PT's Parking Blog

Valet On Street in Scottsdale

I need a little help here -- Scottsdale, AZ, and, I assume, other cities, regulate temporary on street valet operations. If a business or an individual holds a party, and opening, or whatever, they have to get approval from the local board or whatever, before the valet operation is allowed. My question is "why?"

Gotrocks Gallery has a function to hawk the opening of their new display of Antarctic Penguin Art and feel that since there will be a lot of people coming and there isn't a lot of space to park in the area, they should help by laying on a valet operation to handle the cars. Very Fine Valet shows up in dinner jackets and takes cars from the attendees, parks them away from the area either on street, where they have to follow all the rules, or they cut a deal with a nearby bank to park the cars in their lot after hours. Everyone profits.

The gallery gets a better function, the city gets any revenue generated from onstreet or off street parking by the valets in their lots, PLUS they get reduced traffic due to cruising, and the bank makes a few bucks by letting the valets park in their unused lot.

Ahhh, but if you read this article carefully, you discover the real issue. The city wants more money. They now charge $60 for a one time use license to valet park, and want to raise it to $275. Not bad, a 450% hike.  Mike Pendergraft, local Valet operator and Prez of the National Valet Parking Association, notes that he does 100 such events a month. That's an additional $22,400 in revenue A MONTH from Mike alone, and there are, of course other valet companies in Scottsdale. 

The city says they want to prevent congestion and keep it orderly. They neglected to mention that they also want the money. I'm sure the extra quarter of a mil in the city coffers each year would help out a lot in balancing that budget in a smaller town like Scottsdale. 

In the end, Mike has to do a lot more paperwork, and either the businesses or the parkers will pay. Let's see, if I'm a business and I have to cough up an extra $200 to have a valet, maybe I'll pass on the valet and let my attendees fend for themselves -- If the city thinks there's a congestion problem now, think about what will happen when a couple of hundred cars are cruising around looking for a parking space.

Or is that the real issue?  Does the city have a few lots around, but the valets are parking the cars elsewhere?  I don't know about that and frankly I'm making it up. Someone drop me a note and let me know if I'm right. Follow the money.

JVH

On Come on

I guess we get stories like this here in the US, there have to be boneheaded cops everywhere, but this is rather "over the top."

In Gosport, Hampshire, UK, someone has been going around putting parking tickets on cars and telling people to send the money to a PO Box in another city.  When the BBC checked, sure enough, the company on the ticket was listed in that other city. So what are the local bobbies going to do?  Put on extra patrols to catch the rotters in the act.

No one thought about strolling down to the company named on the ticket and having a "quiet word" about bogus tickets rather than promote the fact that they were laying on extra patrols to catch them in the act.

By now, the offices of Responsive Solutions, LTD, in Essex, are empty, the PO box closed and there will be no forwarding address.

The Brits do a great job catching terrorists, but seem to lose it when it comes to parking issues.

JVH

Electric Cars

Haven't the city dads got the idea. Electric Cars became obsolete in the year 1910. GM and Honda tried to sell them in the 1990 and failed completely Folks simply don't want these boat anchors. Period.  Hybrids are the way to go, it seems, and getting 45 or 50 MPG from your Prius is great, thank you very much.

In Philadelphia a city councilman wanted to give people with electric cars a reserved spot in front of their house. To get it, the car owner would have to install and electric plug so they could charge the critter between uses.

Sorry, does not compute. If a person buys an electric car, one would have thought that they had considered where they were going to plug it in. Or...the cost of the very long extension cord.

JVH

Newbie

From time to time I get a call to meet with someone new to our industry so they can "pick my brain."  That has to be a challenge as many think that simply finding the organ is difficult, but there you go.

Yesterday I had lunch with Rachelle Bowers, new sales manager and marketing guru for Bijan Rad over at Syspark. She's bright, articulate, and ready to go. She has a month of parking experience and knows a few of our buzz words. My take -- she will succeed and represent Bijan well.

The issue is mine -- what do you say to someone when they ask, between the arrival of the ice tea and the main course "tell me about parking."

I started by listing the organizations she should join, then by asking about her product and where she was going to focus. Her answer seemed reasonable so I gave her some pointers about how I would approach that part of our market.

Then I told her this -- I would ask a customer if I could spend a few days actually working in a garage, as a cashier, a customer service assistant, or in lock step with the manager.  This way, I said, she could get a "feel" as to the problems experienced by the folks that actually use her equipment and how the equipment helps them in their jobs. She might also get a first hand understanding as to why revenue control equipment is necessary.

I then asked her why some garage staff never take vacations.  "Because they are workaholics," she said.

