[sustran] On vs off street parking

[D. Scott TenBrink]

This is in response to Walter, but may drift to cover other posts on some
points.

First, I think it is important to note that the promotion of on-street parking
in this thread was in the context of choosing between on and off-street 
parking
and not of changing the total parking supply.  Therefore, your claim that
on-street parking ?consumes public space that otherwise could be used for
children to play, people to sit and play dominoes, walk, etc.? does not
consider that moving that parking off-street actually would consume more urban
space.  Granted this may be offered on private property as opposed to public
land, but many studies have shown that privately supplied parking is the least
efficient manner of parking provision.  Overall, off-street parking will
consume more resources and create more ?dead space? in the city than the
on-street alternative.

The promotion of on-street parking should not be confused with the 
promotion of
free parking either.  I agree that on-street parking is generally 
under-priced,
at least based on demand.  But the subsidization of driving through 
free parking
is hardly limited to on-street supply.  Off street parking is much more
expensive to provide and is often provided free for the end user.  When that
cost is absorbed into the cost of products, it is passed on unfairly to those
who choose not to drive.

As I read him, Prof. Knoflacher is not opposed to on-street parking, but
convenient parking, on or off the street.  He does not promote parking in the
garage of one?s home over parking on the street in front of one?s home.

 From http://www.transalt.org/press/magazine/046%20Spring/02provocateur.html:

?If the car is parked in front of the house, or in the garage in the house and
the public transport stop is several hundred meters away, everybody 
will use the
car.?

Further, the argument that transportation systems are biased for cars because
public transit doesn?t stop in front of your door seems strange in that if
transit did stop in front of everyone?s front door transit trips would take
much longer than they currently do.  While I understand that the comparison is
meant to suggest that convenient parking encourages private vehicles over
transit, one should not infer that eliminating convenient parking would speed
transit trips to those driving with convenient parking.

Also, when you say that on-street parking ?biases modal choice towards private
car
use?, this can only apply to a preference over transit, and not NMT trips
which require no parking, or generally convenient parking of a bicycle.

I agree that a street that is safe to cycle on is preferable to 
separate cycling
lanes, especially where those lanes are wide enough to allow bikes to 
pass auto
traffic.

Finally, I?d like to point out that in my experience in a small, mid-western
town, it is the local merchants and city residents that are the first to cry
foul over recommendations to reduce parking, especially on-street 
parking. While we may argue that reducing (or eliminating) parking 
would be better for
the city in the long run.  They are the ones who have to make that 
decision and
live with the results.

I know that in Michigan the trend toward reducing State assistance to cities
has put the fear of God into downtown retailers who are worried that reducing
parking will kill downtown business.  Proposing an all-or-nothing approach on
parking will get nowhere in this environment.  Todd Litman and Dan Schoup have
done some great work in providing recommendations on how to manage parking
efficiently to fully utilize the supply instead of expanding it, including
integration of SOV alternatives.

To reiterate, I (and I?m assuming the others promoting on-street parking) am
not advocating more parking, free parking, or convenient parking.  If I?m
advocating any parking it is efficient parking in order to reduce the need for
greater supply and to minimize the impact on future development.

I am interested in the idea of managing congestion through parking 
provision. I?ve often wondered if limiting parking would limit drivers. 
  My fear is that
it would only limit parkers and not drivers, resulting in a city that 
people use
as a short cut to get to the suburbs on the other side of town.

I also like the idea of centralized parking with easy access to local 
transit to
get around town, so that those who need to drive into town can park and 
transit
can provide convenient ?last mile? service.

