Is parking too cheap?

massmotorist said:
I don't buy that a whole lot more parking would get built without the cap. Policy should be neutral - get rid of the cap, get rid of mandatory parking minimums for development in downtown areas, market-price street parking a la SFPark, price neighborhood parking permits at some level, sell municipally-owned garages and lots. I'm sure a bit more parking would get built, maybe 10%, 15%, but i doubt it would be a lot. The current policy just results in arbitrarily and economically inefficiently high rents for incumbent lot and garage owners, excessive air pollution and congestion from those searching for spaces, etc. If you want to discourage garages you could always slap a tax on off-street spaces. I'd argue against that, but it's far more efficient than the cap.
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I'm not so sure we really want to discourage off-street spaces so much as we want to discourage prime real estate being taken for the exclusive use of parking - a 15-story tower that has three basement garage floors and 12 floors of office space is nominally better than both a 3-story garage and a 12-story office tower.

I am going to say that the idea of having a cap on parking and parking minimums at the same time is absurd and self-contradicting. If I had to pick only one thing on your list of changes towards neutral policy, I'd have to pick getting rid of parking minimums.
 
If you're worried about a lot being exclusively being used for parking, why not mandate street level retail?
 
Scalziand said:
If you're worried about a lot being exclusively being used for parking, why not mandate street level retail?
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Sure, if you expand the defenition of "retail" to include banks, hospitals, schools, religious buildings, offices, police and fire stations.

Of course, I'm struggling to think of anything other than those things, parking, and retail space (hotel lobbies count as retail) that you could use the street level of a building for. So, by the time you're done writing in all your non-retail exemptions, you may as well have just banned building new garages.
 
Not at all - a building can be retail on the first floor and a parking garage above it. We have a number of examples of this around town, from the old Motor Mart Garage in Park Plaza to the newish Harvard Square parking garage at JFK and Eliot streets.
 
As I think about it, or at least the way Scalziand worded it. Do we want so many "mandates" or "requirements"? Add enough and it will just be a mess of requirements constricting action to only a few paths (like possible creating a scenario in building "retail" where it doesn't make sense). I think MassMotorist is on the right idea: tax incentives and disincentives are a better strategy to affects behavior for he best benefit while keeping flexibility in how to make use of the land. Better to discourage unfavorable actions rather then peg down to a few good actions (which may not always be good in every scenario).
 
Matthew said:
I agree with you mostly, but I think you have to add "end highway subsidies" to that list. And it's too late for that.
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And privatize public transportation? Believe it or not, there was a time when neither highways nor 'public' transportation was paid for by the government. "Highways" were built by private investors, and service transportation was owned by private companies. In time, the public benefit of investing in both was seen, and private roads and urban rail service were taken over by the government. It shouldn't take deep thinking to recognize this fact.
 
Japan manages to have privately owned, profitable transit. The publicly owned transit is also profitable there. So it's conceivable. Part of the answer is that they have tolls to pay for their highways. Another part is that they don't give away parking for free, and you can't freeload on other people: you must provide proof of your own explicit parking space (at least in Tokyo). As for the rest, well, it's that they aren't stupid about running things.

I don't really foresee us being able to mimic their organizational excellence, nor do I see us giving up highway subsidies anytime soon. So I don't push for privatization of transit here, because it's too easy to screw up.

But remember, one of the reasons why the private transit agencies failed here is that they were forced to keep their fares artificially low, and at the same time they had to pay for road maintenance -- subsidizing their own competition. Politics forced a completely unworkable financial situation.

Cities do have a vested interest in keeping the transit system well-functioning, and they could take public control to do that. The really key portion, I think, is integration: different route schedules that make sense together, easy connections, and a common fare payment medium. Sadly, in this country, we have transit agencies that can't even achieve this within their own system, much less across systems.
 
All I have to say is that at 10 am on Newbury St on Saturday there were zero open legal parking spaces available. That to me means that parking is too cheap. No wonder why so many people double park there!
 
Parking garages account for most of the parking capacity and it definitely isn't cheap.

Make it more expensive (or more scarce) and companies will simply relocate to the suburbs. I'd guess that close to 100% of the people with children in my office commute by car from the suburbs because it gives them more flexibility and is faster than public transit.
 
cden4 said:
All I have to say is that at 10 am on Newbury St on Saturday there were zero open legal parking spaces available. That to me means that parking is too cheap. No wonder why so many people double park there!
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Are you being serious?

