Stephanie Pollack: Smarter Parking, Better Communities

Dukakis Center For Urban and Regional PolicyNortheastern UniversitySchool of Public Policy & Urban Affairswww.northeastern.edu/dukakiscenter

A “Think and Do” Tank

Smarter Parking, Better CommunitiesSparking New Ideas Conference

8 April 2014

Dukakis Center for Urban & Regional Policy www.northeastern.edu/dukakiscenter

How can we convince cities and towns to adopt smarter parking policies?• Most people don’t think

much about parking most of the time

• And if they do they tend to think favorably of it

– Those with cars like to have convenient, free places to park

• So how can we go back to our cities and towns and convince our neighbors to rethink parking policy?


Talking about parking: The economics case for policy changeMinimum-parking requirements are a second wrong that doesn’t make a right. The original wrong is that we’ve never charged automobiles properly for using city streets, either for driving or parking. If you give a valuable resource away for free, the inevitable result is overuse and crowding. . . . In modern Massachusetts, on-street parking is available at low or no cost, and therefore drivers can’t find a parking spot. Low parking costs also ensure there are more drivers congesting the roads.

Edward L. Glaeser Source: Boston Globe, July 13, 2013


Talking about parking:The economic case for policy change


Talking about parking:The fairness case for policy change

4,733,936 71%

1,230,590 19%

681,61810%

Drivers Underage population Age-eligible non-drivers

Drivers per 1,000 driving age population

897

921 914 908 907 903913

904891

868 866875 874

820

840

860880

900

920

940

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Massachusetts

Parking serves the needs of the subset of

the population that owns and drives cars.

What about everyone else?


Not everyone owns a car


Why do we require parking for cars people don’t own?


Why do we require parking for cars people don’t own?

Source: MAPC

The physics of parking


Talking about parking:The language of physics

No two objects can occupy the same space at the same

time.


The choice: Parking or office space?

Source: graphingparking.com


The choice: Parking or high school study space?



The choice: Parking or more homes?



The fundamental problem: Parking uses up too much space• The United States has somewhere

between 10 million and 2 billion parking spaces

• In his 2012 book Eran Ben-Joseph notes that if the correct figure is 500 million parking spaces, they occupy 3,590 square miles, an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined

• If the correct number is 2 billion, the area grows to the size of Connecticut and Vermont combined

• Ben-Joseph writes that “in some U.S. cities, parking lots cover more than a third of the land area”

Sources:

Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, 6 Jan. 2012

Eran Ben-Joseph, Re-Thinking A Lot (2012)


Non-parking reasons communities might adopt smarter parking

Desirable Outcomes for the Community

Quality of Life Revenue Economic Activity

More Space for the Community to Use ForComplete Streets Public Space Development

Reduced Land Devoted to Parking

On-Street Parking Off-Street Parking

Better communities through smarter parking


Smarter parking policies can create better communities by• Increasing economic activity and tax

revenue• Making room for more public space• Enabling Complete Streets• Revitalizing neighborhood shopping

districts• Making housing more affordable


Parking, economic activity and tax revenue

Source: Studies by Christopher MaCahill (now at State Smart Transportation Institute) and Norman Garrick (University of Connecticut)


Parking, economic activity and tax revenue


Parking, economic activity and tax revenue Cities forego tax money with every parking spot they

require In Hartford, for example, the city forfeits $1,200 per

year per parking space, which amounts to a subsidy of more than $50 million per year for all the parking in downtown Hartford (where total municipal tax revenue totals only $75 million)

In contrast, the subsidy for

parking in downtown

Cambridge, Mass., amounts

to just over $1 million per year

on municipal revenues of $50 million


Parking into public space:Mission Hill parklet• A parklet is a small, semi-permanent public

space created from on-street parking spaces• The parklet in Mission Hill, the first of four

planned for the City of Boston, debuted in September 2013

• The parklet took the place of two parking spaces adjacent to“parklet partners” Mike’s Donuts and Lilly’sGourmet Pasta Express


Parking into public space:“Our Happy Block”• 4,300 square feet of a parking

lot at Southeast Portland’s Calvary Lutheran Church was “depaved” by a Portland, Oregon non-profit

• Neighbors had become concerned that the excessively large surface parking lot was being used by drug dealers and would-be hot-rodders to test their driving skills.

• The asphalt was replaced by four rain gardens and nearly 1,300 native plants

• The project also helped divert 379,000 gallons of rainwater from storm drains annually


Parking into public space:Philadelphia’s “The Porch”• The Porch at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia

opened in November 2011, replacing 34 parking spaces and a bland, barren sidewalk

• The Porch includes abundant seating, seasonal plantings, programming such as performances and fitness classes and special events such as The Porch Beer Garden and mini-golf

• The project was designed and implemented using The Project for Public Space’s LQC approach – Lighter Quicker Cheaper – which involves building pubic spaces by taking small, iterative, and experimental steps to determine what works best, rather than starting with large capital expenses

• An extensive post-occupancy study confirmed that The Porch has created a well-used public space and catalyzed new economic activity


“The Porch”: The results


Parking into public space:The economic benefits


Complete Streets and parking:Polk Street in San Francisco


Complete Streets and Parking: Creating protected bike lanes


Complete Streets and parking:The economic case


Neighborhood business districts:Parking/Business Improvement Districts• In the 1980s Old Pasadena was a

disinvested area filled with pawn shops and vacant buildings

• Before 1993, Old Pasadena had no parking meters and because parking was free store employees used the on-street parking and customers had difficulty finding places to park

• Today 1,200 parking meters generate $1.5 million in revenue

– The city reinvests a portion of the parking meter revenue into infrastructure improvements

– The rest goes to pay the city’s share of the cost of a business improvement district which uses its funds to care for and market the area

• Today the area has 150 retailers and an average of 30,000 people visit Old Pasadena each weekend

– And in an area with 600 residential units, another 2,000 are under construction


Housing affordability and parking• Requiring large amounts of

parking in housing developments makes the housing more expensive, irrespective of resident demand, because the cost of parking is built into the cost of each unit

• Parking requirements for new developments may also reduce the total number of units built, because if the requirements make some projects unprofitable some residential developments that might have been built are never built

“When parking requirements are removed, developers provide more housing and less parking, and also that developers provide different types of housing: housing in older buildings, in previouslydisinvested areas, and housing marketed toward non-drivers. This latter category of housingtends to sell for less than housing with parking spaces.“

Research paper byUCLA Institute of Transportation

Studies


Parking and housing affordability

Based on typical affordable housing development costs, one parking space per unit increases costs by about 12.5% and two parking spaces increase costs by about 25%

Source: Todd Litman, Parking Requirements Impacts on Housing Affordability (VTPI 2013)


Parking and housing affordability:Right sizing parking for multifamily housing


So when you talk about parking make sure to start by talking about• Economic development

• Tax and other revenues

• Open space

• Complete Streets

• Affordable housing

• Neighborhood retail

And all of the ways that smarter parking helps create better communities

Stephanie Pollack: Smarter Parking, Better Communities

Technology

parking policy

urban regional policy

parking spaces

massachusetts parking

parking spot

physics of parking

parking lots

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