Brandy Keeps the Pressure on JVH

Brandy takes umbrage with me in her response at the end of the post below, and I think she is missing the point. I don’t think the private sector can necessarily do a better job at managing a public parking asset than the public sector. I think the private parking sector has problems of its own it needs to address. I used the examples of how successful private sector folks use different means to change behavior. (Banks and MacDonalds).

Of course the challenges are different than Wal Mart or any other retail outlet. But our goal still has to be to meet those challenges as effectively as we can. As for Wal-Mart — there is also a morality issue there — The vast majority of WalMart’s customers would not steal. Some do and they put systems in place to catch them. However the majority of parking’s customers do steal, whether actively or passively, because they don’t understand that parking is something they SHOULD pay for. The same person who would never take an item from a rack at WalMart and walk out without paying would park and not pay without a second thought. They see no relationship to not paying for parking and stealing. The question is, how to change that attitude. Relying on enforcement to do so simply pisses off the customer.

Now, please PLEASE understand that I have never said that the parking industry should not use enforcement. What I am trying to communicate is that what we are doing is not addressing the root causes of parking issues. Unfortunately whether it’s true in Manchester or Portland, it is true most everywhere else. The public face of parking is either enforcement or raising revenue. We see it on TV, in the News, everywhere. Yesterday alone, I found 15 articles in the main stream media that related directly to either enforcement (and its unfairness) or ways cities are increasing parking fees to balance budgets. If you want to go to our home page or on our Facebook page you can read them.

At the IPI event next month there are two seminars on how to increase on street rates, three on pricing and how to “sell” it, three on green parking, one on public/private partnerships, one on parking management in LA and one on enforcement equipment . I don’t see any on the topic of the relationship of the parking departments in various cities and their customers. These seminars reflect the “needs” of the people who are attending them and what is popular in the profession.

Brandy, I don’t think most parking departments see this as an issue. Just as I commented below about traffic enforcement and parking enforcement, most people see the two quite differently. We enforce traffic laws to protect lives and property. We enforce parking laws to do what? Make space available? Collect Money? Create a better business environment? Raise the tax base? Reduce congestion? Social Engineering (move people out of cars and into car pools, rapid transit, feet, etc.) Just to be clear – We must enforce to the hilt parking regulations that relate to safety (driveways, near corners, fire hydrants, blocking access.)

I could make a case for any of the reasons for enforcement I listed, but most private citizens simply shrug them off as another government boondoggle. They see the new technology not as a way to allow them to more easily use the parking asset, but as a way to collect more money because traditional parking meters can’t collect it fast enough. They see walking to the corner to get a P and D ticket as providing less service than a meter, they see Pay by Space as a way to allow your officers to do more efficient enforcement AND they see in street sensors as another way to focus enforcement and collect more revenue (which of course, it does.)

Read the blogs, read the opinion sections, it’s all the same. We can’t get caught up in believing our own press.

You commented on the 90% rule (90% of all citations don’t get written) and mentioned ways to collect revenue automatically (GPS etc). See, it’s still back to enforcement. How do we collect the money?

Something to think about: What if people WANTED to pay for parking? What if suddenly all drivers saw paying for parking the same way they see paying for a new dress or a chain saw or a Big Mac? If that was the case, my guess is that we would write the same number of citations, but the percentage would be 90% of the citations would be written, not the other way around.

I don’t presume to have a solution except to constantly stress where the money is going – and it needs to go somewhere tangible. Or someplace the driver would want it to go (Children’s hospital, boy and girls clubs, etc). Maybe I would think twice about not paying if I knew the money was going to help cure cancer, or whatever.

By the way, Andy just pointed out to me that basically you and I are in agreement. That makes it difficult to argue. I told him it never stopped Brandy and JVH.

JVH