Parking

The fetish for government-subsidized parking is truly an odd thing. In any society with as many cars as ours, there are going to need to be a lot of parking spaces. But normally there's a case for government subsidies when there's some kind of positive externality associated with some form of behavior. That's just really not the case with driving and parking. People like the convenience of driving right up to a store or office or whatever and parking there -- indeed, they like it enough to pay for! How much will they pay? Well, it's hard to know in advance which is why you need markets.

But that's what you should have -- as much parking as the market will bear. Not government-mandated parking, and not government-provided free or discount parking. Let people build garages and if it's more economical to provide less parking, let there be less parking.

Comments

I think the positive externality is supposed to be more people driving in to shop and spend money, wherever it may be.

Posted by Bribes | April 28, 2008 3:55 PM

Sounds like a job for Donald Shoup:
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/dr-shoup-parking-guru/

Posted by Preston | April 28, 2008 4:01 PM

Compare parking garages to other government expenditures on transportation infrastructure. There are positive externalities associated with it.

My critique of government subsidies on parking garages would be more along the lines of opportunity costs. Governments could instead spend that money on mass transit and making the location a more walkable area.

The counter would be that mass transit costs boatloads of money, whereas it's much easier to subsidize a parking garage. And making an area more walkable is a long term project that doesn't give immediate relief, so politicians are less likely to act on it.

Posted by Bribes | April 28, 2008 4:02 PM

While we're on the subject of markets and transit policy, Matt, do you still like Clinton's approach on the gas tax holiday now that she's started attacking Obama for opposing it?

Posted by Erik | April 28, 2008 4:03 PM

To be fair, the reason these requirements exist is that it is costly to exclude people from parking spaces. So the positive externality is that spaces elsewhere, e.g. street parking in front of your house, don't get taken.

I agree with you on the merits but you need to understand who you're arguing against. Just look at who complains when a project is built without the usual number of parking spaces.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 28, 2008 4:05 PM

I think the positive externality is supposed to be more people driving in to shop and spend money

But this is not an externality. It's captured by the businesses at whch the money is spent.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 28, 2008 4:11 PM

Downtown Bethesda is an urban island in the midst of a vast suburban ocean-- just walk a block or two beyond the Urban District south, east, or west, and you'll find yourself wandering among the cave-dwellers. The current policy, as I understand it, is a plausible compromise-- limit parking in downtown enough to make it difficult and annoying, but not actually impossible.

Posted by MattF | April 28, 2008 4:14 PM

You're also forgetting that parking isn't simply a convenience of proximity and sloth, but also of consumerism. If you're talking about a shopping area, even a smallish one, you're going to have business owners and a customer base that wants people to be able to make large purchases. Dragging a bunch of shopping bags back home via mass transit is a pain in everyone's ass, especially other, less burdened passengers'.

Posted by mark f | April 28, 2008 4:14 PM

Matt, you are all wrong on this one. The argument is that parking reduces congestion and parking search costs. because these are costs that are external to a particular property, the building owner won't build enough. This really hits the fan with commercial property adjacent to residential neighborhoods. Commercial properties want to minimize parking and residential neighborhoods see the congestion and double parking etc. on their streets-its a clear externality. When you talk to local politicians they are clear that "adequate" parking is the number one development issue.

The congestion externality is the dominant argument on parking in the urban economics literature and, speaking form experience, its an uphill slog to get those economists to recognize the negative externalities. Thats partly because the case for parking relieving congestion externalities is pretty strong, while a lot of the arguments in the anti-parking literature are pretty weak from an economist's viewpoint.

Posted by CalDem | April 28, 2008 4:21 PM

The argument is that parking reduces congestion

If so, it is a very bad argument.

Posted by Preston | April 28, 2008 4:23 PM

As others have pointed out you are wrong about the externalities, when businesses don't provide adequate parking for their customers the result is their customers invade parking intended for others.

Do you also object to mandates that businesses provide bathrooms?

