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Edit: It looks like the point about taking 24 hrs to retrieve a car is out-of-date – it’s more like 30 mins.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
The valet parking garages have a much higher parking density that self parking. Not only are the cars closer together and double or triple parked, but the valet garages usually use an elevator rather than having to have a series of ramps. Double the car desnity and you can charge 30% less and still profit madly. The 30% less is worth it because a monthly parking space is between $400 and $700 a month in NYC. When parking in the garage they almost always ask when you will want it back, so they know how deeply they can park it. I’ve never had to wait more than 30 minutes for a car, and that was more about the five people in line front of me and the elevator getting backed up.
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