Free parking is a costly investment
Mon Mar 21, 6:28 AM ET
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
There is no such thing as free parking, unless you're driving around a Monopoly board, according to a book released today by the American Planning Association.
Cities and taxpayers are wasting billions of dollars subsidizing parking on valuable land that could be used for housing or parks, says The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup, an urban planning professor at UCLA.
The book challenges traditional thinking that cheap and plentiful parking is smart public policy. It comes at a time when cities and companies are studying how much parking to provide workers and how to encourage wider use of mass transit.
The American Planning Association's 30,000 members help shape the development of communities and regions around the nation.
For anyone who has spent hours circling for a parking space, the conclusions are surprising:
? Curbside parking in many cities is too cheap. Low rates on parking meters encourage people to cruise the streets to avoid costlier parking lots and garages, the book says.
In popular downtown areas, "land is extremely valuable, yet curb parking is free or has meters with very low prices," says Shoup, who has studied parking policies around the world for more than two decades. "People drive around and around looking for a curb space. That congests traffic and pollutes the air."
? Cities and suburbs require too many parking spaces around malls, apartments and office buildings. That wastes land that could be put to better use, and for much of the year, hundreds of spaces sit vacant.
Higher costs for all
Shoup says cities mismanage parking supplies and pricing in an attempt to provide free or cheap parking to a car-obsessed nation. When developers are forced to build extra parking, their costs soar - and get passed on to consumers.
"It raises the cost of housing and, really, everything we buy," Shoup says. "The cost of parking ... is just hidden from us. You pay for it in the cost of dinner (at a restaurant) even if you didn't drive."
Shoup urges cities to review their parking requirements and adjust prices and supply based on demand. In hip entertainment and shopping districts that attract visitors until late evening, for example, meter rates could be raised to $2 an hour during the day and $3 in the evening but made free after 2 a.m.
Others, however, say parking prices are just fine.
The last thing downtown Dallas businesses want is to increase the $1-an-hour rate of parking meters, says Alice Murray, president of the Central Dallas Association. "The whole intent is to get people to feel that they can come downtown," she says. "Sales tax is what you make money on. ... Parking meters are gravy."
Rather than raise meter prices, Dallas is subsidizing inexpensive short-term parking in garages. The fee: $1 for the first hour - the same as parking at a meter.
In Pasadena, Calif., meanwhile, merchants and residents protested when the city decided to put parking meters along 20 blocks of its Old Pasadena district.
Street parking had always been free. The old downtown area was launching a major revitalization program. Making people pay to park went against the grain.
"At first, the business community said no," recalls Marsha Rood, former development administrator for the city and now a principal with Urban Reinventions, a consulting firm.
Then it said yes - but only if every penny collected was put into improving streets, alleys and security in the same 20-block area.
"As long as we were able to be the beneficiaries of the parking meters, we saw an advantage," says Marilyn Buchanan, a business and property owner and member of a parking-meter advisory group. "We made a concerted effort to say, 'This is your parking meter at work.' It's not going into general coffers. You're paying for what you see."
A plaque on every meter (most are $1 an hour) says: "Your meter money will make the difference in Old Pasadena."
And it did. The area is booming. Meters paid for a $5 million makeover of Old Pasadena; they now pay for daily sweeping of streets and sidewalks, trash collection, extra security and marketing.
Making the most of space
Getting the most out of parking is a priority for communities that are struggling with dwindling revenue, worsening traffic gridlock and soaring prices for land and housing:
? Boston froze the number of off-street parking spaces.
? In Washington state, Oregon and Maryland, communities let office and retail developers build fewer parking spaces if they offer cash incentives or transit passes to employees to discourage driving.
? An environmental group in California's Silicon Valley says at least 8,450 housing units could be built if parking lots matched actual use. Current requirements don't take into account the fact that renters, low-income households, seniors and residents of neighborhoods near mass transit own fewer cars, the Transportation and Land Use Coalition says.
San Francisco realized that its parking requirements didn't match its vision for affordable housing and traffic control, says Amit Ghosh, the city's chief of comprehensive planning. "We still had minimum parking requirements for residential parking of one parking space for one unit," he says.
The city first eliminated minimum requirements for downtown commercial buildings. Now it's proposing scrapping them for residences downtown and surrounding neighborhoods, especially near mass transit stops.
If approved, the new parking guidelines would set a maximum of one-half or three-quarters of a parking space per housing unit.
"These residential parking spots are subsidized way below what the market would actually bear for them," Ghosh says. "Almost 16% of city land holdings are street parking spaces."
