The New Science of Parking

(2 of 2)

So far, Streetline has completed pilot projects and studies for Los Angeles and San Francisco. The L.A. project determined that despite two-hour time limits, the average driver stays parked for four hours. If a city wants to balance the occupancy and vacancy rates to ensure drivers can easily find a spot, they need to understand parking behavior and determine whether drivers obey the rules, and adjust those rules accordingly. Since the technology services offered by companies like Streetline are no more expensive, and often cheaper, than the upkeep of old-fashioned coin meters, smart parking management is starting to catch on.

One city that has fully instituted Shoup's market-pricing plan for street parking is Redwood City, Calif. In 2005 the city council unanimously voted to remove time limits for parking in the downtown core. Additionally, they tasked the city's Parking Manager with ensuring that Shoup's 85/15 formula was maintained throughout the designated zone by adjusting prices based on occupancy. Though rate hikes at parking meters may sound more like political suicide than popular public policy, the move drew wide support, because all revenue generated was returned to the metered zone community, either through direct services or through infrastructure development.

Advocates of the Redwood City plan pointed to the success in the early '90s of a similar program in Pasadena, Calif., which implemented metered parking in a skid row neighborhood called Old Town. Local businesses at first feared that metered parking would drive away existing customers. But when revenue was returned to the district in the form of graffiti removal and new light fixtures on the streets, business actually improved. More than a decade later, Old Town Pasadena is a thriving community known for fine dining and shopping. With parking revenue in excess of $1 million a year, its streets receive biweekly steam-cleaning.

Shoup claims that such success stories are propelling grassroots support for increasing parking fees. "Once you get an alliance between green groups interested in environmental issues and public welfare, combined with business interests keen to improve profit margins, you produce a very powerful lobbying force," he says.

But will larger cities pick up on the idea? A 2006 congestion study undertaken by Partnership for New York, a nonprofit organization comprising 200 of the city's top CEOs, reported that traffic congestion costs New York City $13 billion in lost revenue and 50, 000 jobs annually. Among the study's recommendations for further consideration was increasing the price of curb parking. "In a city where garage parking spots are sold for the price of a new car and where garage parking fees can be as high as $15 to $20 for the first hour," the study noted, "on-street parking, the most convenient and most sought after by drivers, costs about $2 to $3 in Manhattan."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with the support of 130 advocacy groups, has proposed a different type of congestion-pricing for dealing with traffic: instituting a toll on drivers who enter Manhattan from the outer boroughs. But Shoup is skeptical that such a toll will significantly reduce congestion.

"Much of the traffic in Manhattan is caused by drivers who are searching for a free curb parking space," he says. "It doesn't make sense to charge cars to enter Manhattan without also charging to park on the streets. You have to charge to manage. You can't manage parking if you can't charge for it." And American drivers have clearly demonstrated that if there is a bargain to be had, they will circle the block for a parking space — and keep circling until they find it.

1. When Jellyfish Attack
2. Edwards, Nunn on Obama's Veep List
3. Never Underestimate McCain, But ...
4. Banksy: An Artist Unmasked
5. Obama: 'We Have a Daunting Task'
6. Berlin Awaits the 'Next JFK'
7. The Pursuit of Teen Girl Purity
8. When Are You Most Likely to Have a Heart Attack?
9. The Trouble with 'Healthy' Kid Foods
10. An Olympic Equestrian Tragedy