-Scott



Quoting Walter Hook <whook at itdp.org>:

> I admit I am a bit astonished by Todd and Eric’s comments in support of on
> street parking.  I thought we would all be more or less on the same page on
> this.
>
>
>
> Eric’s support for on street parking, that it is ugly and therefore will
> ultimately one day lead to citizen awareness, does not appear to be borne
> out by the facts.  Streets in most cities have been clogged with ugly,
> undercharged parked cars since the 20s, and it has not led to any
> consciousness raising: people just don’t see anything wrong with it because
> it is just normal to them.  We need some beautifully redesigned streets to
> show neighborhoods that they don’t have to live on ugly streets, and see no
> justification for us to be encouraging congestion and on street parking in
> the hopes it will one day lead to a sustainable mobility revolution.  That
> is like rejecting the minimum wage because it ameliorates the chances of a
> hoped for utopian revolution.
>
>
>
> Prof. Hermann Knoflacher of the Univ. of Vienna believes, and I am inclined
> to agree, makes a compelling argument that on street parking is THE central
> problem with western traffic systems.   He goes so far as to say that if we
> dealt with the parking issue, we wouldn’t need congestion charging.  Maybe.
> He argues that total travel times are biased in favor of private car modes
> over transit modes largely because society allows people to park their cars
> right in front of their houses and right adjacent to their offices, while
> the nearest bus stop is likely to be some distance away.  Because the
> walking trip is taken at very slow speeds, and this has to be added to the
> waiting time for the bus, the total trip time is therefore significantly
> biased against the transit trip.  Therefore, on street parking has several
> significant dis-benefits: one, it biases modal choice towards private car
> use, two it consumes public space that otherwise could be used for children
> to play, people to sit and play dominoes, walk, etc. In addition, on street
> parking is generally badly underpriced in terms of land rent, subsidizing
> driving.  In addition, car parking if removed would also provide the space
> for a bike lane that could be physically protected from traffic, although on
> a residential street the bike lane isn’t necessary if you can traffic calm
> the whole street.
>
>
>
> Best
>
> Walter
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Todd Alexander Litman [mailto:litman at vtpi.org]
> Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 11:10 AM
> To: NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com; eric.britton at ecoplan.org;
> whook at itdp.org; sustran-discuss at jca.apc.org;
> sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org; NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com
> Cc: CarFreeCafe at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [NewMobilityCafe] [sustran] Re: New Mobility Citizen Poll for
> Your City- A ProposalforDiscussion
>
>
>
>
> On the other hand, on-street parking is the most efficient type of parking
> that can be provided. Most off-street spaces only serve a single destination
> and so have low load factors, while on-street spaces serve many destinations
> and have high load factors, and so are more efficient overall. Also,
> off-street spaces require driveways which use a portion of the curb and
> cross sidewalks. For these reasons many urban planners now support the
> provision of a maximum number of on-street spaces and a minimum number of
> off-street spaces (for discussion of ways to use parking facilities more
> efficiently see my new report "Parking Management"
> (http://www.vtpi.org/park_man.pdf ) and book "Parking Management Best
> Practices" ( http://www.planning.org/bookservice/description.htm?BCODE=APMB
> <http://www.planning.org/bookservice/description.htm?BCODE=APMB> ).
>
> If the choice is really between sidewalks and on-street parking I would
> generally choose providing a sidewalk, but it is desirable to provide
> on-street parking where possible.
>
>
> Best wishes,
> -Todd Litman
>
>
> At 07:01 AM 4/24/2006, Lee Schipper wrote:
>
>
>
> Years ago a good Swedish Transport economist posed the same question. by
> measuring how much time people spent walking to where
> there was green space, he figured out that providing on-street parking
> rather than more green space and broader sidewalks led to a real
> economic loss. His advice was to provide parking only in private, commercial
> areas (he also looked at how much off-street parking cost).
>
> One benefit of such an approach * say every other street in NYCity had no
> parking...just bays for deliveries here and there * front yards would
> reappaear
> and children and families could play in the streets more safely!
>
>>>> whook at itdp.org 4/24/2006 9:44:09 AM >>>
> Eric,
>
>
>
> Paul white and i had a related idea over lunch the other day, and we were
> wondering if this has ever been tried.
>
