Is Parking Too Cheap in Portland?


Jarrett at Human Transit thinks so.


28 responses to “Is Parking Too Cheap in Portland?”

  1. The big increase in bike mode share over the last decade has almost certainly played a part in easing the pressure on driving and parking downtown, which is something the article doesn’t take into account. I wouldn’t say that necessarily contradicts his point that the city subsidizes parking, it’s just an unaccounted for factor.

    For evidence that cities do indeed subsidize parking one need only look at what’s happened in the City of Chicago since the city sold off its downtown parking (technically it leased both city-owned garage and street meters for 99 years) to a private firm. Prices have quadrupled in some spots since the takeover, and while citizens have all complained, the city has shrugged and said, “there’s nothing we can do.”

    I visited Chicago at Christmastime, it was still hard to find a meter on the street, though that was before the latest increase on Jan 1. I’ve got to imagine that the city will be seeing an increase in the number of people taking transit, but I guess we’ll know more about that in a few years.

  2. When I am in Vancouver, WA parking is 50 cents an hour–and you can get the first twenty minutes free, anytime, if you push the button.

    Portland parking is 1.60 per hour, the fines are getting enormous, they charge you until 7 pm and also Sunday afternoons. You get a big fine for parking in a carpool zone, you can’t take advantage of time left on a meter since there is no meter.

    Where is this money going?

  3. Ron –

    In general, short-term parking rates form the city (in garages or on the street) are less than the short-term rates provided by private lots. The day rate situation is mixed, depending on where you park and how long a “day” is for your typical use.

    For example, near a studio space that I lease downtown, private lots charge $9 to $11 for a “day”, even if you park only an hour. After 3PM, this goes down to $5 for the “day”. There are no in-out priveleges on the private lots. (You can’t leave and come back during the “day”.)

    It is true that with the new meter system that you can’t take advantage of extra time left on a meter in an empty space. However, you can take the time left on your receipt sticker and drive to another part of town and continue to park with that sticker, something you couldn’t do with traditional parking meters.

    Hourly garages (most of them city-run) do offer an advantage over meters: You pay for the time you use, entry-to-exit, rather than having to guess at the beginning how long you will be parked, or rather than having to run out and feed the meter periodically.

    An example of an hourly private garage is the “Star Park” on Alder, the one above Office Depot. This garage used to charge $1.75/hr (more than the city), I don’t know if the current rate is even higher, it’s been awhile since I parked there.

    My conclusion: During the peak times of the day, the city is under-charging for parking (ie, subsidizing parking) compared to market rates on private lots. However, in the threshhold of late-afternoon to evening, private lots can be a better deal than street parking or the city garages, but that applies to fewer people. Perhaps the city should adjust rates by time-of-day, although that may lead to customer confusion.

    I do like that the newer meters give you a small receipt, as part of the sticker, that you can tear off and put in your pocket, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting when the time runs out.

    I don’t like that there are so few meters… the city effectively puts one per 200ft of block face. I’d rather see one per 100ft… helps to eliminate waiting and extra walking to/from vehicle.

  4. Where is this money going?

    In a word: streetcar. We bonded close to $30 million in future parking revenue (meters and Smart Park) to pay for construction of the original line, and will be paying that off for about 20 more years. The transit mall re-construction was also partially funded by bonding future parking revenue. And streetcar operating subsidies are paid out of parking revenue, in perpetuity. Since energy, labor costs, and fare evasion rates don’t go down, parking charges must go up.

    This is part of the reason we have so little money for basic maintenance. Parking revenue is the largest source of PDOT’s discretionary funding. Ever tried riding a bike on Salmon or 2nd (for example) downtown? Hold on tight to your handlebars if you do. We used freaking *stimulus* money to repave streets destroyed during the transit mall construction. Can anyone call that “sustainable?”

    Just wait until the patchwork utility cuts on MLK/Grand start to settle. It will be worse than it already is for motorists and cyclists. Crossing Grand coming off the Hawthorne is already like riding on a BMX track. Yes, this is an ODOT facility, but if we didn’t anticipate that running buses for 2 years on streets not designed for that type of load (3rd and 4th) would require at least a resurfacing, do you think there is money in the loop budget to fix those streets? I’m sure ODOT is really excited about paying to fix a problem the city is currently exacerbating.

