Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S1 · Q6 To discourage congestion

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To discourage congestion, a city raised on-street parking rates in a downtown business district.

Given that …

The city raised on-street parking rates in a downtown business district in order to discourage congestion.

Why is it that …

Restaurants in the district that require short-term parking ended up having a small increase in sales.

Evaluate

Raising the price of parking meters is supposed to discourage people from street parking; the fewer cars you have driving around searching for an open meter, the less congestion you’ll theoretically have.

But after this city raised the price of parking meters, restaurants whose customers have to find short-term parking did even a little better than before. We would expect these restaurants to struggle, now that customers who want to go there are thinking,

Goal

We could try to predict an answer, but on Paradox that’s borderline risky, since the correct answer might surprise us.

Let’s just look for a way to explain something that changed since the meters got more expensive that could somehow slightly benefit restaurants in the area.

Which one of the following, if true, contributes to an explanation of the increase in sales at restaurants in the district?

Customers of the district’s businesses
No Impact / Distinction
This answer could work if the private parkings lots were cheaper, but if they’re more expensive than on-street parking, then this doesn’t help. It will still be the case that parking was made more expensive overall, which should discourage some people from coming to the area, and yet restaurants there are doing slightly better than before. The parking lots were presumably always more expensive, so this answer doesn’t seem to offer us anything that has changed since street parking fees went up.
3% picked this
Owners of the district’s businesses,
No Impact / Distinction
It doesn’t matter whether owners of businesses supported or opposed this measure. The measure passed. We want to hear about something that changed once the parking fees were raised, in order to explain why restaurant sales went up. Learning about how owners felt before the parking fees were raised doesn’t give us anything that has changed since street parking fees went up.
0% picked this
Even before the change in
No Distinction
We can tell that this is wrong as soon as we read “even before the change in parking rates”. After all, we want to learn about something that changed since the parking fees were raised, but this is talking about something that was equally true before and after the parking fees were raised. If an answer doesn’t tell us about something that’s changed, then it’s hard for it to explain something that’s changed (i.e. that restaurants are making slightly more money than before).
1% picked this
Correct
More expensive parking leads to
Why this is right
This answer is the only one that speaks to something that would have changed or be different, since the parking fees were raised. The parking fees made parking more expensive, and more expensive parking leads to greater turnover in cars parked in front of businesses. Can we think about how greater turnover in cars parked out front (i.e. cars are parked in those spots for a shorter average period of time) would lead to restaurants making more money? There are two possible angles they may have intended here: 1. If people who wanted to go to Restaurant X are often stymied by a lack of available parking, then they would just give up and find another place to eat. Once the parking rates go up and cars are vacating these parking spots more frequently, it could lead to there being more opportunities to park in front of Restaurant X, so more customers can choose to dine there. 2. If you’re eating at Restaurant X and you parked at a meter that charges $4 / hr, then you’re probably going to try to hurry up your meal. Maybe you only pay for 1 hour of parking and finish up your meal swiftly, whereas in the old days when the parking was cheaper, you may have paid for 90 mins of parking and had a more leisurely meal at the restaurant. The more people restaurants can get in and out of their restaurant, the more money the restaurant can make. So if a restaurant’s patrons shorten their average stay from 90 minutes to 60 minutes, then the restaurant will have the capacity to serve more customers per day and thus make slightly more money.
Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
93% picked this
The business district is in
Deepens Paradox
If parking fees go up, and people know that their other option is to go to a mall that offers free parking, then that should increase the amount of people going to malls, decrease the amount of people going to restaurants in the district, and thus hurt the business at those restaurants.
2% picked this

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