Flightless Bird: Cars

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick back. In episode 52, I went with Monica to the DMV to get my driver's license. It was a harrowing episode, but I emerged victorious. You passed.

I'm so proud of you. That was very scary. It's taken me over a year to do this, I've put it off so many times. We had that huge failure last time and I have you to thank for that because you've been here every step of the way through the failures and the passes.

I can't believe it. With my California driver's license in hand, I got my first car. Joining 278 million Americans who drive around this giant melting pot of a country, I joined 278,065,727 Americans to be precise. now, thanks to me, it was 278,065,728. And looking at driving statistics in America, I discovered I was part of a trend.

Or, as Rihanna said.

Now shut up and drive, drive, drive.

Shut up and drive, drive, drive.

She wasn't subtle, and Springsteen wasn't all that subtle either.

Wrong from cages on highway lines, one wheel feel objective steppin out of the line.

Born to run, Springsteen meant born to drive. There's something baked into the American psyche about hitting the road. There's a reason Route 66 is a term everyone knows the world over.

Flightless, flightless, flightless. Bird touchdown in America.

You're back from your trip.

I am back.

Did you have a good time?

In the flesh, I did have a good time.

You're rejuvenated, refreshed. I'm not a new person.

I feel tired.

Well, no, you don't look tired. Oh good, you seem great.

Thank you, I have a new eye cream. Oh, that's cool, so that could be why I don't look tired.

I've started using a facial moisturizer for the first time in my life.

For the first time.

First time ever.

Do you mind sharing the brand?

It's, Oh, I don't know, don't? I saw it at the chemist and I just like, Maybe I should try a moisturizer like I'm 40, yes.

Yeah, you can night and morning, Okay, do you wash your face?

No.

Okay, so you're going to want.

I take the Dax method of letting it self-clean.

I think you're going to want, especially if you're moisturizing, I would appreciate if you washed it first.

To clarify, I put water on it, like I shower, you splash it. I just don't like soap it up. I get pimples and stuff if I start using soap or like a thing.

Well, look, your skin looks great, so maybe you don't need to wash it, but the idea of not washing my face is very incredible. Dread that would not work for me.

My friend in New Zealand, Dan, started using a facial moisturizer in New Zealand. He's a man's man, Dan.

Oh, okay, Burly.

He's not burly, he's quite lithe, actually, but he's a manly man. And he decided he needed to moisturize. His arms are out, he keeps his in, actually.

Oh, really, he wears long sleeves.

But his face started going quite red. He was like, this moisturizer is weird, and he realized that he'd been using a facial cleanser. He'd been putting that on in the morning.

And then not washing.

And leaving it on, and he did that for about three weeks. It's one of the funniest things he's ever done, it's so funny. And then after a while, he was like, This is sort of burning.

Ew.

Oh my god, okay. Well, I think whatever you're doing seems to be working for you. I'm not going to impart my skincare routine, although I do have an extensive skincare routine.

Maybe I'll get your notes and see if it could work for me. Okay, because your skin's good, too.

I feel unethical about something.

Oh.

Okay, hit me.

Because I didn't know what the topic was today. This is what's fun for us, right?

Cars in America.

But it feels very unethical to do an episode on cars and not include Dax.

To be honest, it does. I also feel like we need to feel it out between us.

Okay, that's fair.

But I agree, it is weird, but also kind of funny.

I guess it's the elephant in the room.

It's the elephant in the room.

Not in the room.

Just some quick admin about America because I've been feeling American this week. I'm reapplying for my visa, and that's reminded me that America is so hard to stay in.

Oh my god.

And so I have to apply again with you guys as my sponsor. Yeah, but I'm doing all the same thing, I'm gathering reference letters, I've got to give them 200 pages of text.

Ooh, who's writing you letters?

Well, I'm.

Oh, wow.

And then they kind of make sure it's all okay and they'll change a few words.

Is that common? Like, are we allowed to...?

Maybe I shouldn't be airing this.

I think I've signed one.

Yeah, no, I mean, everyone does it. It's like you kind of like....

Well, I haven't signed one.

All right.

Could you write one? For me? It has to be about a page. I'll give you the format. It basically starts, No.

Mr. Biden.

Dear Mr. Biden, And then you need to send a paragraph establishing why you're the person that should be writing it, so your importance you would establish your worthiness to be writing a letter.

I love this.

And then you need to segue into how you know me.

Okay.

And then you need to do about two pages just praising me.

I thought you said it was one page total.

Two.

Oh, fuck, I'm busy, I can't.