Posted by James B. Shearer | April 28, 2008 4:44 PM

Preston, I think you have to differentiate between long and short term effects. In the short term, forcing more parking onto developments is going to reduce congestion. However, in the longer term it may, by reducing the cost of driving and increasing the cost of other transit modes, increase congestion. The problem is there isn't anything that economists would accept as evidence that supports the longer term effect. It seems like an easy, common-sense, argument, but its the kind of thing one would want to see tested, at least to see the magnitude of the effect.

Posted by CalDem | April 28, 2008 4:45 PM

If you're talking about a shopping area, even a smallish one, you're going to have business owners and a customer base that wants people to be able to make large purchases.

Well then, businesses and consumers can pay to provide it. The question is, why should government, though mandates or direct provision, provide additonal parking beyond that which customers and businesses are willing to pay for?

Commercial properties want to minimize parking and residential neighborhoods see the congestion and double parking etc. on their streets-its a clear externality. When you talk to local politicians they are clear that "adequate" parking is the number one development issue.

This is true. But another way of looking at it is, you shouldn't have unrestricted parking in residential neighborhoods either. Permits for on-street parking in residential neighborhoods is a much more efficient way to deal with the problem, than forcing businesses to overinvest in parking.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 28, 2008 5:00 PM

The problem is there isn't anything that economists would accept as evidence that supports the longer term effect.

What makes you think that, CalDem?

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 28, 2008 5:06 PM

This is true. But another way of looking at it is, you shouldn't have unrestricted parking in residential neighborhoods either. Permits for on-street parking in residential neighborhoods is a much more efficient way to deal with the problem, than forcing businesses to overinvest in parking.

Want if I don't want to deal with parking permits? What if my friends are coming over for a party? What if you don't want a bunch of people driving on residential streets where there are kids playing? There is nothing wrong with a community deciding that business shoppers should have to park in business provided parking spots. It's not like these spots need to be excessive anyways. Because the amount the business and shopper are willing to pay for with free residential parking nearby is probably zero, which is a considerable problem.

Posted by mpowell | April 28, 2008 5:17 PM

CalDem-

Literally less than one minute of googling turned up this article on induced demand for road construction. It uses some basic econometrics to estimate that "a 10% increase in lane-miles correlates with about a 5.6 to 5.9% increase in travel" and goes on to find strong evidence that the increase in highway capacity causes the increase in traffic.

Obviously this is about highway capacity rather than parking capacity, but, again, it took me less than a minute to find. There is no lack of rigorous, quantititave evidence on this issue.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 28, 2008 5:24 PM

Lemuel

-Agree parking mandates are a second best option, pricing congestion is first best, not sure where residential permits come into the ranking, circumstances probably dictate first or second best.

-my multiple conversations with top urban economists about the work of Dr. Shoup and others. And my manuscripts under review at Real Estate Research, Urban Economics, etc. Showing causal effects across different cities with very different characteristics is a difficult empirical task.

-its not that I disagree with Dr. Shoup, its just that he uses anecdotes, not data, for his key arguments.

Posted by CalD | April 28, 2008 5:29 PM

parking isn't VMT, the induced travel demand effect from extra highways is well-known,

Posted by CalDem | April 28, 2008 5:34 PM

Want if I don't want to deal with parking permits? What if my friends are coming over for a party?

If residential parking is not scarce, then reducing the amount of commerical parking will not create any problems. If residential parking *is* scarce, then yes, you should have to pay in some way for using more than your share of it for a dinner party -- even, I'm sorry to say, if you don't want to.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 28, 2008 5:38 PM

I am about to get my degree in commerical real estate development and I had a class project where I was doing the design and costs projections associated with a mixed-use apartments, retail project in the downtown core. Zoning requirements here are 1 parking stall per unit and 1.5 per every 1000 square feet of retail. My parking costs were about $30,000.00 per stall which made the project unfeasible from a costs standpoint. I then went to the city to see if I could get mitigation on parking, with the standard no right off. Then I asked for a subsisdy from the city in that the residential and retail in the downtown core is a priority for the city, and they all but laughed me out of the place.

