicle since a valet needs time to get it out of a tightly packed space. This is backed up by multiple sources \[1\]\[2\].
I’m figuring, a hypothetical garage that let people self-park whenever they want would command a price premium for the convenience, and save on the staffing costs of valets. How is it that such a garage doesn’t come into existence and put the valet-only garages out of business?
\[1\] [https://jalopnik.com/owning-a-car-in-new-york-is-absolutely-worth-it-1782352176](https://jalopnik.com/owning-a-car-in-new-york-is-absolutely-worth-it-1782352176)\[2\] SpotHero’s guide to NYC parking – link omitted since it has a chance of triggering a spam filter
Edit: It looks like the point about taking 24 hrs to retrieve a car is out-of-date – it’s more like 30 mins.
In: Economics
It doesn’t take 24 hours to retrieve a car from a garage in NYC. Maybe there are some that have that policy, but the dozens and dozens I’ve used (and everyone I know who parks a car in NYC uses) retrieve cars in 20-30 minutes. Used to be you’d call ahead and they’d have the car pulled out and waiting for you by the time you got to the garage, but now you just send a text or click something on an app to let them know you’re coming to get the car.
Parking garages in the really congested parts of NYC (like most of Manhattan) use car elevators to raise and lower cars to different levels. There aren’t ramps to drive up and down, and there’s no way you want car owners using those elevators. Besides, it’s really convenient to have someone get your car and have it waiting for you rather than having to get to it and navigate down to ground level (or up to ground level for underground garages). And it’s much safer to have people really familiar with all the tight spaces and parking protocols of the garage moving the cars rather than each individual.
There’s no premium for being able to get to your car yourself in a place like NYC, at least the more congested parts. And the personnel costs are nothing compared to the costs of having a building in NYC.
There are several motorcycle garages that I know of and they work differently, but even those usually have two levels of motorcycle parking per floor (one on the floor itself, and one on a mini-lift that raises it above the ones parked on the floor). Those aren’t typically valet, but you may need to have them move a bike under yours and lower yours to the ground before you can ride away.
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