They're deranged these letters, and everyone that applies for this O1 has to go through this process. If ever I'm having a low day, I'll just get out my O1 letters.

That you wrote yourself.

I helped write and just read, Okay, moving on the other thing mail. I've been thinking about doing an episode about the U.S Postal Service.

Weird.

I opened it okay and there was a letter, and I love this so much.

Okay.

Dear Mr. Farrier, The contents of this package were given to Fedex Ground in Houston, Texas, on August the 11th. They were transferred to us by a driver from the U.S. Postal service. In a package swap that we do once per month for packages tended to the wrong carrier, according to the driver. Your package is one of several that they had found in a cargo bin containing primarily DHL packages.

Oh my god.

Never landing with the original intended delivery company. I instructed one of my quality assurance administrators to re-box your package and create a Fedex label so that we could finally forward the package to you. We're almost there. Since the bottom packing tape had dried out and couldn't hold a stick, we can open the bottom flaps and the contents. A small white Socks infant's baseball cap appears to be intact and undamaged.

That's the best you have to frame that.

It's beautiful.

That's unbelievable.

The effort this person went to to get this infant cap to me. Because you always hear nightmare stories. And in the episode, I sort of want to look at how the mail system works, because you always hear about packages missing, sure.

Oh, to get you this little baby cap.

To get you the baby cap.

That is so amazing. I love this person, this person makes me feel bolstered by humanity.

Completely.

Which we need right now.

We really need it right now.

Did he sign his name?

Yeah, I was worried not to say, in case you're not meant to be doing that.

How about the first name?

Vernon.

Vernon.

Beautiful, right?

I love this.

Yeah, so anyway, I'm going to do an episode about the Mail.

Okay, great.

Maybe you can interview Vernon just quickly. Also, I went to the Taylor Swift concert film, it was fun, I posted on Instagram that I was going.

That's right, swifty bracelets.

And they made these.

I'm going to give these to you. Oh, do you want to throw me one both?

I'm going to throw you, I've got one that says Cinny, Oh my god.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

I just threw it over Monica's head and it landed on the floor behind you.

Oh, they're very hard to get.

And they say, flightless bird, and they're really.

Oh, my gosh dropped.

What was that? I don't know, Rob's going in to get them.

Thank you.

That took me back to physical education class at school.

We had to throw a ball.

And the baseball episode just can't throw.

The baseball episode Ding ding ding baseball cap. Yeah, okay, these are adorable.

I'm going to wear it.

Yeah, this woman, I didn't catch her name, but she was really lovely. She had a service dog with her. That was basically the base. This dog was loving it.

Well, that's for another episode, which I cannot wait for and I'll come prepared.

The passion of the fans is real. And just, finally, in my American summary, I'm also working on an episode about Do you know those trees?

I know exactly what you're about to say.

They were a certain smell.

Yes.

I'm working on an episode about those because I found out that they were sort of they're from China originally.

Okay.

They smell like jizz.

So that's funny because you also posted about that and you said that they smell like cum. I guess a lot of people think of it like that. Is it the Bradford Pear, right?

The Bradford pear Tree, Yes.

We had so many fucking Bradford pears outside of my high school.

Right, amazing.

But we used to say they smelled like, period.

Oh, that's interesting, yeah.

And then a lot of people think they smell like semen.

Yeah, so bodily fluid-ish.

Yes.

That's so interesting. Okay, I'm going to die because I am going to definitely go and talk to people on the street about this and find out what they think. It smells like fish is another common sort of thing people seem to.

That's kind of more in the period realm, yeah, the period realm.

But I'm finding out some really fascinating things about this tree, and it goes places.

Oh, I can't wait. This is exciting. These are good Easter eggs. I got you a present when I was in New York, but I'm not going to give it to you until it's relevant.

Oh, it's relevant to an upcoming epi.

Yeah.

I'm excited about this. I wonder what?

I'll have to keep it in my purse because I don't know when.

When I'm going to bring this episode out, yeah, okay, I like this, I'm excited. Okay, that's the admin out of the way.

Cars, housekeeping, okay.

Cars.

You're a fan of the car you drove here today.

I drove here today begrudgingly, I would have preferred to have walked.

Why did you drive?

Timing If I'm running late, I have to drive.

You gotta drive.

Also, I just so happen to be able to walk to this job, but mostly you can't walk to your job.

It's a rarity, right? Yes, and I'm the same, I walk here, but now I've got the car.

Yeah.

It changes the way your brain works in America, I think, and you do start to just drive places you wouldn't normally walk. And I'm fascinated by that, what that's doing to me.