Posted by Angus W | April 28, 2008 5:41 PM

I am about to get my degree in commerical real estate development and I had a class project where I was doing the design and costs projections associated with a mixed-use apartments, retail project in the downtown core. Zoning requirements here are 1 parking stall per unit and 1.5 per every 1000 square feet of retail. My parking costs were about $30,000.00 per stall which made the project unfeasible from a costs standpoint. I then went to the city to see if I could get mitigation on parking, with the standard no right off. Then I asked for a subsisdy from the city in that the residential and retail in the downtown core is a priority for the city, and they all but laughed me out of the place.

Posted by Angus W | April 28, 2008 5:42 PM

my manuscripts under review at Real Estate Research, Urban Economics, etc.

On the internet, nobody knows that you're a dog ... or an expert.

:)

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 28, 2008 5:44 PM

Its a new field for me, I just got interested in Shoup's book on parking and had some good related data, so I wrote a couple of papers. Even by economics standards its a struggle with the reviewers, so I want Matt to know that within the urban economics discipline the parking arguments are not straightforward. And at least the people reviewing my papers don't think there is good empirical evidence for Shoup's hypotheses.

So I'm not relying on expertise to make the argument, just relaying my personal experience in the field.

Posted by CalDem | April 28, 2008 5:53 PM

lemuel:

Thanks for the reference to the single greatest New Yorker cartoon in the last 20 years.

That said, let's not forget all the other ills that excess parking capacity causes:

Since property taxes are almost always in part based on what improvements one has done to a lot, property owners can sit on a weedy patch of broken concrete, pay almost no taxes, and collect parking revenue for years until they get an offer for a development;

Parking, just by taking up space, reduces density, which leads to more car use, which leads to more parking, etc.;

Parking structures are rarely if ever aesthetically pleasing, so they are a beauty tax on all urban centers;

Parking lots are statistically high crime sites, of both the property and violent flavors.

Posted by peejay | April 28, 2008 6:06 PM

If residential parking is not scarce, then reducing the amount of commerical parking will not create any problems. If residential parking *is* scarce, then yes, you should have to pay in some way for using more than your share of it for a dinner party -- even, I'm sorry to say, if you don't want to.

In an area with mixed residential and commercial, I could see reasonably available residential parking suddenly becoming very scarce if businesses were not required to provide adequate parking. Opening a nearby grocery store is much less political if it doesn't have a substantial impact on the desirability of my residence. A residential street should not be viewed as a bunch of extra parking spots to be filled up. Yes, that space is available for parking, but most residents would prefer that it normally be very lightly used. If this is citywide policy, than the cost is borne by the residents uniformly. But without mandates, this would be very difficult to achieve. I'm thinking here of a city like Austin, not New York.

Posted by mpowell | April 28, 2008 6:11 PM

space is available for parking, but most residents would prefer that it normally be very lightly used.

And I'd preferr to be able to take a three-month sabbatical to travel around Latin America. But government neither mandates that my employer provide me three months of paid vacation, nor offers me use of a heavily-subsidized public travel fund.

Why does your preference for lots of extra parking spaces have a special claim on public resources?

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 28, 2008 6:25 PM

I think that a lot of the anti-automobile voices out there really overplay their hand on the idea of induced demand. While I don't doubt the veracity of the studies shown above, my understanding of their methods is that most of the shown effect relates to increases in suburban development intensity surrounding highway projects. Where there is space for new development, development patterns tend to follow increases in available capacity. This is desirable insofar as it promotes the efficient use of transportation resources. I, for one, am tired of hearing NIMBYs bandy about the notion of induced demand as an excuse to inhibit any and all publicly subsidized development.

