Deregulate Parking, Says Obama Administration

Great to see the Obama administration come out in favor of housing for people over storage for cars:

“Parking requirements generally impose an undue burden on housing development, particularly for transit-oriented or affordable housing,” the paper states. “When transit-oriented developments are intended to help reduce automobile dependence, parking requirements can undermine that goal by inducing new residents to drive, thereby counteracting city goals for increased use of public transit, walking and biking.”

The anti-parking stance came from a “Housing Development Toolkit,” a broadside against zoning. The report says zoning “reduced the ability of many housing markets to respond to growing demand,” making affordable housing hard to find in high-price areas.

Nixing off-street parking is not the paper’s only recommendation. It also advocates taxing vacant land, making it easier to get permits and making cities more dense.

This is the opposite of a big government mandate - it's the Obama White House urging communities to get rid of local regulations that restrict new housing and smart growth.

The Dartmouth Target's Bizarrely Gigantic Parking Lot

The Target in Dartmouth, MA may have the most unnecessarily huge parking lot I've ever seen. As my wife pointed out, it's so big that if it was ever actually filled with cars, there's no way you could fit that many people inside the store.

Here's a picture via Google Maps. This is a light day. On busy days, the left side of the parking lot will fill up, but the right side never comes anywhere close to capacity, even when the store itself is packed during the holidays. And the extra parking panhandle at the bottom right? I didn't even know that existed until I saw this satellite view:

So the question is, why would you ever build so much parking that will never ever get used? It's very likely that Dartmouth required Target to build it, because if they didn't, on the busiest days shoppers might have to park ... in the neighboring Dick's and Petco parking lots, which are also way too big and always half empty. The horror!

But I think there's also a psychological factor in play from Target's perspective. People around here get REALLY upset if they have to look for parking and if they have to circle around even once will go home like OH MY GAWD TAHHGET WAS A FACKIN' MADHOUSE. For those folks, having a bunch of spots that are always open may be a beacon of comfort.

The seas of parking also defeat the purpose of the plaza's good sidewalks - even though bus routes go right by, the Target is a quarter of a mile hike thanks to the set-back.

Philly's Free Parking Problem

Philadelphia only charges residents $35 a year for one unlimited on-street parking sticker - just 10 cents a day.

In a related story, Philadelphia has no money for schools.

Green Monster: Red Sox Cash In With Car-Focused Spring Training Park

Remember how the otherwise-green-conscious Red Sox moved to a new spring training facility called JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, FL that virtually forces you to drive there? Turns out there's plenty of green motivation behind the lack of transit and bike parking - the cash kind:

Fort Myers’ coffers retained parking fees collected from Red Sox games under the terms of the city’s 1991 contract.

Today, the teams keep all the money generated from game day parking, tickets sales, concessions and advertising, while the county pays for expansions that increased the teams’ ability to sell those items.

As the article details, Lee County is on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in ballpark costs while the Red Sox and nearby Twins owe only a small fraction of that in lease payments - and that doesn't cover the cost for road expansion & maintenance to bring all those cars to JetBlue Park.

But even with the driving mandate and JetBlue Park's total lack of solar energy despite the park's Sunshine State location, the Red Sox still got a baseline LEED green building certification, because the U.S. Green Building Council apparently is now giving them away to anyone who recycles.

If You Don't Want People Parking in Your Driveway, Why Have a Driveway?

Seen while knocking on doors in New Bedford:

 Why would you give up a chunk of your yard and pay someone to pave it over if not to encourage your home's visitors to park there? Do people deliberately park in a stranger's driveway, then just walk off to go shopping? Considering a company mass-produces these signs, is this a widespread problem?

Makes you wonder if every house has a driveway in most communities because residents demand one, or if every house has a driveway because that's just what you're supposed to do in car-centric America.

Like Affordable Housing? Oppose Parking Minimums

Even within the city limits of Boston, one of America's great walkable cities & home to one of the country's most-used transit systems, developers are required to build a minimum of half a space for each unit of housing up to a ridiculous 1.5 parking spaces per unit of housing, whether the residents want them or not. It adds to the cost of housing and adds an incentive to drive - if you're forced to pay for a parking spot, you feel like you should keep a car there (or at least a large, rectangular box).

