The difficulty of creating congruent government policies

The WSJ also reports, in "If Your Zipcar Is Costing More, The Taxman May Be to Blame," about carsharing services such as Zipcar, and increased costs. See, some jurisdictions are forcing carsharing companies to charge car-rental taxation fees.

Typically, these fees are pretty damn high, because for the most part they are assessed onto non-residents, like restaurant sales taxes and hotel taxes and parking taxes. These taxes are seen as convenient and easy to assess, because there tends to be little fallout (except for restaurant sales taxes).

On the other hand, a center city wants to properly manage its parking and curbside management. Arlington County is particularly good at this, with an element devoted to Parking and Curbspace Management present in their Master Transportation Plan.

Cities need to recognize that the "public space" devoted to parking needs to be better managed. I don't know how much space is occupied by this in DC, in San Francisco, it's 15%. So making sure that all policies are congruent, and that car purchasing is discouraged rather than encouraged, is key. (I do wonder though if carsharing nonprofits and cooperatives could get out of this, by having true membership rather than a for-profit relationship.)