However, that doesn't excuse the kind of subsidy system and regulation we give to parking in this country. The argument that public parking garage subsidies reduce congestion only really holds if there doesn't also exist underpriced street parking. In midtown Manhattan, for example, most drivers simply assume that street parking will not be available during the day (thank you broken placard system). Parking garages are expensive as heck, but they are also always available, and the average driver will not choose to circle around looking for parking (which would contribute to congestion). In DC, however, there is more available street parking, and it is priced far below the cost of a parking garage. Accordingly, drivers have a private incentive to circle and look for parking, at the public expense of increased congestion, which is clearly a negative externality. Additionally, parking garage operators have little incentive to cater to non-commuters, so there is too little parking for non-commuters and many parking garages cater only to monthly passholders. If street parking were priced at market value, parking would certainly be more expensive for the people that were able to find spots before, but it would also be faster to park, faster to drive, and non-commuters would have an easier time finding garage parking when on-street spots are not easily available.

Posted by Lee | April 28, 2008 6:28 PM

Agree Lee,
correctly priced parking/congestion fees are the better policies. parking mandates or subsidies are much worse solutions to congestion and search costs.

But Matt should be clear that congestion/search costs are an externality rational for parking mandates.

Posted by CalDem | April 28, 2008 7:22 PM

}}My critique of government subsidies on parking garages would be more along the lines of opportunity costs. Governments could instead spend that money on mass transit and making the location a more walkable area.{{

I have no particular opinion here, but I work for ESU (Enormous State University, where the football stadium dwarfs puny establishments of professional teams), and we have a goodly amount of parkings and parking garages, plus certain older areas on campus which are relatively under-endowed with parking.

While parking is an even popular activity, walking from the parking lot to your office is much less so. A dedicated spot, festooned with the number of the licence plate, is a highly cherished privilege. As a bicyclist, I am not overly supportive BUT.... start of the dream sequence.

Piotr becomes parking czar of the campus. Every semester there will be a homesteading round: everyone can bid for any parking spot to be individually privileged. The bids are in the number of carpoolers, a disabled carpooler being worth 3 hale ones. Thus 4 hale carpoolers can eject a lone lame one, but they could be trumped by a lame duo, or a trio, two hale and one lame carpooler. Most importantly, such high achiever would be few and they could choose most convenient and prestigious locations.

If the scheme would be sufficiently successful, a part of parking lots could be converted to bicycle parking structures. Americans offer an excuse that bicycling makes them smelly. (At least some, I know one bicycle commuter from Phoenix, 8 miles one way.) Perhaps covered facilities with individual lockers and showers would be an answer

One complaint about stripmalls and malls: sometimes they make walking too difficult, e.g. by making no allowance for legal street crossing, with mall on one side and strip mall on another. True, the idea of WALKING to a shopping mall, or driving there and then WALKING to nearby stores across the street (rather then commencing a sequence of short rides) verges on Communism, Atheism and what not. .

Posted by piotr | April 28, 2008 7:26 PM

Zoning requirements here are 1 parking stall per unit and 1.5 per every 1000 square feet of retail. My parking costs were about $30,000.00 per stall which made the project unfeasible from a costs standpoint. I then went to the city to see if I could get mitigation on parking ... Then I asked for a subsisdy from the city

Was your initial request for "mitigation" on parking a relaxation of the zoning laws? It strikes me that it would be cheaper for cities to simply relax the zoning laws to get rid of the parking requirements rather than shell out 35k/each for a parking spot.

One complaint about stripmalls and malls: sometimes they make walking too difficult, e.g. by making no allowance for legal street crossing, with mall on one side and strip mall on another.

Ain't that the truth. It's one thing to drive to Target. It's another thing to have to drive between Target and Bed, Bath, and Beyond when they're located in the same complex.

Posted by Tyro | April 28, 2008 9:01 PM

I'm always glad to see Matt's occasional posts on municipal policy and urban planning. Is that an unfilled niche in the world of lay-audience policy blogging? Seems like most wonks looking for national audiences are allergic to anything that stinks of localism. Too bad.

Can anyone recommend readable blogs that really specialize in municipal policy? Other than Ed Glaeser's Globe column?

Posted by Michael Andersen | April 29, 2008 12:03 AM

Americans offer an excuse that bicycling makes them smelly.

