Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Include parking time or expenses in driving directions

Based on a true story.
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Some trip planning systems give you a helpful estimate of the time it'll take you to get there. Some even allow for different traffic condition and give you two estimates, one for no traffic, one for heavy traffic.

But I've yet to see one that also tells you that once you actually *get* there, you'll spend 20 minutes in stop-and-go traffic looking to find the parking garage entrance, then another 15 minutes in a line before the $@#!ing parking garage that snakes around the block, before finally ... seeing the "FULL - MONTHLY CUSTOMERS ONLY" sign in front of the $@&! $%#@!ing parking garage and frustratingly turning back home, because there's just no way you'll make it to the theater in time.

Some places are just notoriously hard or expensive to find parking in. Map that data, and include it in driving directions.

jutta, Jan 05 2009

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       Sounds sensible - I feel sure this data must exist somewhere already, which Google Maps or whoever could just mash into their mapping.
hippo, Jan 05 2009
  

       ... "Leave driveway, turn left.
Proceed 100 yards. Turn right.
Enter rail car park.
Go to ticket office.
Get the train. You may as well, you'll never get parked in town at this time of day."
  

       But then I thought, 'Why didn't you just follow the directions literally?':
Turn right.
You are now at your destination.
Ram raid the box office to get to your seat.
Jinbish, Jan 05 2009
  

       Sorry you missed your show.   

       This would probably have to be a community feedback item since whoever owns the venue/parking area would certainly be overly optimistic in their evaluation.   

       There are aviation sites where local facility owners can "hang a shingle" to advertise their presence on the field. Sometimes those sites let vistors leave comments about their experience(s) with the facility. I can see something like that.
phoenix, Jan 05 2009
  

       Are you proposing incorporating real-time local traffic information feeds for the region of your destination?   

       Or do you mean to compute parking delays predictively, based on knowledge of where construction is currently being done, where garbage is currently being picked up, which avenues are currently closed due to street festivals, how many spots are legal for this time of day, whether a 1-hour meter is sufficient for you, what times theaters are letting out, whether it's tourist season or not; etc?
phundug, Jan 05 2009
  

       doooh - I prefer the exsiting notion, that every journey you make is perfect with no trouble finding a cheap parking space when you *get* there. I'm neutral, though the "but" at a start of a sentence attracts the pedant in me to the surface, BUT it's a new year, and I'm happy today, HOWEVER, file under "Parking Rant". :-)
xenzag, Jan 05 2009
  

       Is it really so costly to have the car drive around the block while you watch the show?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 05 2009
  

       I've had this happen in NYC during gridlock alert days -- a whole series of blocks which was unexectedly (to me) blocked off, and I did in fact arrive too late for the show.   

       Car navigation systes typically do have parking information in them, including the name of the parking garage, which could be used for pricing data.   

       This particular feature would be totally implementable using the Dash car navigation API.
theircompetitor, Jan 06 2009
  


 

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