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<TITLE>Re: No More Parking Downtown Needed</TITLE>
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On 6/28/06 1:02 AM, "Donovan Arnold" <donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com> wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>I am hoping someone can explain to me a few things here;<BR>
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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. <BR>
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</SPAN></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>Donovan, Interesting questions. </SPAN></FONT><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial"><I>,</I> Donald Shoup, <I>The High Cost of Free Parking,</I> might reply that maybe we don’t want more free parking:<BR>
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</FONT></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial">We don’t pay for parking in our role as motorists, <BR>
but in all our other roles—as consumers, investors, workers, residents, <BR>
and taxpayers—we pay a high price. Even people who don’t own a car <BR>
have to pay for “free” parking. <BR>
Off-street parking requirements collectivize the cost of parking because <BR>
they allow everyone to park free at everyone else’s expense. When the <BR>
cost of parking is hidden in the prices of other goods and services, no one <BR>
can pay less for parking by using less of it. Bundling the cost of parking <BR>
into higher prices for everything else skews travel choices toward cars<BR>
and away from public transit, cycling, and walking. Off-street parking <BR>
requirements thus change the way we build our cities, the way we travel, <BR>
and how much energy we consume.<BR>
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</FONT></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial">Off-street parking requirements collectivize the cost of parking because <BR>
they allow everyone to park free at everyone else’s expense. When the <BR>
cost of parking is hidden in the prices of other goods and services, no one <BR>
can pay less for parking by using less of it. Bundling the cost of parking <BR>
into higher prices for everything else skews travel choices toward cars<BR>
and away from public transit, cycling, and walking. Off-street parking <BR>
requirements thus change the way we build our cities, the way we travel, <BR>
and how much energy we consume.<BR>
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I think he’s 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. ‘If people can’t park free downtown, they will just drive to the mall or SuperCenter.’ 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.<BR>
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</FONT></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"> 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?<BR>
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</FONT></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">Ignoring the insult, which I don’t think will further the conversation, and again reading from Shoup:<BR>
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</FONT></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial">Free curb parking presents a classic “commons” problem. Land that <BR>
belongs to the community, and is freely available to everyone without <BR>
charge, is called a commons. City life requires common ownership of <BR>
much land (such as streets, sidewalks, and parks), but the neglect and <BR>
mismanagement of common property can create serious problems. <BR>
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Aristotle observed: <BR>
</FONT></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial">What is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. <BR>
Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest.16 <BR>
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The archetypical commons problem occurs on village land that is freely <BR>
available to all members of a community for grazing their animals. This <BR>
open-access arrangement works well in a small community with plenty <BR>
of grass to go around. But when the community grows, so does the num- <BR>
ber of animals, and eventually, although it may take a while to notice it, <BR>
the land is overrun and overgrazed.<BR>
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I think he’s 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.<BR>
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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? <BR>
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</FONT></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">Again, quoting:<BR>
</FONT></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial">Why is most parking free to the driver? When only the rich owned cars <BR>
at the beginning of the twentieth century, motorists simply parked their <BR>
new cars at the curb where they had formerly tethered their horses and <BR>
carriages. But when car ownership grew rapidly during the 1910s and <BR>
1920s, the parking problem developed. Curb parking remained free (the <BR>
parking meter was not invented until 1935), but there were no longer <BR>
enough spaces for everyone to park whenever and wherever they <BR>
wanted. Drivers circled in vain looking for a vacant curb space, and their <BR>
cars congested traffic. In the 1930s, cities began to require off-street <BR>
parking in their zoning ordinances to deal with the parking shortage, and <BR>
the results were miraculous. One delighted mayor reported: <BR>
</FONT></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial">We consider zoning for parking our greatest advance.... It is working out <BR>
exceptionally well, far better than we had expected. In brief, it calls for all new <BR>
buildings to make a provision for parking space required for its own uses.2<BR>
</FONT></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"> <BR>
</FONT></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial">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. <BR>
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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. <BR>
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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.<BR>
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