Parking structures are insanely expensive. Like, each parking spot in a parking structure costs like 30X what it costs to build a surface parking spot. It’s a crapload of concrete, and with climate change, concrete ain’t getting cheaper (concrete is extremely carbon-intensive, it releases CO2 intrinsically, not just from power-generation).
edit, since I’m getting downvotes and I assume this post is being read as an endorsement of city-destroying surface parking: The correct solution is just to not do parking at all except for extreme needs and focus on human-scale transportation.
Parking in general is expensive, along with all of the rest of car infrastructure.
Yes, but concrete parking structures are an order of magnitude moreso. Assuming $50k per parking spot and a 25-year mortgage, each spot will incur $328.58 in monthly mortgage costs. Assuming full occupancy every workday and zero on weekends (21 workdays per month) that means the daily parking fee should be $16 just to break even. This is a thumbnail sketch of course, but it shows the kind of costs we’re talking about.
