The State of California is considering a law to stop the use of state money for parking facilities. This will also pass through to counties and cities. If a public entity wants to build a parking structure, they have to pay for it out of revenues generated by the structure. Read about it here. The idea behind this is green green green. If there is no place to park a car, then there will be fewer cars. I get it. No money for parking, no cars. The anti car lobby gets its way one way or the other.
I have no real problem with this. I believe from my heart that people who drive should pay for the places they park their cars. This is simple fair play. If you drive, you pay to park. Why should I pay for you to drive to Santa Monica Third Street Promenade and subsidize your parking. Now if the local merchants want to pay for the parking structures and subsidize the parking, fine. That's their decision.
But I think the days of cities building parking structures is gone. Here's a quote from one of my correspondents:
Several Cities that I've talked to in the last few months have shown a lot of interest in addressing parking for new development and re-development by taking a look at their existing resources and applying better management principles to those operations in order to achieve the needed parking versus building new spaces. They are wanting to look at everything from their pricing structure to shared parking to shuttles to centrally located valets to car pools to 2 way streets with angled parking and anything and everything else that might work. Those consultants and construction companies that rely on the State money better get on board, cause the reality is that there ain't no more State money out there
Couldn't say it better myself.
JVH
Hat Tip: Mark
2 Responses
JVH,
I agree with most of what you said. However, one major consideration that you don’t address is economic development. Taxpayers fund many projects in the name of economic development. It doesn’t seem wise to stop unilaterally funding parking garages that would support economic drivers without funding access in some other way. It’s the proverbial two-sided coin.
If the development in question is going to throw off enough taxes or other income to pay for a publicly financed parking structure then that should be allowed to qualify so long as that income is targeted for that use. I think the idea is that the general public fund doesn’t end up spending what is available in limited tax dollars to support a parking garage for a limited/targeted group of parkers.