    The same applies to the city-owned Smart Park garages. Why don’t we install space occupancy indicators, like they have at the airport, or other technologies that would have a real, immediate impact on congestion and GHG emissions? That sign at the base of the Morrison Bridge is a joke, and completely ineffective. It’s because we already spent that money, and stuff like that doesn’t require additional development subsidies, and hence doesn’t result in campaign contributions for Tier 1 human beings like our esteemed Mayor.

    It’s not going to get better anytime soon, unfortunately. Ask someone from PDOT how they are going to pay to operate the eastside streetcar. The honest answer is “we don’t know yet” but rest assured that the solution will be a combination of 1) parking meters in the Central Eastside with revenue earmarked for streetcar, and 2) further service cuts to largely transit-dependent but politically impotent populations (i.e., requiring a transfer from line 6 at the Convention Center to get downtown from anywhere near MLK). At least we’ll get rid of those pesky truck-oriented employers in favor of some lofts that the NYT might write about someday.

    That’s why the Streetcar System Concept Plan is a total joke: half a million dollars to determine that streetcars should go back pretty much exactly where they were 70 years ago. How are we going to pay to operate those? No one has bothered to ask the question, but I see an emerging pattern here.

    Man this town is making me jaded. But hey, as Earl said, it’s a great day for streetcars.

  5. Portland should get out of the parking garage game. Sell the lots to private companies and have reasonable on-street parking rates comparable to what private companies are charging be managed by the city.

  6. Bob R: I don’t like that there are so few meters… the city effectively puts one per 200ft of block face. I’d rather see one per 100ft… helps to eliminate waiting and extra walking to/from vehicle.

    Bob, I usually agree with what you have to say. But this statement had me scratching my head as to where you’re coming from.

    Right now, the furthest distance someone (typically) has to walk to a meter is 100 feet, then 100 feet back to their car. Most people cover three feet per step, so this works out to 70-75 steps – maximium – to take care of one’s parking fee. If you’ve parked right next to the meter, it’s a matter of 10-20 steps. Hardly an inconvenience for most able-bodied folks.

    In a city where we’re trying to promote active transportation, I see this as one more way to give people a bit more activity in their lives, even when they’re driving. And, you’d be increasing the cost of fare collection if you increased the number of meters.

  7. Parking meters junk up the street environment. They take away space from street lights and street trees. One per block side is okay with me.

  8. Why not price parking at $10/hr and see how well that works to get those evil customers out of their cars and onto slow, inconvenient transit?

    Or maybe they will go elsewhere and quit polluting Portland businesses with their evil money. Most of those businesses are evil corporations that don’t pay their fair share anyway, so who cares?

    Thanks
    JK

  9. JK,
    Does that mean that you favor evil socialistic subsidies for parking then? Because it sounds to me like you are advocating setting parking rate that socially engineers a particular result – more customers.

    THANKS!!!!!

    joe

  10. Portland should get out of the parking garage game. Sell the lots to private companies and have reasonable on-street parking rates comparable to what private companies are charging be managed by the city.

    I can’t see any advantage to the city doing that. The revenue from publicly owned parking is almost certainly greater than the property tax and business tax revenue the city would derive from private parking operations. If a public asset is generating net revenue for the public coffers, why get rid of it?

  11. I can tell you it is way to cheap in the Hollywood district and out on Hawthorne in the 30’s and 40’s. It can’t be overpriced since it is free and good luck finding a space during busy times. I’d like the city to stop leaving revenue on the table and then telling me there isn’t enough money to fix our streets.

  12. Douglas,

    There you go again, feeding the troll. “Starvation”; remember that word when the troll belches.

  13. Anandakos Says: There you go again, feeding the troll. “Starvation”; remember that word when the troll belches.
    JK: Can I take you comment to indicate that you cannot find facts to disagree with my assertion that transit is “slow” and “inconvenient”. BTW, it also costs more.

    Thanks
    JK

  14. Cars and transit are both convenient and inconvenient at the same time. The point is if the costs of the forms of both modes are not present to the would be rider of either system, we will never truly know which one is less expensive or which one is more convenient.

    I like to drive and take transit. Why can’t we have both, JK?

  15. Douglas K.“I can’t see any advantage to the city doing that. The revenue from publicly owned parking is almost certainly greater than the property tax and business tax revenue the city would derive from private parking operations. If a public asset is generating net revenue for the public coffers, why get rid of it?”