But some mavericky developers are boldly refusing to build things their customers don't want to pay for:

One of those developers is Dave Mullens with the Urban Development Group. He opened the Irvington Garden in a close-in Northeast Portland neighborhood last year. It’s 50 units with no parking places.

“The cost of parking would make building this type of project on this location unaffordable,” Mullens says.

Mullens calls the difference “tremendous.”

“Parking a site is the difference between a $750 apartment and a $1,200 apartment. Or, the difference between apartments and condos,” he says. Mullens says the current market is friendlier for affordable rental apartments than for condominiums. He says the Irvington Garden filled within weeks of opening, and has remained that way. He says the majority of renters don’t have cars – though some do, and park on the street.

And when some renters DO park on the street? Duncan Black flagged the worst horror stories single-family-home-owning neighbors have had to offer:

“The personal anecdotes I’ve heard have to do with elderly relatives coming to visit, or driving into the neighborhood, and having to park a block or two away, and/or fears about that.”

Parking a block or two away??

Park(ing) Day Will Blow Your Mind

Think about your neighborhood. Think about how much of it taken up by parking spaces - not just marked parking spaces, but streets that are wider than they need to be for traffic so cars can park on one or both sides.

Now think about how many of those parking spaces are filled, even at peak usage times. If you're in Adams Morgan, parking's probably pretty efficiently used. But if you're in Germantown or Springfield or even many parts of Arlington, there are vast amounts of land taken up by little-used parking areas - land that could be used in myriad other ways.

Now think about what you could do with that unused land if it wasn't parking. Could you build a playground? Plant a garden? Put in some shade trees to make your summer walk to Metro a bit cooler? Open space for an off-the-charts adorable scene like this?

That's what Par(king) Day is all about. GreaterGreaterWashington.org has more pictures & video from celebrations around the region.

DC To Fleece Car Sharers, Continue Heavily Subsidizing Car Owners

As Clayton Lane reports at TheCityFix.com, DC has decided to auction car sharing spaces in an effort to maximize revenue from car sharing companies. Which would be fine, if it was also auctioning the rest of the spaces. Imagine how much a street spot in Adams Morgan would go for?

But DC will continue to practically give away residential parking tags (first tag $15; second tag literally free), with the net result being a major subsidy  for more privately-owned cars clogging the streets of DC:

Carsharing should be treated as a public good, even more than the on-street parking that it occupies. Each shared vehicle replaces about 14 private cars, according to comprehensive national research by the University of California, Berkeley. Plus, after joining, members drive about 44 percent fewer miles, according to the average result of ten North American impact studies. Other research shows that carsharing members consume less gas, reduce their carbon emissions by nearly 1 ton per year, walk and bike more, and spend more dollars locally.

DDOT, rather than levy a 20 percent tax on carsharing members whose behavior benefits the neighborhood, should keep carsharing affordable and instead tax private car use – the main source of congestion and many environmental problems. DDOT could raise the same revenue with a painless $2 annual fee for all residential parking tags. Or it could simply charge $100 annually for each household’s second car. Or implement smart meters, which vary prices based on real-time demand, ensuring that around 15 percent of commercial on-street parking spaces remain available. In downtown Redwood City, Calif., smart meters generate $1 million of additional revenue each year for safer, cleaner sidewalks.

In fact, Donald Shoup, in his seminal book, “The High Cost of Free Parking,” estimates the market value of on-street spaces in central Los Angeles at $31,000 each – more valuable than the vehicles parked in them. Subsidizing car ownership with free parking distorts the market, encouraging more people to own and drive cars.

Matt Yglesias rightly calls this a car-sharing tax.

But let's be honest: This is about politics, not policy. Who do you think has more political clout in DC, people who car share or people who can afford multiple cars? Better to indirectly charge car sharers, who are more likely to be young & transient anyway, by gouging the upstart car sharing companies. No DC politician wants to tick off multiple car owners, who are much more likely to write campaign checks with whatever they haven't forked over to Lexus.

Reduced Parking Subsidies Fail to Destroy Arlington

Sometimes when a positive change happens, afterwards it seems so self-evidently a good idea, we forget there were people rabidly opposed to the positive change. The most obvious recent local example of the journey from the revolutionary to the mundane: Virginia's smoking ban, which opponents predicted would devastate Virginia bars & restaurants. Instead, smokers stepped outside, everyone enjoyed the cleaner air, and we all quickly moved on with our lives.

