Today Jeff Lee wrote in The Vancouver Sun newspaper that Vancouver City is eyeing high-tech pilot projects in San Francisco and Los Angeles where on-street parking rates are varied and change according to demand. Vancouver's Director of Transportation, Jerry Dobrovolny is said to have admitted that Vancouver has the highest peak on-street parking rates in North America but he calls the policies "progressive".
Question: Do you think that nosebleed parking rates create more places for people to park? I don't. Two things happen: 1. People stop going downtown and they go somewhere else to conduct their business, and / or 2) They go downtown anyway and make do. If the space is too expensive, which some may argue it is at this point, some drivers simply drive around without parking and exacerbate the situation. This is neither solving congestion nor saving energy and curbing pollution. It's the Vancouver parking equivalent of solving the landfill problem by shipping garbage elsewhere.
In the most extreme situation (like NYC and London), people hire drivers who simply keep driving the car around in circles until a meeting is finished... and then on to the next meeting to do the same. I know this because I've done it.
The $60m generated in fees and fines is telling about the real motivation. It's mean, uncivilized... and in the case where people are living on a shoe string or simply down on their luck, it's just downright cruel.
I think there is something very immoral about relying on fines (of any kind) as part of a city budget. It's despicable actually.
Nosebleed parking rates do not create more places for people to park. They reflect market pressures that are sensibly resolved by responding to the forces of supply and demand.
ReplyDeleteParking fees are a rationing device for an increasingly scarce resource, that being parking spots adjacent to high traffic areas. The city has an obligation to manage this resource wisely for the benefit of all, not just for the benefit of the 1% who can afford a driver to circle the block while they do their business.
I use transit more because of the relatively high cost of parking downtown. I am still not entirely happy about this but as the city continues to grow and the land base doesn't, I see the need to switch commuters from car travel to transit. When I look at the convenience of on street parking relative to off street parking, I think there should be a premium to be paid and at the moment the rates seem to be at parity. So in some senses the city owned parking spaces are still underpriced.
I believe in the user pay principle, which parking fees, whether for the use of public of privately owned spaces, helps to uphold. I don't see the argument that the use of public space should be any less expensive than the use of private spaces. The city owns that land and should extract market rents for its use. As a taxpayer I like the fact that this places the burden where it belongs, with the user.
Aside from the costs of meters and policing, the city incurs real costs related to the provision of roads. The construction and maintenance of city roads is a real cost and one that the owners of vehicles wishing to park on city land have an interest in supporting.
From the perspective of retail businesses operating in the city, charging rents for parking spaces makes sense on a number of counts. When the parking spaces are properly priced customers have a better expectation that a parking space convenient to accessing the business will be available and not occupied by a long-term parker who should more reasonably find space off the street or switch to transit. High rents lead to high turnover and therefore the probability that retail operations will have a greater number of customer visits from people traveling by personal vehicle.
Properly managed city parking spaces also contribute to the good management of traffic flows and the overall reduction of the numerous negative effects caused by traffic congestion.
By switching to time of day rates the city will come into line with the private parking operators who have already caught on to the fact that variable parking rates optimize net income. This will indirectly benefit the operators of businesses such as restaurants and theaters who cater to patrons wishing to travel in their private vehicles in off hours.
Your argument is flawed. If you are living on a shoe string or simply down on your luck then you won't be able to afford to own and operate a car. You will be scraping for bus fare. Parking rates will not be an issue for you.
ReplyDeleteIn this sense we are talking about a progressive scheme since only the more affluent of us will be be carrying the burden of the parking "tax".
Anonymous 1: We are already paying to use the roads through property taxes and gas taxes. In areas of low demand, it would seem illogical to be charging further rents on top as there is no need for any "rationing". My original example of Jericho is a good one. There I suspect the act of paving and charging for parking did little other than pay the salaries of those who built the lot and those who steal by issuing tickets on behalf of the city. Further, in the overall larger picture of the local economy, that $5 or $10 diverted to parking is likely $5 or $10 that would not be paid to a worker doing something useful for a living... like cooking hot dogs. In the cases of areas where so called rationing is required, fair enough I see your point but the amounts being extorted are outrageous and not dictated by need, market forces nor fairness. The amounts of the tickets are also outrageous and I suspect that if a laffer curve analysis were done, we'd see that they made no sense to the city either.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous #2: Not sure what you are talking about.