UCLA Professor Donald Shoup has been saying it for years: "inexpensive parking fosters urban decay, contributes to sprawl and motivates people to drive alone." How? It's that circling around effect, you know, when looking for spaces, avoiding valet. "Low meter rates can further congest city streets as motorists search for cheap parking spaces," the LA Times writes. "Studies in New York indicate that motorists on the hunt represent about 28% of all traffic on Manhattan......

Still Life with Seasonings, by Alex Kehr via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr An investigation by the Daily News found that, as the DWP has increased rates they continue to issue cars to more than 100 employees who are free to take them home. Proponents of the program say the cost of the vehicles is offset by the tax breaks the department receives from the hybrids they drive. Other people say, You're shitting......

Any bicycle commuter in this city knows the wonderful secret about it: parking is abundant. Hi Mr. Tree, I'm going to latch onto you. Hello Mr. No Parking for Street Cleaning Sign, thanks for letting me lock to you and park here when cars cannot. And let's not forget that bicycle valets are becoming a more popular concept. Photo by uccloud9 via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr......

Parking at a valet is something that many Americans will go their whole lives without ever doing. And yet in LA most of us will do it at least once a week. After we downed some Slippery Shrimp this afternoon in Chinatown while looking at their impressive wall of autographed photographs of state and local politicians (although, curiously, no photos of our Senators) we realized that we were about to retrieve our car from......