[Vision2020] Re: No More Parking Downtown Needed

[Nils Peterson]

On 6/28/06 1:02 AM, "Donovan Arnold" <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I am hoping someone can explain to me a few things here;
>   
>  1)  Why do we want MORE parking downtown? If we already have traffic
> congestion downtown why should we encourage more traffic, more cars,  and more
> congestion? Shouldn't the solution be to get people to use  alternative
> methods to getting to work and going downtown, not  encouraging people to
> bring more vehicles downtown making the problem  worse? Why not make people
> park OUTSIDE of downtown and walk in--like a  giant outdoor mall, it is only
> two miles or less to downtown anyway  from any other point in town.
> 
Donovan, Interesting questions. , Donald Shoup, The High Cost of Free
Parking, might reply that maybe we don¹t want more free parking:

> We don¹t pay for parking in our role as motorists,
> but in all our other roles‹as consumers, investors, workers, residents,
> and taxpayers‹we pay a high price. Even people who don¹t own a car
> have to pay for ³free² parking.
> Off-street parking requirements collectivize the cost of parking because
> they allow everyone to park free at everyone else¹s expense. When the
> cost of parking is hidden in the prices of other goods and services, no one
> can pay less for parking by using less of it. Bundling the cost of parking
> into higher prices for everything else skews travel choices toward cars
> and away from public transit, cycling, and walking. Off-street parking
> requirements thus change the way we build our cities, the way we travel,
> and how much energy we consume.

> Off-street parking requirements collectivize the cost of parking because
> they allow everyone to park free at everyone else¹s expense. When the
> cost of parking is hidden in the prices of other goods and services, no one
> can pay less for parking by using less of it. Bundling the cost of parking
> into higher prices for everything else skews travel choices toward cars
> and away from public transit, cycling, and walking. Off-street parking
> requirements thus change the way we build our cities, the way we travel,
> and how much energy we consume.

I think he¹s suggesting a tried and true conservative line, let market
forces decide, and let alternatives (such as walking or transit) compete
without subsidizing cars by making parking free. Last night Paul made a
related point, I paraphrase. ŒIf people can¹t park free downtown, they will
just drive to the mall or SuperCenter.¹ that car use is so imbedded in our
culture, and the costs are so diffused in everything we do, that a marginal
cost (paying for parking, hunting for a free spot) can drive people to make
other choices (pun intended), like shopping elsewhere.


>   4)  Isn't a business better qualified to know their parking needs and
> issues, and have more at risk, than a group of self appointed liberals  that
> think everything under the Sun would be better off if established,  regulated
> and determined by them?
> 
Ignoring the insult, which I don¹t think will further the conversation, and
again reading from Shoup:

> Free curb parking presents a classic ³commons² problem. Land that
> belongs to the community, and is freely available to everyone without
> charge, is called a commons. City life requires common ownership of
> much land (such as streets, sidewalks, and parks), but the neglect and
> mismanagement of common property can create serious problems.
> 
> Aristotle observed:
>> What is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.
>> Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest.16
> 
> The archetypical commons problem occurs on village land that is freely
> available to all members of a community for grazing their animals. This
> open-access arrangement works well in a small community with plenty
> of grass to go around. But when the community grows, so does the num-
> ber of animals, and eventually, although it may take a while to notice it,
> the land is overrun and overgrazed.

I think he¹s suggesting that businesses, finding the unregulated parking
commons (the curb) problematic, decided that parking should be regulated.
Since no business wanted to pay for parking for their own customers only to
relieve curbside parking congestion for their competitor, regulations were
established to level the playing field and make all pay to provide
off-street parking. Water is another commons problem we face.

>  
>  2) Why should businesses that  locate downtown get all free parking paid for
> them, maintained, and  enforced at tax payer expense while all other
> businesses in Moscow must  make the investment for parking themselves? That
> doesn't sound fair  does it? If I pay for Book People to have parking spaces,
> should I not  also pay Subway for parking spaces too? Why does one get my tax
> dollars  and not the other?
> 
Again, quoting:
> Why is most parking free to the driver? When only the rich owned cars
> at the beginning of the twentieth century, motorists simply parked their
> new cars at the curb where they had formerly tethered their horses and
> carriages. But when car ownership grew rapidly during the 1910s and
> 1920s, the parking problem developed. Curb parking remained free (the
> parking meter was not invented until 1935), but there were no longer
> enough spaces for everyone to park whenever and wherever they
> wanted. Drivers circled in vain looking for a vacant curb space, and their
> cars congested traffic. In the 1930s, cities began to require off-street
> parking in their zoning ordinances to deal with the parking shortage, and
> the results were miraculous. One delighted mayor reported:
>> We consider zoning for parking our greatest advance.... It is working out
>> exceptionally well, far better than we had expected. In brief, it calls for
>> all new 
>> buildings to make a provision for parking space required for its own uses.2
>   
I think the reason is historic. Cities decided to make rules, and they made
these rules after parts of the city were built with different assumptions.
Many of the buildings that comprise the core of downtown Moscow existed by
the 1930s, and perhaps more importantly, the parcels of land where they are
constructed had been laid out in advance of large scale automotive use.
> 
>  3) If a business is so dumb to locate in  a location where their patrons are
> unable to access their building,  isn't that a problem self induced and to be
> fixed by the business, not  the taxpayer? Many businesses that use to be in
> downtown locations  moved out because they wanted to provide parking to their
> patrons  rather then requiring the government to do it for them.

There are three retail formats in Moscow: central business, malls, and big
boxes. Each has certain attributes and certain liabilities. Some businesses
chose to relocate to gain some new attributes. In the current conversation,
those who are downtown are struggling with one of the liabilities of their
choice. You are right, they made the choice, but not necessarily because
they were dumb, rather, because they sought other attributes not available
in the alternative retail formats.



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