Yeah, what would you say percentage-wise, like, did you drive here today?

I walked today okay, because the weather's kind of different today, it's a bit overcast and it's like a fun atmosphere to kind of be out in.

Okay, I want to be clear, because I don't think it's fair and we're going to get some pushback. I think everyone would agree that, mostly in America, you drive, but in New York you don't have to drive.

Totally, I'm always amazed by people in New York that don't have a driver's license. It's kind of amazing. No driver's license.

No driver's license, she doesn't know how to drive.

It's so mad to me. Because New Zealand is very similar to L.A. and I think per capita, our car ownership is pretty much on par with L.A. It's very similar in that our public transport kind of sucks, yeah.

It's just very widespread. The city, yeah, that's how Atlanta is, too. I mean, we do have there's Marta there.

What's that?

It's a public transportation, but often you then have to drive to the Marta station.

Yeah, totally.

And then you get where you need to get, but it's just some places have it dialed and others don't.

Absolutely. The other thing I find kind of fascinating and this is where this ends up going is the concept of parking, because that is something we really take a swerve into parking. Oh, I can't.

I love that.

Actually, let's just I'm going to get into the dog, okay, and we'll come out of it and chat about it. Cars in America intertwined?

When I started thinking about how much America loves cars, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I think that's because being in Los Angeles, driving is inevitable. Back when I didn't have a car, I still needed to drive. So I'd order Lyfts or Ubers, or wait for a friend to pick me up. Sure, there's public transport here.

This video's coming to us from Santa Clarita, where people in these two cars can be seen throwing things at each other. This is in an in-n-out drive-thru. They threw bleach, juice, water bottles, all of it going back and forth, along with a lot of nasty language.

Out of all the U.S. states, California has the most cars, about 14 million of them. Just because it's so dense. But when it comes to cars per capita, Montana is top dog, just because pretty much everyone in Montana needs a car.

I think I had long been conscious of just what a car-dominated country America is, and just what a seismic effect on American landscape, society and the economy.

For this episode, I'm talking to Henry Grabar, a staff writer at Slate who writes about cars and transportation, urban policy and housing. And he's been thinking a lot about how much of America is taken up by the car and what that's done to America.

That's stuff I felt like I was pretty conscious of in my early career as a journalist. When I started covering cities. And I would write about land use and transportation and housing. And, of course, the automobile, automobile dependency. The creation of the interstate highways, the destruction of Black neighborhoods to build roads, all this stuff was very much something that I was aware of.

The more he thought about it, the more he saw. The ways in which cars affected the American landscape. See most of us, including me, think of cars as being speedy and fast. It's how they've been sold to us for decades.

In a world where less is too often tolerated, Cadillac offers you more in luxury and performance. Cadillac stands alone.

But as Henry thought about it, he realized most of the time, cars aren't moving at all, they're stationary, useless, being stored, they're parked. And I realized this episode wasn't going to be about speedy cars, it was going to be about parked cars.

When you really get down to it. Parking, in some ways, is my conclusion anyway, is more important to the actual position of the car in American society than the actual roads themselves. And that's because the car spends 95 of its time parked, and parking takes up all this space. And so when you think about the car's actual spatial impact on the city, on the landscape, it's actually not in the roads themselves, it's in the parking spaces.

Look, if you want a podcast about fast, speedy cars, Dax has an F1 show you can listen to.

It's really good.

But I was curious about this often not talked about aspect of American cars and car culture, parking. In his book, Henry calls America a paved paradise.

Believe me, there's nothing I hate more than being in the car and having no place to park it. Especially when you have to pee. And you're driving around in circles and you got a kid in the back of the car who's screaming and no, it's a bad situation. It's one of the unfortunate consequences of creating a society in which we have no other way to get around. And so, for a lot of people, finding parking is a precursor to doing literally anything.

Maybe this explains why in America, on average, there are up to six parking spaces for every car. In his book, Henry interviewed someone from the Boston City Council about parking, who told him. The issue speaks to a basic principle of what it means to be an American like the gold miner and the pioneers. Residents have the right to stake their claims, in this case, their claim on a parking space. Once you start thinking about how many cars are parked, you can't stop thinking about it.

Yeah, I think about that a lot. They actually went out, they started measuring things, they went out to their local supermarket with a tape measurer, and they were like, All right. Well, how big is all this stuff? You know, if we're going to create a convincing representation of the real world?

But in real life, parking is a priority. Overall, housing cars has become more important than housing people. This fact is built into zoning laws.