Mon Mar 21, 6:28 AM ET
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
There is no such thing as free parking, unless you're driving around a Monopoly board, according to a book released today by the American Planning Association.
Cities and taxpayers are wasting billions of dollars subsidizing parking on valuable land that could be used for housing or parks, says The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup, an urban planning professor at UCLA.
The book challenges traditional thinking that cheap and plentiful parking is smart public policy. It comes at a time when cities and companies are studying how much parking to provide workers and how to encourage wider use of mass transit.
The American Planning Association's 30,000 members help shape the development of communities and regions around the nation.
For anyone who has spent hours circling for a parking space, the conclusions are surprising:
? Curbside parking in many cities is too cheap. Low rates on parking meters encourage people to cruise the streets to avoid costlier parking lots and garages, the book says.
In popular downtown areas, "land is extremely valuable, yet curb parking is free or has meters with very low prices," says Shoup, who has studied parking policies around the world for more than two decades. "People drive around and around looking for a curb space. That congests traffic and pollutes the air."
? Cities and suburbs require too many parking spaces around malls, apartments and office buildings. That wastes land that could be put to better use, and for much of the year, hundreds of spaces sit vacant.
Higher costs for all
Shoup says cities mismanage parking supplies and pricing in an attempt to provide free or cheap parking to a car-obsessed nation. When developers are forced to build extra parking, their costs soar - and get passed on to consumers.
"It raises the cost of housing and, really, everything we buy," Shoup says. "The cost of parking ... is just hidden from us. You pay for it in the cost of dinner (at a restaurant) even if you didn't drive."
Shoup urges cities to review their parking requirements and adjust prices and supply based on demand. In hip entertainment and shopping districts that attract visitors until late evening, for example, meter rates could be raised to $2 an hour during the day and $3 in the evening but made free after 2 a.m.
Others, however, say parking prices are just fine.
The last thing downtown Dallas businesses want is to increase the $1-an-hour rate of parking meters, says Alice Murray, president of the Central Dallas Association. "The whole intent is to get people to feel that they can come downtown," she says. "Sales tax is what you make money on. ... Parking meters are gravy."
Rather than raise meter prices, Dallas is subsidizing inexpensive short-term parking in garages. The fee: $1 for the first hour - the same as parking at a meter.
In Pasadena, Calif., meanwhile, merchants and residents protested when the city decided to put parking meters along 20 blocks of its Old Pasadena district.
Street parking had always been free. The old downtown area was launching a major revitalization program. Making people pay to park went against the grain.
"At first, the business community said no," recalls Marsha Rood, former development administrator for the city and now a principal with Urban Reinventions, a consulting firm.
Then it said yes - but only if every penny collected was put into improving streets, alleys and security in the same 20-block area.
"As long as we were able to be the beneficiaries of the parking meters, we saw an advantage," says Marilyn Buchanan, a business and property owner and member of a parking-meter advisory group. "We made a concerted effort to say, 'This is your parking meter at work.' It's not going into general coffers. You're paying for what you see."
A plaque on every meter (most are $1 an hour) says: "Your meter money will make the difference in Old Pasadena."
And it did. The area is booming. Meters paid for a $5 million makeover of Old Pasadena; they now pay for daily sweeping of streets and sidewalks, trash collection, extra security and marketing.
Making the most of space
Getting the most out of parking is a priority for communities that are struggling with dwindling revenue, worsening traffic gridlock and soaring prices for land and housing:
? Boston froze the number of off-street parking spaces.
? In Washington state, Oregon and Maryland, communities let office and retail developers build fewer parking spaces if they offer cash incentives or transit passes to employees to discourage driving.
? An environmental group in California's Silicon Valley says at least 8,450 housing units could be built if parking lots matched actual use. Current requirements don't take into account the fact that renters, low-income households, seniors and residents of neighborhoods near mass transit own fewer cars, the Transportation and Land Use Coalition says.
San Francisco realized that its parking requirements didn't match its vision for affordable housing and traffic control, says Amit Ghosh, the city's chief of comprehensive planning. "We still had minimum parking requirements for residential parking of one parking space for one unit," he says.
The city first eliminated minimum requirements for downtown commercial buildings. Now it's proposing scrapping them for residences downtown and surrounding neighborhoods, especially near mass transit stops.
If approved, the new parking guidelines would set a maximum of one-half or three-quarters of a parking space per housing unit.
"These residential parking spots are subsidized way below what the market would actually bear for them," Ghosh says. "Almost 16% of city land holdings are street parking spaces."
