OK here’s the deal…
There is a housing area near UCLA known as North Village. A bunch of students live there, mostly in apartments. Its an area of twisty streets and little parking. Here’s the issue. Local landlords have cut a deal with the city that parking rules won’t be enforced in the area. The residents park every which way, blocking sidewalks, parking on parkways, and the like. The landlords feel that if their tenants aren’t allowed to break the law and park wherever they want, they won’t be able to charge the confiscatory rates they do.
Enter Don Shoup…
He pointed out that the laws were being broken. He had his students do a survey and notified the city that there was a problem. As my son says "crickets." No response. So he stirred the pot by pointing out that this is truly a Handicapped issue, since the ADA requires that handicapped folks have access and the cars are being allowed to block the sidewalk and thus people with handicaps can’t use the sidewalks etc.
After a lot of backing and forthing, the city agreed to begin to enforce parking regulations in the area. They are going to do so at the end of term so students can know that they will not have much of a place to park when they move in to the apartments.
In the end, however, Don’s goals were many fold. First help the handicapped, but second, he feels that the concept of paying very high rent for living space and getting parking for free is opposite from the way it should be. What will happen, he feels, is that when the laws are enforced, students with cars will migrate to apartments with parking space and those without will find a bit cheaper rent in the North Village. Those apartments in the area have actually have some parking space can rent it to those with cars to make up for some of their lost rental revenue.
All in all, everyone will benefit from getting away from "free" on street parking.
JV
