Roody

Does anybody have any thoughts about Donald Shoup?

Translib blog interview with Shoup

NPR--Free Parking Comes at a Cost

gerv 

When you think that an automobile requires at least 5 parking spaces (or at least there normally are about 5 times the parking spaces as there are cars), the issue of land use and land waste is the first order of business when you think about parking.

But what would be fair prices for parking? If I drive to a mall and park outside, I'd expect the price of the goods I might buy to contain a small parking fee. Of course, if I arrive by bus and buy a bunch of stuff, I'm still paying for parking. I don't see any mall owner being particularly interested in charging for parking spaces either... it would be almost too much trouble.

AsanaCycles

ya that guy is genius.

i'm sure I'm butchering the quote, but it goes something like this:

"we pay a premium for rents (or mortgage), why should cars live for for free."

outside the obvious fact that cars do not "live"... but we get the gist...

the ridiculous part is that we all pay, no matter what

as if, we don't have a choice

thats probably the cold hard reality...

i've had cars in the past, albeit they've been beater cars, and i rarely drove them
my favorite car of all time was my 82' Subaru wagon, that i bought for $500, Viking Ins was $36/mo
i had that car for almost 10yrs.

one day i bought a new Honda Element. and yes... i actually wrote a check for a decked out all the options new Honda. I had thought something along the lines, "join the herd", "be normal like everyone else", etc...
a year later a drunk driver on the wrong side of the median ran into me, head on. new car totaled. I quit right there.

I've always had a solid bike "practice", that is "bike lifestyle", so i decided to not buy another one. 4yrs later, I quit my job and have been off work for almost 2yrs now. (living off of savings)

Car Life permeates our culture much more than we really know.
probably the ultimate disgust, is to sit and look around at us, and realize how pathetically unhealthy lives we live.

I don't own a car. But i have to live with people who do. Their entire lives are car-centric
the center of my universe is the bottom bracket
not the steering wheel

I don't own a car
but I have to breath their exhaust, and put my livelihood at risk, simply because people loose control of their cars.

just today, a driver was "mesmerized" (i guess), staring at me and The Dummy with a bicycle frame box strapped down, and drove right thru a 4 way stop, as we were traveling parallel. I stopped at the sign, and they just kept going...
???

anyways.... SHOUP

i think he's onto something

gwd

Around here some malls charge for parking, or they did 9 years ago when I had a car. What they did was allowed the first couple hours free and I think you could get free parking if you bought something at the mall. This happened near subway stations because people like to park near subway stations and take the subway around the city. Even places far from subway stops charge for parking but waive the fee if you buy something. This happens in older walkable communities like Old Towne Alexandria. People like to drive to those older communities and walk around on the wide sidewalks. They'll even pay to park there so they can walk around. I speculate that their own communities with plenty of free parking aren't good places to walk.

Roody

Weird--drive someplace, pay to park, then go for a walk. Of course, some cyclists pay a lot for a rack for their cars, then drive their bikes to a trail or meetup, then pay to ride their bicycle.

Us poor carfree people, we just start riding (or walking) as soon as we walk out our door. We don't even drive in the driveway or pay to park in the parking lot.

Leroy Diplowski

Oh geeze, now I've got that dang "paved paradise to put a parking lot" song in my head

gwd

This one?


They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see em
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that d.d.t. now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

sauerwald

It's not just the cost of the real estate. When a city is designed as being car-centric, the need for parking pushes everything further apart. Now it is harder to walk or cycle from one place to another. The parking has added to the transportation costs by spreading everything further apart. A shopping mall is the ultimate expression of this - it is surrounded by a moat of parking, making it very difficult to walk to a mall.

Tabor

Asphalt Nation talks about this a lot. Also, they talk about how my work pays for my parking spot (which benefits me), but I am not taxed on it. There is a huge tax subsidy in the US for parking for employees.

tuind13

We're charged for our parking at work. (about $17 every 2 weeks). One guy in my office lives a mile from work. He drives to work, drives home for lunch and back, and then drives home at night. I suspect the charge for parking here might not be enough.

Of course, my lunch break is almost over, so no time to address the more complex issue of parking and land use, but I've thought the same thing for quite a while. It's also hard to get people to come downtown when they complain about parking and always use "parking is free" for an excuse to go to the mall and big box store outside of town.