Parking is expensive enough as is in Boston. You jack up the prices and retailers will begin to complain. As much as I like transit, I can understand how a person who wants go shopping in the Back Bay would prefer to drive in if they live out in the suburbs rather than take the T in.

Making it as easy and cheap as possible for people to come into the city and shop is important. Otherwise people will rather just go to a mall as the parking is free.
 
mass88 said:
Are you being serious?
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He's being Shoupious.

If there are ZERO parking spaces available, then the price is too cheap.

All this chatter about people "fleeing to the suburbs" is just empty threats and rhetoric. There are ZERO parking spaces available. It is too cheap.
 
Does the T suddenly stop being a slow and inefficient way to get into the city from the suburbs if parking rates are jacked up?
 
gooseberry said:
Does the T suddenly stop being a slow and inefficient way to get into the city from the suburbs if parking rates are jacked up?
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If more people take the service, more money comes in, and service is expanded. Especially if fares are raised to decent levels. But you can't raise fares too much right now because parking is too cheap.
 
Kahta said:
Make it more expensive (or more scarce) and companies will simply relocate to the suburbs.
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Unfortunately for the suburbs, the proximity advantage of being in a strip mall with a Dunks and a Radio Shack isn't really the same as being on Newbury St.
 
mass88, when there are no parking spaces available, people either have to drive around -- wasting gas, energy, and time, and causing additional traffic congestion -- to try to find an open space somewhere, or they park illegally -- which is why one of the two travel lanes on Newbury St is blocked so often. I ended up double parking behind someone else double parking, while my friend ran in to pick up something we had ordered in advance. I would have loved to be able to pull into a 15-minute space, even if it cost $50 or $1 or something and not have to worry about blocking traffic or potentially getting a ticket.
 
mass88 said:
Parking is expensive enough as is in Boston. You jack up the prices and retailers will begin to complain. As much as I like transit, I can understand how a person who wants go shopping in the Back Bay would prefer to drive in if they live out in the suburbs rather than take the T in.

Making it as easy and cheap as possible for people to come into the city and shop is important. Otherwise people will rather just go to a mall as the parking is free.
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Why not impose price controls saying the price of all parking in Boston shall be $5 per day, then?

We can debate the merits of various supply side constraints all day, but given the supply we have, prices should be set to meet demand. That's the best mechanism we have to avoid scarcity. The problems associated with below-market street parking are well-documented. If parking were market-priced so that on any given block there are always a few spaces open, the city would have more revenue, there would be far less circling traffic, and people willing to pay a premium would always be able to find a space. I have to go into Boston for work semi-regularly for an hour or two at a time, and I would gladly pay a premium to park on the street (and my employer would gladly reimburse me since I wouldn't be paid for all the time spent finding a garage, driving up multiple levels to find a spot, walking down, paying the cashier, etc).
 
There are plenty of garages in the vicinity that people can park in. My guess is that people would rather feed a meter for 2 hours than pay to park in a garage which can be more expensive. People don't need to park right on Newbury Street, plenty of side streets to find an open spot on.

What do you feel is a reasonable amount to charge people to park?
 
mass88 said:
There are plenty of garages in the vicinity that people can park in. My guess is that people would rather feed a meter for 2 hours than pay to park in a garage which can be more expensive. People don't need to park right on Newbury Street, plenty of side streets to find an open spot on.
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You're making my point for me. People would rather park on the street. Therefore it provides more value. Therefore it should be priced higher to avoid scarcity.

mass88 said:
What do you feel is a reasonable amount to charge people to park?
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It's not about what any particular person feels is reasonable. It's about setting a market rate. That rate should be based neither on politics nor on anecdotes, nor is there any particular reason it should be uniform throughout a particular area (or across different times). It should be set based on objective, fact-based, data-driven criteria to make sure there are always a few spots open on a particular street.

To be clear it's not about profit maximization either. There will be times where the demand would be less than the supply even if the parking is free. A private parking operator would still price it at some level, a public operator's only objective should be to ensure some spaces are open all the time and would allow them to be free.

SFPark supposedly works this way. I have no idea if it's being implemented well, but the theory is right.
 
underground said:
Unfortunately for the suburbs, the proximity advantage of being in a strip mall with a Dunks and a Radio Shack isn't really the same as being on Newbury St.
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Plenty of vacancies on Newbury St.
 
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