Yeah. It’s nuts. In my lifetime I’ve paid millions of dollars in taxes and yet they still make me pay money to park on the streets I paid for or to cross the bridges I paid for. One time they gave me a $300 speeding ticket just for driving on the roads I paid for. Where is the Justice?! After spending well over $100,000 the hospital still makes me pay for parking too when I go there. Disney land and 6 flags still charge me to park even with the paid ticket to the park and all the money people spend there- and the damn airport still charges me parking as well after hundreds of thousands of dollars spent there as well! It’s almost as if the price of parking isn’t included in these things and that there’s some sort of pattern of paid parking. I bet your college also makes you pay for your own food (unless you bought a meal pass), and perhaps... gasp. They make you pay for your own toilet paper too? Life is so cruel sometimes. So senselessly unfair.
Eh at least at my University a parking tag doesn't guarantee a parking spot. They have fewer parking spots than they sell parking tags. Those parking tags can cost nearly $700. They have "lower end" parking tags that are cheaper, but you have the same issue, and have to walk a good distance before you arrive at campus.
It can be quite terrible. When I was in school it was cheaper to take the train- then they raised the price so it was cheaper to drive. Then for awhile they were the same cost; but taking the train was faster but required a walk. In general though the modern push is to remove the incentive for people to drive. Many cities for example m- somewhat counter intuitively- require new construction to limit the number of parking spaces available. Places like San Francisco and New York are notorious for this- almost people will try to avoid driving into the city and instead rely on walking, biking, and public transportation when they go.
“Suburban” style construction and planning of course is the antithesis of this model. With some people needing to travel miles or lore just to get beyond the vast expanse of remote houses surrounding their own to access basic services or transportation. Large chain stores or shopping plazas are likewise often located far from most peoples homes and centralized.
You have to travel far and through mikes of nothingness to the same shopping hub that everyone for 10-20+ square miles is going to; its incentivized to make bulk purchases- buying huge quantities of long term stock to minimize the trios you take to the store- which of course makes carrying these bulk purchases impractical or prohibitive walking, biking, or taking public transit.
So we have a system designed to incentivize or all but require driving, matched with initiatives designed to penalize driving- and that can cause problems. It takes time but the answer to most such outrages is to vote with your wallet.
If gas is $5 a gallon, parking is almost $1,000 a month, mandatory insurance $300 a month. Car payment (if like most people you buy a newer car an finance) $100-600 a month in the common range.... and a great deal of that is profit.... if you’re willing to pay that... why wouldn’t someone charge it? I knew people who didn’t believe gas could ever reach $2 a gallon. Swore they’d quit driving in protest if it did. They still pay at $5.
Cable kept going up. They said it would die. Streaming came. Said that was the end of cable. Cable is still here. Still going up. Streaming has gone up too. And Netflix is “only” $8 a month. Unless you’re one of many people who has standard or most people I know- premium because you have family watching different things or want 4K. So only $16 a month. Except add another $13 for Hulu plus. Then Amazon prime video (whatever percent of the cost of prime that goes to it...) and perhaps HBO go or some other streaming service. Compare to basic cable and you’re paying the same or more per “channel” and it’s just a question of which you’d rather watch. Start adding sports packages and the like- ABC streaming, Disney... and what changed? Surprisingly little.
Drug dealers rarely run sales events you see. If you buy crack from this guy- he knows you’ll play what he’s charging. If another dealer is charging $20 for what the next gets $40 for... it’s smarter for the $20 guy to raise prices because he likes money- and he knows you’ll pay. Back in the day guys could spend their day selling $5 bags of weed to 20 people on the block or go to the high schools and colleges and sell the same 20 bags for $20 each. If people will pay it- why would you take money from yourself? If you want to lower prices on something- paradoxically- you must be willing to live without it.
TLDR: Parking and having a car costs more and more in modern society because capitalism.