I despise paying for parking. Most people feel the same. I grew up in a small town were free parking was everywhere. Here in Austin it is easy to find free parking, until you venture downtown. I avoid going downtown when I can because of the parking cost. It feels like wasting money.
The problem is, I have started purusing stand up comedy. Many of the comedy open mics are downtown. It is too far to reasonably walk from my tiny studio apartment. The bus could take me there but that is not free either and too time consuming. Obviously at the level of complete amateur comedian these shows do not pay. I have been going to 6-8 open mics a week. I usually buy one or two over priced drinks. If between parking and drinking I spend $20 per show that's between $120-$160 a week spent on my comedy habit. Too much.
To cut costs in the drinking department I have begun to pregame a bit before each show. The problem with this is I have to drive my car to the show. Instead of drinking 2 beers and then driving to a venue I pour a tall boy into a thermos which I place in the trunk of my Kia Soul. When I arrive at the venue I do a quick discrete chug.
I have identified a few places to park for free just by driving around. There was a free strip of parking over by the grave yard on east 7th but the city just put up meters. Dastardly. There is a free strip of parking up by a church on east 4th street and another on east 10th.
Another complication is the neighborhoods around the downtown area don't want industrious individuals like myself parking in front of their houses. There are required resident parking stickers for certain areas. You can find a spot in a non-resident area a short walk from downtown.
It would be nice if someone created an unofficial free parking map for the area around downtown Austin. After doing a search I could find no such list. I have decided to make one using google maps. That way when a new open mic springs up in the future I will have a lead on a free parking space.
How will I gather the data? I know of a few places I can mark on the map already. I have the data for where and when the open mics are so I put that on the map as blue dots. Then I marked the free parking spots I already know in green. Now I can map out distance and walking time between them.
It will take a lot of leg work to identify more viable free parking spots. I cannot think of an easy way to gather this data except to explore the area on foot. When I identify a free parking space I will make a note to add it to the map. I wouldn't want to walk more than 20 minutes because of time concerns. I can use the data points I have already created to see if new spots are worth adding to the database.
The ideal time to locate a new parking space would be after a show. I can take a different way back and see if there are any free spots on the way. Then I will not feel rushed or be so focused on trying to remember my comedy material.
When a new open mic springs up I can add it to the list too. Then see which parking spots are the closest.
Link to the unofficial free parking map:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1WIY7GOWOHCP-VRmHXkKcRHPE0wwpdrV5&usp=sharing
Happy future free parking to you!