    I personally don’t believe any city of municipality should be in the “business” of making money. Its role should be to serve the people and the city at large, and while they do bring in money to the city, you do not know for sure if that’s true. The actual sale of those garages in conjunction with the annual property taxes might be comparable to the net money taken in from those garages. I suppose I am being way too ideological, here, but it’s my personal opinion.

    Parking services is one of those notorious things that cities try to exploit to make money — and in the process piss off a bunch of people. Nobody can get mad at the private parking companies, it’s there prices.

    I do think that Portland parking garages are insanely reasonable to the users of them.

    I have no issue with on-street parking as that is public right of way.

    Maybe if those parking garages were actually in private hands, maybe the owners of those garages would do something positive with them and actually tear them down and put up meaningful buildings that add vitality to the city? Something to consider.

  16. I meant to say their instead of there. When is an edit feature going to be installed? I know they’re out there for blogs!

  17. I’d like the city to stop leaving revenue on the table and then telling me there isn’t enough money to fix our streets.

    Parking meters are usually revenue neutral. They’re meant to circulate parking users and cover costs, not to make money. I know for a specific example San Diego opened the books a few years ago and was able to demonstrate they were barely breaking even on parking meters, and were using them almost entirely to give patrons of businesses easy parking. There was no real profit to speak of.

    Between maintaining the meters, collecting cash, enforcing that people are paying, etc parking meters are a lot more expensive to operate than you might assume.

  18. I understand where you’re coming from, ws, but my view is that if a city can generate net revenue by running business-like operations (such as paid parking), that’s revenue they don’t need to collect through taxes.

    On the other hand, it might be a good financial move to sell the garages and invest the proceeds from the sale — for example, into an endowment fund to provide money for the operation and maintenance of public parks — and then collect property taxes and business taxes from the privately owned lot. If the city comes out ahead revenue-wise, then I’m fine with it. I really don’t care who owns the parking, as long as the city’s bottom line improves.

    Anandakos, good advice. I do indeed make it a point to ignore the troll these days.

  19. Actually, there’s one situation where I would seriously encourage city-owned parking: as a way of creating new public parks/plazas downtown. IF building an underground parking structure with a park on top will produce enough parking revenue to repay the capital costs of the project AND cover ongoing operating expenses, then the city should do it. (But only on a site where a new public park would actually make sense, of course.)

  20. I’m perceiving a bit of a disconnect in this conversation. Jarrett’s original question is about all-day parking, which in general is provided by the private sector, not in City structures.

    Indeed the pricing scheme in most Smart Park facilities is priced to discourage all day parking (rates go up after four hours). The Smart Park system is designed to provide convenient and affordable parking for retail and entertainment customers and is highly valued by the downtown business community as an economic development tool.

    So:
    – provides a service not provided by private sector
    – valued by business community as positive to our economy
    – generates revenue for City

    I could argue that perhaps it makes retail to auto-centric, but I’m not going to here or now. Putting that aside, why would we want to get rid of this?

  21. $10/day is a pretty dang good deal for downtown parking, Chris. A price which would be “designed to discourage all-day parking” would be closer to $20/day–or simply post a four hour maximum and then you have to leave.

  22. I just checked the rate page and was surprised to see considerable variation in daily maximum rates, form $7 to &15 (I suspect this reflects differences in retail demand in different areas – daily pricing adjusted to get productive use from the spaces not needed for retail).

    But at least in the structure I use most recently, 10th and Yamhill, a large number of spaces are marked for 4-hour maximum use.

  23. Al, why is that, can you be more specific?

    Sorry about not following the discussion closely but I have pretty much retreated into my own little world of Trimet blog material, which continues to fascinate me.

    It’s $4.00 to park 2 hours!

    That’s ridiculous!

    This is in the pearl.

    There is no public sector if the private sector goes bust, unfortunately I agree with the conservatives about this.

    Gotta be careful how much money they squeeze out of the “private” sector which is everything and everybody that is not employed by the government.

    Of course if catering to the upper class is all they care about in this city, then $4 is chump change.

    Is Portland doing ok financially or not?
    No clear answer, they aren’t cutting anything it seems, so why do they need to keep raising fees?

    I think there’s a lot of waste in this city, and I don’t like it!
    I don’t think that this city has an accountable government any more than our federal government.

Leave a Reply to nuovorecord Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *