[sustran] Re: Parking prices - more food for thought

[Chris Bradshaw]

Paul,

Wagner's tie-in to transit fares should also be considered.  For city-centre
jobs, the decision whether to drive a car already owned, or to take the bus,
relies on the transit fare, which for most of the western world is paid for
with a monthly pass.  In Ottawa, the monthly pass is at least $80, with
higher prices for other passes allowing access to suburban express routes
and to rural express routes.  Thus, parking costs have to be lower (I wonder
how many drivers add the price of the marginal extra gas to the total
out-of-pocket costs), at least for those who pay for parking themselves.

As far as the comparison to the price of burgers in suburbia, another
problem with that is that there are no parking lots (zoned as such) there.
Thus, the city charges nothing to park on the streets (where it is allowed
at all, and where it is allowed for a whole workday), and the rest is
off-street ancillary parking (used by those who are visiting the specific
business who owns the lot), and is an amenity the landowner includes for
free.  But downtown, parking is a separate business.  Therefore, as Donald
Shoup (05, _The High Cost of Free Parking_) has pointed out, with more free
parking than there is demand, means there is no market at all.  Demand
requires some price.  To him, price for parking is whatever will ensure 15%
of spaces to be empty at any one time.

The demand downtown depends on factors that private parking-lot owners have
to project into the future. . . . . but not too far, at least for surface
lots, since these lands can easily be converted to other uses.  The problem
remains for those building parking structures, which cannot.  If there were
a trend to begin towards lower rates of car-ownership, prices in these
garages might drop, hurting the parties who built them.  In 2009, with high
gas prices and the recession, such a trend appeared.  Or what if a city
introduced congestion fees and reduced transit fares with the proceeds?
That, too would rock the parking 'boat.'  (see note, below, with just such a
scenario).

What alternative use(s) could be made of surplus parking garages?

Chris

= = = = = =

Friends and Colleagues --

The June issue of Wired, now on-line and
in print, has a terrific article by noted
financial writer Felix Salmon reporting on
my work with Ted Kheel on traffic pricing
and free transit for New York City.

The tag on the cover reads
Gridlock Science: The  End of Traffic Jams,
and the article itself is titled
The Traffic Cop: Charles Komanoff says he
can end Manhattan's gridlock. And he's got
the spreadsheet to prove it.

The article is exciting in many ways. It
traces the intersection of Ted's lifetime
of urban transit advocacy with mine. It
places traffic jams in the context of
"negative externalities, costs that accrue
when the self-interested actions of one
person leave bystanders worse off." And
it conveys the near-musical intricacies
of the traffic-analysis spreadsheet, the
Balanced Transportation Analyzer (BTA),
that I've created under the aegis of Ted's
Nurture Nature Foundation. The climax, if
you will, is Felix's arrival at the analytical
heart of the matter (and the ethical basis of
congestion pricing): the BTA's quantification
of the social delay costs caused by the
proverbial one additional car trip to the
Manhattan Central Business District.

It's a great read and a big boost to the cause
of rational urban policy. Please click here:
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_komanoff_traffic/>

Note that the link to the BTA in the article
is a little circuitous. The direct link is (always):
<http://www.nnyn.org/kheelplan/BTA_1.1.xls>

Best,

Charles

PS: Needless to say, what will "end Manhattan's
gridlock" (and preserve and enhance the city's
public transit) is concerted political action.
Please stay tuned for developing news on that
front.