30% of Traffic Circling for Parking?


Parking guru Donald Shoup has an op-ed piece in yesterday’s NY Times suggesting that 30% of traffic in city centers may be circling looking for parking…


28 responses to “30% of Traffic Circling for Parking?”

  1. A national study of downtown parking found that the average price of curb parking is only 20 percent that of parking in a garage.

    Since that’s NOT the case in Central City Portland, where curb parking rates are largely comparable to garage rates –and you can get your garage parking paid for by merchants you buy from– I don’t find his ideas particularly applicable.

    In NW Portland, however, where there are options to pay, and options to park for free at the curb…it’s an argument for meters. But this all reminds me of Commissioner Adams’ call for revenue-sharing meters that the business community –at least on Hawthorne– seemed to loathe, so I don’t know where we go with this.

  2. I think Schoup also said in his talk at LDTMA that even in cities where meters and garages are similar prices that people gravitate towards what they can see and seems more convenient and close to location — that is, meters.

    So I still think these ideas are very relevant.

    Schoup’s mantra is that prices should be set so that 80 to 85% of on-street spaces are taken; that is, that there is almost always a space near where you want it, if you’re willing to pay the price, which people generally are.

  3. Additionally, this might be a good argument for those parking-space sensors that alert drivers of available parking spots, via either mobile devices or digital signs (say at a parking garage entrance).

    Perhaps parking garage companies could also ‘congestion price’ garage spots based on availability and demand? Ie, lower prices when the garages are only 25% full to encourage more people to park there…

    just at thought!

    Oh, and I read that in San Fran, people double park – even in bus-only lanes or trolley tracks – which can back up transit service considerably! That really sucks and am very glad that doesn’t happen in Portland. IMHO, we must have our shit together on this one!

  4. during the boom, the double parkers were the least of the worries in SF. the people parking and driving on the sidewalks was much worse.

  5. I think Shoup generally is on the right track with his suggestions. If you’re going to drive, it’s better to find a place to park quickly when you arrive at your destination. Hopefully, the meter will take bills/cards, so that no matter what the price is, you don’t really care — you got there, you parked quickly, you don’t need to now hunt down $5.00 in quarters, and you can go on with your live.

    And next time, maybe bicycling or taking transit will be more appealing.

    Where’s all the car-first folks on this issue? How do you guys see this? A good thing, because the user is paying for the service, like you always say they should, right?

    And in San Francisco, I’m not sure what’s worse — the people driving in the bus lanes with no regard for the signs, the people double-parking in the bus lanes with no regard for anything, the people wandering from lane to lane and turning right from the far left lane with no regard for turn signals, traffic signals or other traffic, the people parked on the sidewalks, or the meter-maids blocking the bike lanes to ticket cars that are reasonably parked in an actual parking space, making the bicyclists enter the traffic lanes and thus slow down traffic while going around them, while ignoring the cars double-parked in bus lanes, parked on sidewalks, and double-parked in bike lanes. Kinda hard to decide.

  6. Speaking of which, I have seen about 15+ incidents in downtown Portland in the last week alone where drivers have made a left turn from the middle lane… quite dangerous and I’m amazed at the stupidity of these drivers… and the fact that I haven’t seen it result in an accident yet!

  7. kinda stupid comment considering most New Yorkers do not own cars, instead use taxi and public transport, so why should they give a dam_ about parking for tourists???

  8. Dick,
    Even if that is the case, there are still many, many cars on the streets of New York. These cars impede the bus and taxi service and degrade the pedestrian environment (which, as you pointed out, affects that majority of New Yorkers, as they are pedestrians rather than drivers). Removing 30% of traffic that is, lest we forget, unnecessary (not part of a trip, or even for leisure) is a benefit for everyone.

    In Germany it’s common even in the small towns to have dynamic displays showing drivers where and how many parking spaces to find. The system works quite well. It’s always amusing to see the signs during peak hours showing a small handful–perhaps fewer than 10– available. Assuming the system is functioning properly, it makes me think that perhaps drivers are avoiding that Garage out of fear that the few remaining spaces will disappear before they get there.

  9. Parking becomes an issue when the requirement to build enough parking to support a residence/business is loosened by [falsely] assuming many will take public transit/bike/walk. Some areas actually have a negative parking requirement to “encourage transit ridership.”

    “Transit Oriented Development” faces similar problems as they are designed with less parking then what could normally be expected. Since most people drive, regardless of what was planned, we have a parking problem[see any TOD in the Portland Metro Area].

    This, of course, gives city hall another reason to punish drivers by creating more pay-to-park zones, and thus, creating a new revenue stream to fund unrelated alternative transportation that does nothing for the users who fund it.

    The traditional suburbs have little to no parking problems and no need for “free” street parking because they have these magical things called “parking lots.” When a new business opens up, they know that most people will arrive by car, so they build enough parking to support their customers.

    The Solution: Require business to provide enough parking assuming each customer will drive. Require each residence to provide enough parking assuming each resident of age will drive. Problem solved.