>
>
> What if all the property owners and permanent tenants living along a block
> of urban street were given the choice by the municipality of whether they
> wanted the space in front of their house dedicated to car parking or
> sidewalk?  How many residents would vote for car parking?   It might be done
> something like this.  The department of transport could determine the needed
> road capacity, but the parking units would be a function of ultra local
> democracy.  What if as a result, each permanent resident or registered
> voter, or even just each property tax payer, on a city block got to
> determine the democratic use of the public space in front of their property.
> Since it is currently most of the time dedicated to parking, at least in the
> US, even if only 10% voted to get rid of the parking, that would be 10% of
> the parking units we could reclaim.  On my block i would guess that maybe
> 50% would opt for a wider sidewalk. Then a block association could be free
> to contract an architect to redesign the street with that same number of
> units of parking.
>
>
>
> I am wondering if there are any successful examples of this sort of ultra
> local democracy?
>
>
>
> Walter
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sustran-discuss-bounces+whook=itdp.org at list.jca.apc.org
> [ mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+whook=itdp.org at list.jca.apc.org
> <mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+whook=itdp.org at list.jca.apc.org> ] On Behalf
> Of Eric Britton
> Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2006 12:34 PM
> To: NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com; Sustran Resource Centre
> Cc: CarFreeCafe at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [sustran] New Mobility Citizen Poll for Your City- A Proposal
> forDiscussion
>
>
>
> New Mobility Citizen Poll for Your City- A Proposal for Discussion
>
>
>
> When it comes to creating more viable and fairer transport systems, and
> behind that our real objective: more agreeable and more sustainable cities,
> we have one recurrent problem that we can perhaps deal with if we put our
> heads together.
>
>
>
> As is well known, whenever any given 'soft transport', "public space" or
> some type of "not quite so many cars" initiative is proposed in any given
> place, the first and most striking thing that happens is the howls of
> protest that immediately emerge from  all those who claim that their
> democratic entitlements are being threatened by, as they often like to put
> it, some small group of arrogant bike-happy  technocrats and their fellow
> eco-travelers. And since the media always likes a good cat fight, these
> righteous citizens often dominate the news. For the rest, for you and me and
> others like us, hey! we're the Silent Minority.  The absolutely
> disenfranchised.
>
>
>
> Well, it does not always have to be like that and here is one proposal
> concerning which I would like to invite discussions and refinement - all as
> a prelude to giving this idea a couple of trial runs in one or more
> pioneering cities.
>
>
>
> The idea is to carry out an annual open citizen survey of attitudes and
> preferences concerning transport policy and practice (and the investments
> that go with it) in your city.  The results should be made widely available
> through old and new media, and brought to the fore of the attention of the
> politicians, administrators and policy makers in your city. Here without any
> pretense of it being anything other than a grain of sand to get us going is
> my draft proposal for content for quick mini-survey that can be administered
> by phone, email or on any street corner by volunteers:
>
>
>
> Note to the reader: In a first instance, before digging into the details, I
> would like to ask the members of this fine group: (a) is this an idea that
> is worth pursuing; (b) are there some (better)examples that we should be
> looking at and learning from. Then once we have a feel for this as a useful
> activity, we can then start to see how we might together fine tune a good
> questionnaire and routine.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 1, Draft Mini-survey (for comment and . . . )
>
> All questions where appropriate to be answered simply by a 1 (yes), 0 (don't
> know), -or -1 (no), which will facilitate aggregation and overview.
>
>
>
> 1.      Name
>
> 2.      City of residence
>
> 3.      M/F
>
> 4.      Age: <15; 15-30; 30-65; >65
>
> 5.      Do you own/drive a car?
>
> 6.      My city government has a coherent, announced transportation policy:
>
> 7.      I believe that this is a wise and well executed policy.
>
> 8.      We need to spend more money to build more roads and more parking as
> a main transport priority.
>
> 9.      We need to give much more attention and spend more money on "soft
> transport" and related life quality initiatives (examples: better support of
> pedestrians and cyclists, traffic calming,  more public transport, new forms
