Can You Spare A Parking Space?
Parking in Tacoma seems to be a topic at every single meeting, lunch, dinner, or cafe conversation these days… and I swear it’s not me. Maybe we need to think outside the box a bit. Instead of huge federally funded parking garages and downtown parking meters, maybe all we need to do is share what we already have. And by share, what I mean is rent, beg, and borrow. This site was sent to us by a super-cool Exit133 reader – Peasy.com is a UK website that allows people to rent out their spare parking spot. Then, people that need a spot for a day, week, or month can search available locations and book it online. From a story on Springwise.com:
Any off-street parking spaces can be rented out: driveways, garages and secure allocated spaces. Peasy estimates most people will earn GBP 10-30 a week, for an extra stream of income of GBP 500-1,500 per year. In prime locations, spaces can go for as much as GBP 3,000 per year. Listing a parking space is free, and Peasy takes a commission fee of 12% for each rental transaction.
Hmmm… it has me thinking. Are there any underutilized, spare, or non-traditional parking possibilities in Tacoma? Would you rent your garage by the day if somebody was interested? Maybe. Maybe not.
Link to Springwise
Link to Peasy.com
(Via our friends at Beautiful Angle)
Filed under: Parking
5 comments
K Kevindot1 September 9, 2008
Well this must explain the lack up updates to the GritCity blog.
E Erik S September 9, 2008
I’m really sorry to see that. I hope that the TNT can stay afloat. With all due respect to the E133 gang, blogs cannot replace (or at least have not yet found a way to replace)the investigative journalism that papers do (when they are at their best). As a friend said to me just now, this isn’t just bad for reporters and news junkies, it’s also bad for our democracy. How are people going to find out what’s happening?
D Derek staff September 9, 2008
With all due respect to the E133 gang …
Nobody at Exit133 has ever claimed that we’d replace newspapers. We don’t aspire to that particular depth and breadth. We like newsprint. We do what we do.
The decline of papers should not mean the decline of investigative journalism, however. The medium of putting words in front of somebody shouldn’t matter. Blog format is simply a format. Broadsheet. Digital. Slick and glossy magazines. Whatever. In the past, newspapers have been the organization with the means and interest to fund journalists. There will always be a place for investigative journalism. The difference in the future is that the words, in the end, may end up someplace other than in newsprint.
Y You're Welcome September 9, 2008
Is this why the Tacoma News Tribune is packed full of stories about Puyallup, Federal Way, and Gig Harbor? Don’t those cities have their own newspapers?
M Mofo from the Hood September 9, 2008
There may be a correlation between reduced advertising revenue and employee layoffs; but the correlation doesn’t mean cause and effect.
If the demand for newspapers is based strongly on advertising then Little Nickel Want Ads should be laying off a significant number of employees.
I tend to believe that most people buy newspapers as a means to reliable information about daily world events; local, national, and international news.
Other mediums such as radio, television, and the internet have one great advantage—-they can provide immediate coverage of a current event. But the coverage is usually superficial.
An old adage from the newspaper business goes like this: There are two sides to every story. Did you get both sides? The print medium, if established with bright writers and staff and if recognized as a reliable source, can offer the depth and breadth that Derek noted, and that many readers want—-A newspaper needn’t have the story and time limitations of electronic media. Newspapers may lack speed delivering stories to the consumer, but they can surely match and even surpass the electronic media with well researched and well-told stories.
All in all, the Tribune is a business and so beyond creative writing, balancing income and expenses is a major everyday concern.
I don’t doubt that the Tribune needs to cut expenses. One thing that I do know, and anyone could easily confirm this, the corporate campus is extravagant. Just for the fun of it, go downtown to the corner of South 7th between St. Helens and Opera Alley and check out their old shop.