  10. there is almost always a space near where you want it, if you’re willing to pay the price

    As someone who wants to get people OUT of their cars, why would we want a system that makes driving MORE convenient? AND, on top of that, it does so by pricing people out of the market?

    We already have such a system in place to make parking convenient…limousines, that park wherever they want. If you can’t afford a driver, well, tough on you.

    This is just such a silly concept to me…have we really no idea of much illegal parking already goes on, especially in places like NYC. I’ll repeat what I asked in an earlier thread…what is the price point that will keep 15% of street parking spaces empty?

    And by what right of social-engineering do we decide who gets to have “convenient” parking while others simply can’t afford it anymore?

  11. Frank, I think you’re reaching the wrong conclusion. Pricing parking should help get people out of their cars. Pricing street parking appropriate will have two effects: discourage trivial trips and move some people to paid off-street parking.

  12. But this all reminds me of Commissioner Adams’ call for revenue-sharing meters that the business community –at least on Hawthorne– seemed to loathe, so I don’t know where we go with this.

    Wow, what is this? Revenue sharing with the business? That sounds ridiculously REASONABLE! To get a vested interest from the business in getting decent turnaround, but also maintaining some revenue flow from the parking costs. I don’t really see whats wrong with this, but can see why people, especially in Portland complain about the idea. People in Portland EXPECT things to be free, or unreasonably cheap. It’s scary from my perspective for people to undervalue things that are so valuable to begin with.

    Where’s all the car-first folks on this issue? How do you guys see this? A good thing, because the user is paying for the service, like you always say they should, right?

    I WANT to have a pay per service. With Government involved we don’t have that choice at all anymore. It’s a beg for service paradigm instead… so yeah, let’s hook up some real pay per service, pay per use systems for parking and such.

    …as for the Anthony’s comment, “The traditional suburbs have little to no parking problems and no need for “free” street parking because they have these magical things called “parking lots.” When a new business opens up, they know that most people will arrive by car, so they build enough parking to support their customers.

    No, the “traditional suburbs” do NOT have enough parking for automobiles. They never will. Take 23rd, Hawthorne, etc, ALL of these streets have parking problems because they where built and designed with walking, streetcars, and more intelligent and efficient transit in mind. New suburbs that do not focus on walking, transit, or anything EXCEPT automobiles have enough parking. But also, when a city gets to the edge of bankruptcy are the first to fall into the doldrums.


    The Solution: Require business to provide enough parking assuming each customer will drive. Require each residence to provide enough parking assuming each resident of age will drive. Problem solved.

    Require? More regulation on business? That’s stupid. Let a business build parking that they can A: afford, B: purchase land for, and C: intelligently build.

    The later in this case isn’t really “intelligent” these days as the whole auto infrastructure is heavily pushed, subsidized, and encouraged at the cost of large amounts of the well to do.

    Let the well to do have their burbs or whatever they want. But let everyone else pay their way. It’s absurd to subsidize everyone into a suburb (if it is even remotely feasible). It hasn’t worked in car dependant cities, I don’t see why people in Portland seem to be determined that it is possible.

  13. Frank said:
    “We already have such a system in place to make parking convenient…limousines, that park wherever they want. If you can’t afford a driver, well, tough on you.”

    Or the bus, which is fairly cheap, even compared to the price of parking. Yeah, you might have to walk a block, (200 feet,) but rarely more than that in this city. And they even open the door for you. Sadly, though, there is no minibar in the back.

  14. Uh, Adron, dude, the ‘burbs are not 23rd street or Hawthorne. And there is typically tons of parking available there (the suburbs). So, my advise to you is to maybe drive 20 minutes in any direction and see the suburbs before trying to describe them. The city of Portland is not indicative of the region.
    (also a note for future reference, speculation based on personal experience does not qualify as scientific evidence supporting anything–unless you witness a murder or robbery or a drive-by argument)

  15. This “suburb” discussion is interesting. Haven’t suburbs have adopted a parking policy that is similar to what is suggested here? They have equalized the cost of on-street and off-street parking. You pay nothing more for either whether you use them or not.

    That works as long as everyone uses an auto. But if you have a significant number of people using alternatives, it becomes much harder to justify charging everyone for parking whether they use it or not.

  16. i read adron’s take on “traditional suburbs” as our older suburbs. so hawthorne is a good example. i grew up in a traditional suburb in new jersey. my dad would walk to the train station in the downtown and take that into manhattan.

    the auto oriented suburbs are more of a post war thing.

  17. Ross, yes you are correct! Zoning requirements mandating certain #s of parking spaces for residences and businesses are exactly what has created the suburb in the first place!

    Except parking requirements that were created back in the 50s, 60s and 70s had no actual basis in reality – the traffic engineers would invent numbers, ie – 4 parking spaces for a barber shop – or 392 for a 14,000 ft^2 grocery store – and write it into a big, fat book of zoning standards for consumption and regurgitation by all of the other urban planners all over the country.

    The result is that we have a huge gluttony of parking in suburbia, and because we’ve been building as much parking as we have, everyone assumes that is how it should be done because (obviously) it is assumed that there is an actual, rational basis behind it.

