I’m the first one to jump on the pay for parking bandwagon. And I believe that parking rates should be market based. If as the story says, it costs $38 to park all day in an off street garage, fair enough. However, I’m certain that parking on street is less than $4.50 an hour. This means that it’s to the advantage of the average parker to park on street rather than off street. This adds to cruising and other issues.
Of course this is also typical. If you read the article you find that they are raising parking rates to cover the shortfall in the transit rates. The argument is then that fewer people will drive and park, thus lowering the income in city garages, and since the fares on rapid transit don’t cover operating costs, their shortfall could be worse, not better.
Did anyone ever consider the possibility of making bus and transit lines charge enough to cover the costs of running them and not supporting them with money from other divisions of the government. That’s how private companies work. If you elect to live in Spokane, you pay more per mile to fly to Seattle than those who live in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And people in Spokane gladly pay extra because they want to live in Eastern Washington and not in the “big city.”
If one wants rapid transit to work, and pay for itself, then you need to up the quality of service. Put on a bar car. Add a host to help with other travel issues. Make them more convenient, comfortable, and clean. Train the drivers to help rather than bark at the passengers. Oh, gee….if they had to make their own way, maybe they would come up with ideas to attract people to them.
But, as long as they are subsidized, like the Post Office, why innovate. Just wait for someone else to pay the bills.
JVH
One Response
JVH,
I think you have a straw-man argument. First off, nothing in transportation is paid for by users, not even private car owners who drive on a private toll freeway, pay for a parking garage at work and park in their garage at home are paying the full costs.
So it can’t be about ‘user fees’. The only way to gauge if the $4.50 rate is ‘too high’ is if people are electing not to park on those streets. If the occupancy is about 80% or so, it’s almost certainly an appropriate rate. Multiple studies of parking have shown that parking demand elasticity is relatively low, basically, even big increases in price produce only small changes in parking demand. Based on my calculations, the ‘market price’ for on-street parking in NYC is around $20/hr. Obviously that rate won’t happen, and it might not be that high in SF, but it’s likely higher than $4.50. Some of those of parking is still subsidized by the city. One only needs to look to Chicago to see what the ‘market’ does to parking prices. They sold off their parking meters to a private company who is planning to double or triple the on-street parking rate (it’s likely they would charge even more, but the lease provision gives the city some say in the final price).
So, while expensive, even a $4.50 rate is almost certain to be an effective, and economically fair rate.