> of shared transport, ITC substitutes for displacement.)
>
> 10.  It is possible for people to live here well and easily without having
> their own car.
>
> 11.  If they want my vote -- all candidates for local public office should
> take a firm stand on their transportation policies, and issue as part of
> their platform a signed personal statement indicating their support of more
> sustainable  transport  projects and programs.
>
>
>
> Your eventual brief comments or suggestions: ____________________________
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> ____________________________________________________
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 2. How to execute - Thoughts on
>
>
>
> *         This maybe is pushing it for length. If it can't be administered
> in three minutes, it probably will not do the job. Try it out on a couple of
> friends and let us know.
>
> *         There is plenty of evidence that people tend to create and
> administrate questionnaires that one way or another tend to elicit their
> favored response. We should meticulously  avoid doing this, and in our
> selection of questions - and people to be queried. If it ain't neutral, it
> is not worth a lot. So careful, eh?
>
> *         The simple mental model I have for this is an excel table with
> names in columns, etc. All leading to easy sorting and sub-total
>
> *         To have a real impact, it will best be administered at some fixed
> time.
> As examples: on Earth Day, in cooperation with any local Car Free Days,
> European Moblity Week, etc.)
>
> *         The procedures and information should be fully public so that
> there can be no charges of rigging the returns.  (Expect in Belarusia and
> Florida in which it is OK.)
>
> *         Also involve schools, various clubs and groups, senior citizens,
> handicapped, pedestrian and cyclist naturally but also take it into
> hospitals, prisons, old people's homes, jails, and the homeless.
>
> *         Local media partnerships, and even strong involvement by them,
> will be most useful.
>
> *         I would propose that the on-street interviews be carried out on
> one day - but that an entire week be given over to the entire procedures.
>
> *         The results should be publicly announced.
>
> *         And then all those in local government should be asked to comment
> and give their appreciations of what this means. (Note: Our friends in South
> Africa with their first Car Free Days last year did a good job of this which
> we might usefully consult)
>
> *         We propose that this be an annual exercise.
>
> *         And that to the extent possible and sensible, we might want to
> think about questions and formats that are sufficiently parallel to allow us
> to aggregate.
>
> *         BTW, is there or has there ever been anything like this in your
> city? Neighborhood? That we can learn from?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 3. Parallel in-death Survey
>
>
>
> It may be a good idea to have a more in depth survey for those people
> disposed to spend more time with us on this.
>
>
>
> The trick will be to determine who, how, when,  - and how used?
>
>
>
> Here are a few first thoughts on this to get us going:
>
>
>
> *         Employment, social status
>
> *         Where live/where work
>
> *         If it were faster and cheaper to get to work or school by some way
> other than driving a car (in traffic) would you be willing to consider it?
>
> *         When was the last time you took a bus or rail transit?
>
> *         Used a bike to get to work or school?
>
> *        D you think that it might be a good idea for your city to publish
> and maintain a "sustainable transportation webpage" that reports on key
> indicators including traffic deaths and incidents (by gravity and type), CO2
> or other clean air indicators, parametric indicators of infrastructure and
> performance of NMT options, etc.
>
> *        Would you be willing to work, say, 20 hours over a period of one or
> two months.  as a volunteer to support better researched specific projects
> in your neighborhood.
>
> *        Etc.
>
> *        Etc
>
> *
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Check in here via the homepage at http://www.newmobility.org
> <http://www.newmobility.org  >
> To post message to group: NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com
> But please think twice before posting to the group as a whole
> (It might be that your note is best sent to one person?)
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
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>
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>
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>
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Todd Alexander Litman
> Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org)
> litman at vtpi.org
> Phone & Fax 250-360-1560
> 1250 Rudlin Street, Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, CANADA
> “Efficiency - Equity - Clarity”
>
>
>