

The High Cost of Free Parking (1997) [pdf] - salmonellaeater
http://www.uctc.net/papers/351.pdf

======
bane
Before anybody gets all twisted in knots about the title, this is a paper
concerning urban planning, not suburban or rural planning.

If you live in the burbs or a rural area, you probably _already_ avoid
patronizing downtown businesses because of all the hassles involved _and_ the
arm and leg it costs you to park. Those businesses assume that loss in
exchange for doing business in a higher density locale. They literally have
more foot traffic walking by to more than make up for the dozen free parking
spaces they might be able to afford on the ultra high land prices in the city.

Other business people, thinking the same as you, then buy up a dozen acres
somewhere and toss down a strip mall with plentiful parking and work out a
deal with the county government to expand the road around their new mall to 3
lanes.

------
woof
Read the paper. Or the abstract. Or at least the seconds sentence in the
abstract!

------
pionar
This paper is old news in the municipal and university parking circles. Most
of the ideas in it have already successfully been applied in most medium to
large municipalities and almost no university over 5,000 students offers free
parking anymore.

Parking is one of the largest sources of revenue for universities, and is a
substantial source for municipalities as well. A well researched, well-priced
parking plan encourages reasonable use of parking and can actually lower costs
for parkers (the parking industry's analog to users).

~~~
EddieRingle
I don't object to paying for parking, but universities can make the
arrangements a little more flexible.

For example, my apartment is down by Wayne State and there are two WSU parking
lots adjacent it to it (one literally beside my building and the other across
the street). Buying a pass with WSU would allow me to park overnight in the
close-ish parking structure on the other side of Cass but not access it at
night/weekends, or park in the structure on the other side of campus and have
access at night and on weekends. Nothing was said about the lots adjacent to
my building, but last I checked they weren't available at night either. I
think that's pretty silly, since the only thing keeping me (or someone else)
from my car if I park in a WSU structure/lot is a simple programmable barrier
gate. Since I'm not a student at WSU (I room with two students however), I'd
have to pay $415 to park during the Winter 2015 semester.

Contrast this to the gas station on the other side of Woodward, which is
always open and offers parking for $65/month (recently increased from
$50/month). If it was still $50/month I'd never consider switching over to
WSU, but if WSU would allow me to access my car whenever, I'd pay the tiny
increase in price it would cost to switch.

~~~
pionar
> the only thing keeping me (or someone else) from my car if I park in a WSU
> structure/lot is a simple programmable barrier gate.

Those gates aren't as simple as you think :)

------
nwah1
Congestion is a similar issue. Pricing the congestion, like parts of London
have done, on a dynamic basis allows for optimum efficiency. It has the same
rationale that Uber does for using surge pricing.

------
pkaye
They could start testing this on our governmental representatives first to
measure the impact.

------
briandear
What this paper ignores is the economic benefit of a parking space. If there
is no parking at all, what would be the economic loss suffered? Does that loss
exceed the cost? This would vary by municipality of course. But, I am more
likely to spend money and buy things if there is easier parking. For example,
grocery shopping. If I have two kids and have to have the stroller plus carry
my purchases home on a subway, that is a disincentive compared to a place that
offers adequate parking. If freezing in the cold waiting for a bus is my only
access option for office space, then I am disinclined to rent that office
space. This is highly simplified of course, but a major flaw of the paper is
completely ignoring the benefit side of the equation.

~~~
CalRobert
It doesn't ignore that; in fact, it recognizes it by saying that this benefit
confers economic value on that parking space, and that charging a fair price
for that parking will ensure it is used efficiently.

Also, you may be more likely to spend money, but that's anecdotal. Lots of
people don't own cars (myself included) and excessive parking dissuades me
from patronizing a business because it correlates to difficult access.

~~~
VLM
"benefit confers economic value on that parking space"

Another way to look at it, is it increases demand for land in the burbs, where
there's free parking.

There's no obvious inherent benefit to shopping downtown where I work or in
the burbs where I live. Theoretically centralization would benefit everyone.
However no one shops downtown if they can avoid it, the parking situation is
horrendous and high rents mean higher prices. So all my retail shopping is
done in the burbs. Which means higher land demand in the burbs (both for the
stores, and the free parking).

There are ancillary cultural effects. If you partition an area into "you only
go there because you have to go there because there's no free parking and no
retail" vs "you go there because you want to, and there's free parking" the
coincidence sets up inappropriate beliefs, like free parking is a universal
good or paying to park is a universal bad. Reality is its more like a circus
ride where if your land prices exceed $X/sq foot then both free parking and
retail are inherently economically inappropriate in those areas, if at all
avoidable. Stick a super expensive office building on that land instead, etc.
Shoppers and their freely parked cars don't belong in areas that cost $2000/sq
foot, especially if $20/sq ft is a ten minute drive out of the city.

~~~
jeffasinger
Not all shopping has to be done with a SUV in a large parking lot. Retail does
not require parking if there is a large population within walking/easy public
transit access.

I'll give my neighborhood as an example. I live in a small city, outside of
the most urban part, where most buildings are houses on 1/10 of acre lots.
Population density is about 10,000 per square mile. Pretty much everyone has a
car, however most local businesses don't have any off street parking. The side
streets tend to have free parking (there's always enough), and the main
streets tend to have metered parking. Plenty of people come here from the
suburbs to shop, because there are unique, local stores you're not going to
find at a mall, and there's plenty of good places to eat and drink.

The businesses don't have to provide nearly as much parking, because they have
several thousand potential customers within a short walk.

~~~
mjevans
The setup you're describing is, if at all urban, only barely so. Really on an
area average you've just described a suburbs which happened to develop with a
dense enough core that there is little or no 'free parking' for the
businesses.

It would be like me picking out the area called 'west Seattle' (one of the
near by suburbs of Seattle) when I should really be talking about Seattle as
the urban environment.