    By comparison, a rational planning method – as seen in places like Vancouver, BC and Europe – assumes that you should build some parking, but that there will inevitably be times in which all the parking will be taken. For instance, during Bumbershoot, where about 400,000 additional people descend upon downtown Seattle, there really isn’t enough parking for everybody.

    Instead of encouraging people to take transit and carpool, what if Seattle assumed that everyone will drive their own car? Then downtown Seattle would need an additional 400,000 spaces/3 days = 133,333 parking spaces in their downtown, to meet peak demand.

    However, that is an extremely STUPID idea, as it will cost an additional: $25,000 per parking space X 133,333 = $3.33 Billion. With a “B.”

    It costs less, causes less environmental pollution, and makes people healthier by having them live within biking & walking distance of most of their activities (particularly grocery shopping, movie renting, eating at restaurants, bar hopping, etc) than making everyone drive.

    As the suburbs are any indicator, developers are not going to build all of the parking spaces as hidden underground lots like in downtown Portland – it simply costs too much. And those surface lots have come to dominate the geography of our communities, consuming around 40-80% of the land in our suburbs.

  18. developers are not going to build all of the parking spaces as hidden underground lots like in downtown Portland – it simply costs too much.

    Right now, I think surface parking is still a money maker in downtown Portland even given land values. I wonder what would happen if you required suburban development to charge for commercial parking spaces. I suspect it would free up a lot of land for development.

  19. the auto oriented suburbs are more of a post war thing

    I grew up in Bethpage, Long Island (NY) next to Levittown, that prototypical post WWII suburb. Even there we had the Long Island Railroad to take folks to Manhattan, providing a spine of mass transit for the island.

  20. Right now, I think surface parking is still a money maker in downtown Portland even given land values

    Surface parking is a huge cash cow precisely because we have a property tax structure that doesn’t reflect the real value of the land, and it’s use.

  21. Frank, the reverse of your point that our property tax structure doesn’t reflect the real value of the land, is being used as an argument against M37. Anti 37 proponents argue that owners with farm land are not being taxed at the real value, so if M37 is applied to their property they should have to pay all the back taxes as if the use was of a higher tax nature.

    As you are aware, all of our properties are taxed on their usage and not on the speculative use-like Zidell’s shipyard property in SoWhat is taxed for its shipbuilding and not condo towers. Why is it that what is good for the goose is not good for the gander-in the M37 argument? Same applies to parking. But we can always change the appraisel laws.

  22. Frank, the reverse of your point that our property tax structure doesn’t reflect the real value of the land, is being used as an argument against M37. Anti 37 proponents argue that owners with farm land are not being taxed at the real value, so if M37 is applied to their property they should have to pay all the back taxes as if the use was of a higher tax nature.

    As you are aware, all of our properties are taxed on their usage and not on the speculative use-like Zidell’s shipyard property in SoWhat is taxed for its shipbuilding and not condo towers. Why is it that what is good for the goose is not good for the gander-in the M37 argument? Same applies to parking. But we can always change the appraisel laws.

  23. Well I can tell you the effect their anti-car stance has had on me…. I am moving out of Portland back to Beaverton. It’s just too expensive to live here and there are better shopping options out in the burbs than downtown and out there I don’t have to deal with the bombarding harassment of the vagrants everywhere I go.

  24. Frank Dufay:

    A national study of downtown parking found that the average price of curb parking is only 20 percent that of parking in a garage.

    Chris Smith:

    Since that’s NOT the case in Central City Portland, where curb parking rates are largely comparable to garage rates –and you can get your garage parking paid for by merchants you buy from– I don’t find his ideas particularly applicable.

    Bob T:

    How do you know that a lot of people aren’t circling around looking for a parking
    spot where they want it? I’ve do it myself
    often, and in recent days. But since you think there’s plenty of parking paid for by merchants and that curb rates are comparable to garage rates, I guess I imagined it.

    What you need to do is a study of this for downtown Portland instead of dismissing it
    based on what you think people are probably
    doing in light of your own opinion of how
    affordable and convenient downtown parking is.

    Bob Tiernan

  25. Yes, Bob, you screwed up the atributions. Chris gets enough flak without having to answer for my assertions.

    I’ve been known to circle the block myself. But curb parking rates are not 20% of garage parking rates. And people circle parking lots in the malls…to get closer to the door.

    So?

    And, I’ll repeat, at what price point would we artifically create available parking spaces for everyone who wants one (or, rather, who can afford one). I know I’m deaf in one ear, but I’m just not hearing anything on that.

    Anti 37 proponents argue that owners with farm land are not being taxed at the real value

    There’s nothiong wrong, Lee, with taxing farm land for what it’s being used for, not its speculative value. Same with the Goodman surface parking lots…tax them as cash-producing parking lots, not “vacant” land that happens to have a few thousand dollars of “improvement.”

    The Zidell’s pay almost NOTHING for their property taxes on both their land held for speculation AND their shipyard property. A couple of thousand dollars for their 18 or so acres…

    The property tax system is completely broken.

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