Friday, February 24, 2012

Onstreet Parking- a Public or Private Good?

A rethinking of what parking is in the first place (Reinventing Parking, Jan. 16, 2012)

Also discussed here: The case for the $6 parking meter (Ideas, Leon Neyfakh, Boston Globe, Jan. 15, 2012)

And here: Minimum parking requirements are like restroom requirements (Reinventing Parking, Aug. 23, 2010)

Today, we look at onstreet parking that could be traded as a private good while remaining available to the public in order to allow for municipalities to manage a scarce resource in an optimum manner- and that in turn provides for a cleaner, more sustainable city. Comparison with other examples of using the pricing of demand shows that this approach works well in most cases.



Key Quotes:

“In dense, urban areas like Boston, as many as 30 percent of cars on the street are cruising for parking at any given time”

“Shoup’s plan: make downtown street parking more expensive. Or.. make the most desirable spots cost what they’re really worth”

Curbside parking isn’t a shared resource, like Boston Common, but rather a valuable piece of real estate, managed by the city, that should be priced according to what it’s worth”

“A city like Boston could adjust prices so that spots cost just enough to keep one or two free on every block….it would help the city as a whole by reducing pollution, preventing accidents caused by distracted drivers, and nudging more people to walk, bike, or take public transit

“parking is not a public good, it is a private good which can have a market price”

“off-street parking? That's a whole different story. Most planning systems require parking with buildings in almost exactly the same way as they require toilets with every building”
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