These are the laws that govern what can be built where, in every city and suburb, and they blanket the United States. And they can be very, very specific in determining exactly what kind of stuff you can build. And the laws almost always have a maximum on the amount of housing that can be built on a certain property. And they almost always have a minimum on the amount of parking that can be built on a certain property.

People get precious about their parks. Henry opens his book recounting an incident in Queens where two drivers were both jostling for a spot outside the rainbow bakery.

Things escalate.

The drivers get out of their cars and punches are thrown. One passenger comes out with a baseball bat. Eventually, one of them decides to use their car as a weapon, hitting the other driver. Before jumping the curb and driving directly through the front window of the bakery, it's carnage.

Surveillance video shows the moment a white Audi plunges into a flushing bakery. Neighbors say the crash was deliberate, but the store wasn't the target. Today was a street fight and it got escalated very quickly. We see this car run into the store and people's reaction was, you know, so shocked.

While I wouldn't go that far myself over a parking space, I've definitely felt frustration trying to find a park. But the issue of parking and finding a park extends beyond tit-for-tat parking shenanigans we experience.

You begin to realize there's actually this more fundamental parking fight that's going on, and it's not two people duking it out with a baseball bat. It's neighbors determined to preserve and create as much parking as possible, and neighbors fighting for more parking. And this is actually an extremely influential force in American neighborhood planning, which is the level of planning in this country that matters the most, right? That's where new apartment buildings get approved or denied.

And parking isn't cheap to build, it holds back some housing from being built because it's too expensive. When it comes to underground car parks, especially turns out, they can be harder building down than building up when you break it down. It costs about $28,000 to build each individual parking space in a parking garage.

They're essentially like bridges, I mean, it's post-tensioned, reinforced concrete, so they've got these concrete slabs with these steel cables running through them. And it's a relatively sophisticated form of construction that costs quite a bit of money. And this explains a lot about parking.

There are examples over the last five years from where the rules have loosened in regards to the minimum number of car parks required when building new housing for human beings. And some surprising things have happened. Certain parts of the city have started to look different, maybe a bit like SimCity. When all those parking spaces are taken away, things can start to look better.

In almost every city that has done away with these laws, what we've seen is fewer parking spaces. Getting built. With every new project, and in turn, that makes new projects more affordable. And perhaps more fundamentally, it opens up new possibilities for the types of things that can be built. Because I think one of the shocking things about architecture in this country after the implementation of these parking laws is that we lose touch with the vernacular American style that characterized many of our favorite neighborhoods in our favorite cities. I'm talking about things like bungalow courts in Los Angeles, or Brownstones in Brooklyn, or triple-deckers in Boston.

Stay tuned for more Flightless bird.

We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

Flightless Bird is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Are you a fan of your mattress, Monica?

I do like my mattress. It's changed my life. I mean, as far as it's not a small thing, it's not a small thing.

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Oh my God, it's really good. And then, like magic, it just turns up at your front door. Take it out of the box. Boom springs to action. There it is.

I love that part, seeing it poof out.

It's like magic, it's like a magic trick. I took the Helix Sleep quiz and got matched with a midnight mattress because I wanted something that felt like a medium kind of firmness. And plus, I sleep on my side and back a lot, so that's the thing that worked for me, and I've been having really good sleeps here in America.

I know it's kind of your thing.

It is my thing, honestly, giving someone a digital frame that's preloaded with photos of them that are either like, really lovely. Or you can also take the more comedic option and just load it with what you want. It's a really fun gift and, honestly, people their little eyes light up.

It's a very thoughtful gift.

Yeah, I'm going back to New Zealand, I think soon for a little bit. And I'm going to give my parents a frame because my mom and dad always want to know what I'm doing here and I email them. But photos, they bring it to life. It's really easy to set up, it takes a couple of minutes per frame using the Aura app.

I think it's really cool also because you can add unlimited photos and videos, and you can invite multiple people to a frame.

The other thing I like is that you can update the frame. So if you have set it up as a gift, you can send other photos to it. It's kind of the perfect gift for any occasion. From now through Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Aura is having their best deal of the year. The sisters can save $40 on their best-selling Carver Matte frame using Auraframes.com. Slash Bird.

Everywhere.

Houses, garages on the street, people circling the street, looking for parking, going to get coffee with, like, Maru, with Rob, you just circle, circle.

Yeah, I find myself conflicted in this doc.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just curious what your reaction is. So he's written this book, Pave Paradise, and I just picked it off a bookshelf. And it was just basically about how parking in America, and so other countries as well, but just because America is so car-centric, it's big here, yeah.

Somewhere, yeah.

