Auckland city is a beautiful place. I wouldn't live anywhere else. But we are not a $16-an-hour town. What if someone from the South Island hears about this. We will be a laughing stock. "Ha, ha, ha - have you seen what those idiots in Auckland are paying for parking?"
The parking company probably doesn't care what I think. New Zealand parking buildings are just a small part of their massive international operation. They're so big and we're so small. How do we fight back? What can a tiny little Kiwi do? I thought long and hard about this and there's only one course of action. Jump on the Hang Seng and buy shares in the parent company. As a stockholder you'll stop complaining and start enjoying the $32 for two hours. Humiliating central city parkers will put money in your pocket.
So I will be selling my car immediately and using the money to invest in the parking business. With skin in the game I'll be down at the carpark every day, sitting in a deck chair, watching on and laughing as suckers pay $32 for two hours' parking. Better still, having sold my car, I'll have no reason to pay myself. Win-win.
Hopefully the $350 I'll get from selling "The Faj" will buy me a big healthy stake. I'm looking forward to being a big fish in this parking world.
Obviously I am not the first person in this city to whinge about the cost of parking. We Aucklanders are constantly saying things like "no wonder central city retailers are struggling. Why would anyone drive into town and pay $32 for two hours when they can park at a mall for free?" We also say things like "the city council are a pack of dicks for letting this happen".
The blame game is fun but it all boils down to simple maths.
If we ignore day rates and early bird deals and concentrate on my $32 for two hours we get some interesting numbers. Sixteen dollars an hour is $384 a day, is $2688 a week. A park is around 15m square; a two-bedroom inner city apartment might be 50m square. So let's multiply our park value by 33.3. That's $8870 a week.
You'd get a pretty goddamn flash place in the city for $9000 a week and it would be better decked out than a car park. Even the worst apartment has a bathroom, walls, power, plumbing, a kitchen, doors, windows. Your $8870 a week carpark will get you nothing but floor. It's draughty, noisy, plagued by traffic and offers absolutely no privacy. If I'm paying $8870 a week I want sea views, a jacuzzi and somewhere to put my bed.
We Aucklanders are being insulted and degraded simply because we want to take our car to town. Humiliated by the filthy greed of parking machines. But, like people who fall for Nigerian scams, we should know better. What kind of idiot casually parks in a central city parking building on a weekday?
Maybe one day I'll recover from paying $32 for two hours' parking and learn to park again but for now the wounds are too raw.
Of course that might change when my first dividend arrives.