For some of us, it is true. I sweat when I exercise, and I sweat in warm weather. Put 'em together, and BAM - stinky.

Can anyone recommend readable blogs that really specialize in municipal policy?

Note that the system takes a crap if I include URLs, so let me just say you should take a look at:
Planetizen
Curbed [there are several different Curbeds around the country for different cities: Curbed LA, Curbed SF, etc.]
Cyburbia
John Massengale
David Sucher

Standard caveats apply - I don't agree with everything in said blogs, etc.

Posted by Adam Villani | April 29, 2008 2:27 AM

"The problem is there isn't anything that economists would accept as evidence that supports the longer term effect. "

Um, how about all the towns around the world that have introduced park-and-ride buses? Obviously they're not suitable for all types of towns, but they certainly have reduced congestion where they are suitable.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | April 29, 2008 3:52 AM

In that area there are lots of restaurants, a few shops, a grocery store, and a movie theater. Since the parking for the retail/restaurants is limited to the number of hours ( a couple of hours) and his free on the weekends, it benefits the business is that it creates a high turnover in the parking and uses the roads on the weekend when they are not crowded.

If you limit the parking places people will stop going. If I have to drive to another parking lot pay and then ride metro, I would go a lot less. If there is not parking on the weekend, I would go less.

And last, there first time I cannot find a parking spot would be the last time I would go into that area. Look at how limited parking and high parking prices killed the downtown department store versus free parking at the suburban mall.

Posted by superdestroyer | April 29, 2008 8:12 AM

If you limit the parking places people will stop going.

The dual examples of Adams Morgan and Georgetown seem to argue otherwise.

[the] first time I cannot find a parking spot would be the last time I would go into that area.

And if everyone were like you, parking would be a lot easier to come by, but they're not. What you're missing, of course, in this conversation is that if co-located parking is so crucial to economic success of a business, then the businesses should pay for it themselves. There's a role for municipal parking, but there's also a role for businesses to make their own economic decisions and pay for their own amenities.

Posted by Tyro | April 29, 2008 8:43 AM

tyro,

If if you looked at the business turn over rate at business in Georgetown and how independent businesses have left the area, you would see that high parking fees (20$ or more) and being hard to get to does adversely affect businesses. Also, since there is not a metro stop in Georgetown and a large parking lot was recently removed, it has made it harder to go there.

In Bethesda, why would anyone pay to shop at Barnes and Noble when there is another one, with free parking a few miles up the road? Bethesda is the suburbs and needs suburban like solutions. Forcing people to pay a large amount for parking to ride metro means that the only businesses that can succeed there are ones that appeal to 20 somethings. If you want a more diverse marketplace, you need parking. A solution is to make it parking that cannot be used by commuters.

Posted by superdestroyer | April 29, 2008 9:13 AM

Michael-
It has a New York City focus (or an LA focus if you read their offshoot blog) but Streetsblog.org does a good job dealing with many facets of the 'livable streets' movement including transportation, land use, and environmentalism.

Posted by Preston | April 29, 2008 9:48 AM

"Forcing people to pay a large amount for parking to ride metro means that the only businesses that can succeed there are ones that appeal to 20 somethings."

Park and ride schemes traditionally have free parking and a minimal bus fare. The whole point is to encourage people out of their cars.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | April 29, 2008 12:24 PM

you would see that high parking fees (20$ or more) and being hard to get to does adversely affect businesses

Apparently, it's so popular no one goes there anymore.

Posted by Preston | April 29, 2008 3:24 PM

Park and ride schemes traditionally have free parking and a minimal bus fare.

Tell that to whoever runs the DC Metro system. As noted above, I discovered last year that when staying in Alexandria, it's cheaper to drive into D.C. and park in a garage than for two people to park and take the Metro.

Posted by Adam Villani | April 29, 2008 9:17 PM

Again, I'm talking about systems around the world, which are usually in towns without metro systems and use buses.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | April 30, 2008 12:42 PM