And that's such a weird thing, and it's like, it's one of those things that's right in front of you. But you never think about it, and once you start thinking of it, it's just so odd.

Yeah, and no, it is, and you're right, it's something none of us ever think about.

Because you texted me coming in here, you texted me like, I can't find a park. Just tell me what was different about how normally it's like, had something changed the parking today?

So two things. One in the neighborhood today, everyone's parked on the street, yeah, partly because parts of the street are blocked off.

Right?

Where you would normally be parking, now it's like all jammed up.

Yeah.

Also, sometimes when it's crowded in the neighborhood, I park on an adjacent street, but that street today has street cleaning.

Yeah, so everyone can't be on that side of the street.

So no one can be on one side of the street. So they're parked on the other side of the street, so there's no parking on that side of the street. Yeah, so I was late because I was just driving around, kind of in circles, waiting.

And you're trapped, like, and the other thing I find, and I'm getting used to this, having a car now. And I'm sure it's different in different cities, obviously in different states, but so much of going to a destination. You can do the route on Google Maps and say it'll take me 22 minutes to get there, factoring in how long it's going to take you to car park. Is this wild card at the end of any trip, right? it is.

I was so stressed out when I first moved to L.A. because city parking is so different than suburban parking.

Totally.

You don't worry about it in the suburbs.

Never because there are parking lots and you never have to worry about finding a spot on the street or parallel parking or anything like that. And so when I first moved here, I was so, so stressed out about parking. And I was really bad at parallel parking. So I had to just drive and drive until I could find a spot that I didn't have to parallel park in.

And then walk for like 20 minutes to get to where you want to go.

Yes.

That's the other funny thing I find when you go to park in America, in a parking lot, at a grocery store. There's such competitions for parks closer to the space. And I wonder, like the amount of time people spend circling, looking for a closer spot would be so much quicker if they parked further away and then walked. All that mentality, I just since reading this book, I can't stop thinking about this stuff.

It is funny whenever I'm home, we go to this specific mall in Georgia, it's an outdoor mall, kind of like the grove here in L.A. And it's so funny. Every time we're going there, or really anywhere that's not in our normal routine, my parents are always like, What's the parking like?

Same with my dad. Okay, so this is an international thing. Yeah, my parents obsessed with parking and the spot.

It gets me so irritated. Yeah, I'm like, Well, find something, but anyway....

But it does dictate the journey, it does like the park at the end, it's just such an interesting aspect to life here.

Well, and when I was on shrooms?

Uh-oh.

The one major thing I remember is.

Oh, you had a revelation.

Yes, because they felt.

Okay.

And that they also seemed like little characters, but then there were so many.

Yeah, you're awakened to this thing. I think I've just had a similar awakening, but not on shrooms of just being like, holy shit, cars everywhere.

It's tricky, though, because I don't know how we would do it any differently. In fact, this is part of the dilemma of parking here is that there are seemingly not enough spots. So that's why everyone's panicked. And it takes forever.

Totally, yeah, that statistic is crazy. It's at the far end of the estimate of there being six parking spots for every car that's across the whole country. Obviously, in L.A. it's weighted very differently because, yeah, it's this huge mission to find a spot.

When I was in Chicago, I was working in the city and I had to reserve a parking spot. Like I was leasing a spot monthly, I had to pay 200 bucks to have this spot that I could park in every morning. Because you can't deal with that in downtown.

I also find that mentality. Where a new neighbor or a new apartment block just represents a parking size package coming to your neighborhood, and every new neighbor is one less car park for you if you rely on street parking.

I know I'm gonna be Dax right now. I found that a little extreme, maybe subconsciously, people are feeling that way, but I have never....

I've felt that way, it's not a good way to feel, yeah, when new people move in....

If you don't have a garage.

Oh, if you don't have a garage, yeah, see, I'm on the street, yeah, so I park in L.A. on the street. And so I remember when a new neighbor came in and they had a car, I noticed that car would often be parked where I used to park.

Oh, for sure, okay, that makes sense.

And that mentality completely shifts. Having a garage is this huge, amazing thing to have, because, holy shit, it's a guaranteed park. Every day is like a weird lottery. You shouldn't feel that way towards a neighbor, it should be like, Hey, welcome to the neighborhood.

I guess that does make sense, and apartments here definitely. If there's a garage, or, I mean, I can't even call it, I would call it like a carport.

They're pretty rare, right? Like to have a garage, or there's limited numbers of parks.

They won't have a garage, but they'll have a carport, basically a hut with little divisions. You have one inch on either side of your car. It's so hard to get in and out of those fucking things. Hence why my car was in the shop recently.