AsanaCycles

Shoup has all this stuff laid out
"how much is just right"?
he refers to this as "Goldie Locks Pricing"
just enough to keep 15% of the spaces available
good points about lesser income families, which is something along the lines of what he refers to as "life line" pricing. that is, i.e. Utilities are often offset for low income, parking could be a kin to this policy, and/or provide basic parking.

i.e. if you live in a condo complex, apartments, etc... the up close parking costs more than the parking that is further away...

here in California, i strongly believe that impermeable road surfaces contribute to ground water shortages. all that rain just goes down the gutters to the ocean. thats a whole tangent... that is... cisterns and capturing run off from roofs, etc...

chriswnw

My understanding is that pricing would be variable, depending upon given levels of congestion. It would be set high enough to keep X (an arbitrary value) number of spaces open at all times, so that people won't cause congestion by circling for spaces.

Whether that's "fair" or not is a moral judgment call.

AsanaCycles

I'm not sure if that is 100% accurate. From the literature it states approx 15%. albeit "approx" is not exact.

below is an extract from an interview:
https://translib.blogspot.com/2008/08...ew-part-2.html (posted earlier)


ITSL: You note your performance-based curbside parking abides by the "Goldilocks Principle." This principle deems that the number of curbside parking vacancies should not be too big or too small, but instead "just right" (~15% vacancy). Prices are to be adjusted to meet the vacancy number, which in turn is useful to keep cars off the roads- improving congestion, greenhouse gasses, and lost time. While I know you've been asked before about the effects of your program on low-income individuals- one conceivable downside of market-based pricing for curbside parking, given the anticipated large increase in fees for parking, is that driving will become prohibitively expensive first for low-income individuals, while presumably high-income individuals will be less affected by price differences. Is this analysis correct?

DS: Charging market-rate prices for curb parking is economically efficient, and it may become politically feasible, but is it fair? Many people will initially say no, but they may change their minds after they think about it. After all, the complaint that charging for curb parking is unfair can be made against charging for almost anything. Motorists pay for most other costs of owning and operating a car (gasoline, tires, repairs, insurance, and the vehicle itself), but few see this as unjust. If people pay rent for housing, why shouldn’t drivers pay rent for parking? <--- I always think this sentiment hits the nail on the head! (dg aka: AsanaCycles & SelfPropelledDevo)

To judge whether charging for curb parking is fair, we can compare it with the current alternative—off-street parking requirements that increase the prices of everything else. With off-street parking requirements, even households without cars pay for parking indirectly in the form of higher prices for everything they buy. In contrast, when curb spaces are priced at market rates, only parkers must absorb the cost. Charging for curb parking thus seem fairer than imposing off-street parking requirements, especially for those who are too poor to own a car. The 2001 National Household Travel Survey found that households with incomes less than $25,000 a year are nine times more likely not to own a car than households with incomes greater than $25,000 a year. Similarly, households living in a rented residence are six times more likely than homeowners not to own a car. Because cars are unequally distributed in the population, charging drivers for the curb parking they use is fairer than forcing everyone to pay for off-street parking whether they use it or not. Parking requirements take money from the poor to subsidize the better-off: drivers park without paying, while nondrivers pay without parking.

I am not saying we should pay more for parking. Off-street parking requirements force everyone, including the carless, to pay too much for parking indirectly. I am saying we should pay for parking directly. Cities can individualize—decollectivize—the cost of parking, so that we pay less for parking if we use less. While we all want to park free, we should not elevate this wish into a social judgment that charging for curb parking is unfair, especially when we compare it with the alternative—off-street parking requirements that impose a heavy burden even on those with the least ability to pay. Almost everyone will be better off by paying only for the parking they use and not paying the high costs that off-street parking requirements impose on everyone.

AsanaCycles

how can you not love Joni Mitchell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgMEPk6fvpg

gerv 

Most of the free parking sites in my town seem to be in suburban settings, where the planners have already given in to the idea of sprawl and the automobile. In the downtown, which is much older, there is no free parking, but it seems that every second building is a parking garage.

The benefit of the downtown parking garage is that it isn't free and it's also hard to find a parking spot at times, so you'll see more people taking public transportation... which turns out to be more convenient and cheaper.

As for the free parking malls, they have their own logic, which might have to change in a future where fewer people are driving endlessly. Myself, I never visit one of these places... and I suspect I'm not the only one.