Cities across California are cracking down on for-profit parkings apps, arguing there are unfair, or even dangerous.
The Los Angeles Times reports, “In June, San Francisco's city attorney issued a cease-and-desist order to MonkeyParking and two similar apps, citing a police code that prohibits the buying, selling or leasing of public street parking spaces. MonkeyParking next set its sights on Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, whose city councils earlier this month voted to ban exchanging a public parking space for any form of compensation.
“In Los Angeles, where the app wasn't even available yet, the City Council this month passed Councilman Mike Bonin's motion to outlaw it.”
The apps allow drivers who are leaving a parking space to alert other motorists nearby and cede the spot — for a price.
City officials are increasingly fighting against the use of such cyber sharing.
"We've got a serious parking shortage in L.A., and people seizing and using our public parking spots for private gain is wrong," Bonin told the Times. "This is theft masquerading as innovation, and we need to stop these predatory parking apps before they make the problem worse."
Some transportation planners say the cities' response misses a larger point: that the public parking system is broken.
The fight over parking apps is just the latest example of tech disruptions roiling local governments. Fights over ride sharing companies like Lyft and Uber or short-term rental sites like AirBnB have led to legislative fights that have spilled from city councils into the state Legislature.
From the looks of it, there are plenty more of those fights to come.