Yeah, crazy, right?

Yeah, and those apartments that have parking like that, they're definitely at a premium. They can raise the price because it's a huge asset in L..A. to have a parking spot.

Yeah, I got my apartment cheaper because it didn't come with a parking spot. And I was like, that's great. But then every day it's like, this weird bit of trivia built into my day about Am I gonna get a park today?

I hate that.

Or am I gonna park like two streets over? I don't know.

What do you do about street cleaning? Do you have, like, a calendar reminder to move in every week?

I've got a calendar reminder, so yeah, but I don't park on the side.

Also, street cleaning we should talk about because that does not happen everywhere.

We're gonna get into that a little bit, because, yes, street cleaning is.

It was new to me when I moved here, I've never seen it.

Bonkers.

On a Wednesday you can't park on this side of the street, on a Friday you can't park on this side of the street. I mean, it's a revenue collecting for the city because they can fine you if you don't do it. Obviously they have to, like sweep and that's good.

Keeping the city clean.

Yeah, it is keeping the city clean, it is they have to. I think it's a dirty city.

Yeah, and it's a way, I think, for, like, the city, to check that cars aren't being stored there. When I went to New Zealand for that back stuff, I had to find a friend's garage to park it in. Because if I left it on the street, it would have been amazing to see what fines it had gathered.

Oh, so many.

But yeah, it's also an excuse for a city to move people on. Yeah, we get into a bit of this in the next part, so I'm gonna play it.

Okay.

There's another thing I find interesting about cars and parking cars. I've noticed it a lot in Los Angeles. As I look at house prices, I see how expensive everything is. The average house here is about a million dollars. houses are expensive.

It goes back to the taco truck, the ice cream truck. I mean, those were some of the first people to say, Wait a second. Why would I pay for real estate when I can do my business here for free? Right at the curb? And now, sadly, because the housing crisis has become so intense in California, you're seeing that arbitrage getting taken advantage of by people who need a place to live. And it started in domestic garages, right? that started in the garages of single-family homes.

For some, a parking space is somewhere you pull into so you can rush out and get a coffee. For others, it's their home, which is a pretty strange thing to be reckoning with. Of course, there's the flip side, too. Not all parking is free when it comes to parking in the city, especially if you forget to pay for it.

New York City makes about twice as much money from parking fines as it does from parking fees. So it makes twice as much money from people parking illegally as it does from people parking legally. And you might even say the city has a financial incentive to have people continue to park illegally. Because it's a major cash cow, and a very concrete example of that is the biggest illegal parkers in New York are the delivery trucks who take care of our burgeoning e-commerce economy. I'm talking about Amazon, UPS, Fedex, etc.

It's estimated that about a third of congested traffic in a city is just people driving around looking for parks.

And that's not a victimless crime, right? Like, double parking is a huge contributor to traffic congestion, which creates pollution, slows everybody down, strangles the economy in lots of other ways. That are more significant than those tens of thousands of dollars in fines that are raised. And yet it's harder to see the big picture when you are getting that influx of cash.

The most I've been ticketed in L.A. is $65.

Because I forgot to move my car on street sweeping Day. The biggest scam of all the scams.

In New York, fines can range from $35 to a whopping $515.

Oh yeah, I think that. Throughout the United States, parking rules are some of the most complicated and byzantine regulations from city to city. And I think this is one reason that it's so irritating to people, it's not legible, it's not logical. People don't understand what the city is trying to accomplish, and I think that's because, again, there is a disconnect between city policy and what makes most sense.

There are so many things about parking.

That I find confusing and weird here, like back to the street sweeping thing again. Every Wednesday I have to park on one particular side of the road, on a Friday, it's the other side. Is this actually? So they can clean the streets?

They're just there as an.

Excuse to fine you. America just feels like it needs to catch up a little bit. Even the parking meters, they're often so old-fashioned feeding coins in in small town New Zealand, you'll be surprised when you come across a parking meter that takes coins.

Amazing.

Fucking Hollywood and I'm trying to find coins to feed in. It's such an odd thing, it feels like you've gone back in time or something.

I couldn't agree more. I think this gets to a broader American issue, which is a reluctance. Sometimes to look at what's happening in other places and say, hey, I can work here. It's not always a kind of a sense of superiority. I think sometimes we are very ready to acknowledge that some things work better in other places. But when that happens, we'll always say, well, but that's because that's that place and it couldn't work here because we have our own problems.

I don't mean to end this whole thing on a downer. We started this episode with Rihanna and Springsteen thinking about cars as methods of freedom, the dream way to see America, and they are.