Arlington recently stopped subsidizing free parking at the former Department of Human Services garage at Wilson & Highland in Clarendon, where it's now $2 to park on nights & weekends. That rate is among the lowest in the neighborhood. The result? People continue to heavily utilize that garage, Clarendon continues to thrive, and the county is raising revenue while providing a nudge towards Metro/walking/biking.

It's worth remembering that while it was being debated, Arlington Sun Gazette editor Scott McCaffrey basically called the $2 fee an affront to humanity:

This proposal is a nickel-and-dime approach to governance that is beneath Arlington’s leaders to propose, let alone enact. County Board members can make quick work of this wrongheaded proposal by simply refusing to advertise it for a hearing.

Instead, the enacted plan has worked as intended, with side effects like increased parking in neighborhoods quickly addressed with zone changes.

Now the County Board is making plans to address tight parking in busy areas on nights & weekends, approving a long-term parking management plan that could extend meter times, generating much-needed revenue from a scare commodity that's currently subsidized as free. I know, revolutionary, right?

But McCaffrey has dialed up the rhetoric even further with this plan, predicting it will be nothing less than the end of Clarendon as we know it:

[F]orcing those in Clarendon or other commercial areas to pay for meters well into the evening, or on Sundays, is counterproductive and will place those areas at a severe competitive disadvantage. In the long run, it will reduce the county government’s revenue, not increase it.

The argument here is essentially that to avoid paying a couple of bucks in parking fees, people will:

• Go to DC or Alexandria where they'll have to pay just as much if not more for parking
• Pay just as much if not more in gas to drive long distances to places where parking is free
• Tell their spouse, "Sorry honey, I was going to take you to Clarendon for dinner, but they're charging $2 for parking now, so instead I made you this Hot Pocket."

Look, I know people hate paying for something that used to be free. It's annoying. But that's not a good reason to keep policies that worked for 1990s Clarendon with its large surface parking lots but are outdated in 2010s Clarendon with its tall buildings in which people live & work.

All we're talking about is cutting the government subsidy for free & discounted parking and using the money to fund things like repairing roads and educating kids and fighting fires. Is that so controversial?

Update: Thanks to Arlington County for clarifying 2nd paragraph

Ask The Green Miles: More Parking Fees in Arlington

A friend writes:

You're more politically plugged in than I am, do you support this? Arlington County Board is thinking about extending hours [with payment required] on parking meters and possibly garages. "The proposed Parking and Curb Space Management Element is scheduled to be reviewed by the Transportation Commission and the Planning Commission at their meetings on October 29, and November 2, 2009, respectively, prior to the County Board hearing on November 14, 2009."

Do I support charging a small amount for parking on nights and weekends? Sure. No reason a community should charge for something during the day, then give it away at night. I'd be more concerned with making sure that all meters take credit cards or allow you to pay by cell phone. I don't want to get a $30 ticket because I couldn't find any quarters at 3am.

My bigger question is this -- has anything that's less of a big deal generated more controversy than Arlington's various proposals to charge a buck or two for parking here and there? I mean, look at this breathless editorial from the Sun Gazette's Scott McCaffrey:

[F]orcing those in Clarendon or other commercial areas to pay for meters well into the evening, or on Sundays, is counterproductive and will place those areas at a severe competitive disadvantage. In the long run, it will reduce the county government’s revenue, not increase it.

There is only one problem with that argument: Logic. As I once asked at What's Up Arlington, would any husband really turn to his wife and say, "Honey, I was going to take you to Restaurant 3 for our anniversary tonight, but it's $2 for parking now, so we're having Hungry Man TV dinners instead. Hope you like salisbury steak"?

Say it costs $2 to park in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor for the evening. Does a free alternative really exist? Pay $2 in gas to drive to Alexandria? Pay $4 in gas to drive out to Fairfax? Drive into DC and pay $8 for parking or spend 30 minutes driving around hoping to find a free spot?

Let's face it -- this debate is less about economics than it is about psychology. People hate being asked to pay for something they used to get for free.