I mean, I love driving in America.

America and the car are intertwined, but I guess what I've learned is that cars have led to this infrastructure here. That's a bit wonky, and I keep thinking of that stat. Up to six parking spots for every car.

I really like what's been going on in Paris, France, recently. Because the mayor there has made a really conscious decision that she's going to get rid of as many on-street parking spaces as possible. And her thinking is, if you want to drive a car in the city, you better have a place to park it in a garage. And there's lots of garages in Paris. But what has happened since she started doing this is obviously fewer people are driving.

And that concludes.

My Ted talk on parking in America.

I truly do not remember the last time I was at a meter and they didn't take credit cards.

There are cards in a lot of them, it's true.

I mean, I truly don't remember.

No, I think defending your country is very reasonable, and you're right. I think what sort of got me is these parking meters are so ancient and they can still take coins. It's just a weird experience for me and I guess it's good.

But we'd also be mad if we spent a ton of money updating those machines. People would be pissed if tax dollars went to that.

Yeah, but long term it could be really good.

The alternatives are those boxes that you type in the numbers. I know I hate that you've got to download an app. Yeah, that's way more annoying than the....

Yeah, but efficient. It's more easily policed because it knows when your time runs out, saves the city more over time.

Well, I think the city would make more money. See, that's the thing, it's a trade-off. The fine is higher currently.

It's like a fun gambling trick. It is totally as an individual, it can feel really good and freeing because it's like you might not be charged a thing.

Well, right, so then if it's all monitored, then you're 100 going to get fined.

Yeah, but that's so good as well because it keeps things moving. The fines aren't crazy, I guess.

I mean, the thing is, if you're five minutes after the two-hour thing and you get fined, I'd be pissed, even if it's $20.

As opposed to.

A $65.

Probably not five minutes after. But if everyone's paying for it, then the fine is less, and it all creates a bit more balance. It feels like it's hard, I can't argue a certain point.

There was a scandal in Chicago. They privatized the parking meters at one point, where a company owns it and makes money on it, they leased them.

Over.

It looks like they paid $1 billion for a 75-year lease.

Oh, wow.

So they manage it, I don't think taxpayers are paying for it, but they're also maybe getting money.

For profiting a decent amount from that is the overall reaction, like, it's a good thing or bad. People weren't happy about it.

I remember.

The other thing that's going to be sneaking up on us is the whole electric car thing. Because at the moment you don't have an electric car. Rob's got an electric car. At the moment, you can find a charging station, but I guess as we slowly convert all cars to that, where are we all going to?

Charge It depends on where you are. I was at Big Bear this weekend and it was impossible to find a charger.

So what do you do in that situation? You charge it from your accommodation.

Yeah, I was staying at an Airbnb and I have one that plugs into a regular wall outlet.

Yeah, right. And how long does it take to charge from a socket in an Airbnb?

You get like 4 miles per hour, really, but we were an hour away from a real charger. Yeah, right.

And I guess probably with the new building codes, every apartment that's built will have to come because retrofitting. I think he talked about this a bit. It costs a city about $40,000 for each electric charging station to be built, which is so expensive. But if they come packaged with a building, when an apartment gets okayed, then it'll be like a more affordable way to build them. But retrofitting is so crazy expensive.

So that's this weird thing. Yeah, like converting at this point. Yeah, yes.

So that's a whole other chaotic thing with parking and having to charge, it will be.

Very interesting. Once more and more people start driving electric, they're going to have to build a lot more stations.

Totally the other thing I thought about while I was writing this episode was your specific car as well. Because I feel like I sort of want to do another episode on. You pay for storage facilities, I think a lot of people have stuff in storage.

Well, yes, I'm lucky to have two cars and one of them truly is storage. Right now, it is sitting outside my house, filled with junk from my basement. That's so funny.

Onto my car, so that little car, the one that I went to take my driving test in, it's just filled with stuff now. Storage facility It's a storage facility. I saved money.

Oh my god, it's just so.

Crazy and all over the place, and I just find it fascinating.

Yeah, what percentage of people in New York City own cars? Oh, I have.

No idea that would be interesting because it would be super low, right? Like, so, so low.

It has to be, and it.

Feels like the city really fights you if you do.

Have one exactly and storing that, yeah, when we.

Were shooting tickled? I drove a lot in Manhattan and it was so.

Stressful, I'd be so scared to drive there.

I've never been tooted at more or abused more, and that was just so.

Scary. So it looks like 45 of households in the city own a car.

In New York. Wow, that's much.

More than I expected. There must be a lot of cars that are probably just sat somewhere right, like in a garage or on a street. Like they're not all being driven, although.

Our friend Emma Emma has a car.

In the city, she's got a car, in the city, yeah. Is she using it very often, or is it?

She uses it, but not that often. I don't think so it is.

Interesting looks like New York is the lowest.

Though, what's la la, I'm sure we're like, probably 95, I mean.

They're not even on this list, honestly, having.

A car here just changes your entire experience in the city. I did a year and a half without one. And I think what pushed me over the edge was just a few Uber rides with drivers that were just really bad. Yeah, and I felt unsafe, and I was like, I can't be doing this like hurtling along for 40 minutes with like a lunatic.

Yeah, so it's partly because the high traffic cities. You have to have one, because relying on Uber to take you an hour and a half to Santa Monica, like, no.

And that's the other thing. Obviously, people in L.A. who don't have cars, it just takes them so much longer to do everything. Going to a job when you're taking a bus is like this two hour ordeal as opposed to a half hour one. So that's such a big difference in those lives as well. It's chaotic.

New Zealand ranks higher for car ownership per capita.

Holy shit, you're third.

860 cars per thousand people third in the world. Yeah, wow. United States is 811 cars per thousand people.

Where are we ranked fourth or fifth, fifth? Who's number one?

San Marino, then Monaco, New Zealand, Iceland.

United States It's amazing having this country that's known as being clean, green, beautiful, and we've got our highest per capita car ownership. And again, that's because our public transport, like L.A. it sucks, and so people don't use it. And anytime a politician in New Zealand tries to get more cycleways or more public transport, there's just this huge angry push. Because New Zealanders, we love cars and we're kind of bad drivers as well.

That I want to push back on one more thing, Yeah, please hit me. I just remember the point about. We often say, we can't compare ourselves to some of these other countries because we're a different country, right? And so I understand feeling like that can be a cop out, but it is also true.

I think it's a balance it doesn't always hold. But I also think, God forbid, we ever do a gun episode, which is something I'm just gonna. What fresh thing can I offer to that debate? With that debate? There's always everyone's like, but those countries are different, those countries are different.

It would have been.

You'd be a good New Zealander, I would be so good.

I would love that we do have so many millions of guns at this point. It is a harder problem than just solving.

It's crazy hard, exactly. Yeah, getting rid of guns is hard, that's the thing.

I think people are like, Well, we just have to do what other countries are doing, but at this point it's hard. They're out there. Then what do we do? Trade back...?

Itself into a bit of a.

To make things so.

Yeah, and I don't think he was saying, that's the one thing that's holding us back. It is an excuse I think sometimes people use. We could never do that because that country is so different when it comes to, like, education, or guns, or cars or anything....

Paternity leave like those things, for sure. Yeah, there's a way.

That it's like, Oh, we're different, but also it's not an excuse to not try at all.

I agree, I totally agree with that.

So I don't know. Look again, how do you even begin to solve the car issue? L.A. It is the way it is. We're not suddenly going to magic up a public transport system.

The car in L.A. and in America, I would say, but definitely in L.A. is a part of your identity, and that's not to.

Keep bringing up guns. But that's such an interesting thing that is part of an identity. For many people, it means more than just a thing.

Oh, for sure, it's like.

Freedom and we can do what we want. Yeah, the car is, yeah, people take such pride and it's this thing in what they're driving.

Yeah, it kind of says something about you and what you picked, and yeah, all those things, it's deeper than just how you get from.

Point A to point B. And again, it's like, since I had a car, I think cars overall terrible. they're not a great thing to have, but I love having a car, so it's that thing I love listening to.

Right, I mean, people, right? I feel like there's some attempts to do that here and I don't know if it's happening or not. But in the meantime, I mean, this is an overall question and it's going to sound very demoral....

We can end on a downer, we'll end on a downer, and then we'll try and think of a happy thing to end on after. There's a part of me that's like.

So what are you, David, you not driving, going to do for public transportation in Los Angeles? Yeah, that's the tricky.

Thing I know it's not going to do anything, but if we all do that, then it's going to be so wonderful. But no, it's not.

Because that costs money. It's more about that than the issue of if just no one had.

Cars, it depends what order. It's like a chicken and egg thing what comes first. Ideally, a city should come up with goals to have a public transport system that works so well. You suddenly go, fuck. I'm going to use this train or this bus because I don't need to worry about a car park at the other end.

Alright, well, that was a good pivot. I liked that. Cars turned into parking, cars turned into parking.