She does have just a bit to learn but she will.

JVH

By the way, she did what every salesperson on the planet forgets to do,,,she asked about me. She got me talking about me.  Impressive.

OF God and Parking

The biggest problem that this neighborhood in Chesterfield, MO, has is that the local church wants to have more parking. To get it, it will relocate a street, turn an existing street into a cul de sac, and landscape the lot so locals will have a nice view.  Of course, the Local City Council calls the relationship between the church and its neighbors "Toxic".

Let's see -- First of all the church has bought some of the houses nearby (to be used for the parking area.) Second -- they are going to make the street a cul de sac -- most streets would kill for that. And third, they are a church, for crying out loud.

Their sin is that they are successful in the anti-sin business. They are growing. This is a good thing, people. OK, they may be a little noisy on Sunday AM and a couple of nights during the week when the basement is full of kids and moms eating cookies and learning to be good. 

I can think of worse things.  City Council did right in this case.

JVH

And then there's Annapolis

Ah, yes -- home of the Navy Officer Corps, and some parking regulation, almost enlightened. As I see it, the city is raising the monthly parking charges off street downtown and the local merchants seem to be concerned that the parking costs will drive away business (well duh)...

The city, on the other hand, says that the garages are full, and the raise in price hasn't affected demand. They still need to look at their onstreet rates -- The price on street is $1 an hour but off street its $1.25. Of course you can get a monthly permit for considerably less than that, but still, on street parking could be much more convenient if it were priced at a premium over off street.

JVH

Pittsburgh -- Tax Tax Tax

I get bored reading about parking taxes so I may not have the story just right, but it seems that Pittsburgh is lowering its tax from 50% to 45% to 40%. This is based on the law that went into effect when the tax was put in place.  However, guess what -- You know what's coming -- You can just feel it....

The mayor and city council have proposed a "freeze" on the tax reduction.  Why?  You know what's coming, no need to read further -- They need the money. Oh sure, there are some excuses in the article here and here, but in reality you don't even have to read between the lines.  They need the money and this is a good place to get it.

Of course the city councilman wraps himself in righteous indignation saying that of course all this is the parking operators and owners fault, because they dropped the tax 5% and those money grubbing capitalists actually kept the 5% for themselves.  I'm sure that the city knows that collection, accounting for, and then paying the city a tax that is half of your gross costs nothing. But then, what do I know.

At least they aren't hiding the fact that the bucks from parking is to save the city budget.  However, it is of course unfair, unfair, unfair -- If you own a car, you are paying for the city of Pittsburgh's Pension Fund. If you ride the bus, you don't.  Now if the tax was to pay for better street services, then I think it would make sense, at least as much sense and any tax, but to single out drivers/parkers to fill the local pension fund coffers. What ever happened to "equal protection under the law."

Where are those trial lawyers when you need them, ACLU?

JVH

More on Air Travel

Everyone complains constantly about flying today so I think a bit of defense of our air travel industry may be in order.

First of all, I had no problem with both of my flights over the past week. American Airlines was great. Left on time, arrived on time or early. What more could one want? They were full, but isn't that how airlines stay in business?

I know that our air transportation system is overburdened. Most delays are caused by weather, and an air traffic control system that can't cope with the traffic. The equipment is out dated, the controllers overworked, and safety, thank God, is their first priority. There is a solution.  Get the government out of the ATC business.

If the air traffic control system was privatized, as it is in many countries, my guess is that we would see new equipment, better service, and more on time flights. Do you know of any situation where the government is involved that runs smoothly, efficiently, and without major problems (think post office, DMV, Health and Human Services, the VA).

jvh

Then There's New York

It just gets weirder and weirder. I caught a cab the other day and told the guy I wanted to go to the Marriott in Times Square. “Do you know the cross streets?” he said. The taxicab driver didn’t know the location of    “Times Square.” The one that brought me in from the airport had to consult a map to find 51^st and Third Avenue in a town where the streets all run East and West and the Avenues all run North and South. An almost perfect grid.

In London Cabbies have to take the “Knowledge.” For a year they have to drive around the city on scooters and learn every street, road, nook and cranny. In the end they have to pass a test and find addresses without the help of a map in one of the most complex road networks on the planet.

In New York it seems that all you have to be able to do is breathe. Driving skills are not too necessary, nor language skills, at least English.

Where are the days of the NY Cabbie – gruff, garrulous, and a sweetheart underneath who knew his city, his sports, and his rides?

And a city that never sleeps? Right – I don’t eat a traditional breakfast, I like to have a lunch-like meal first thing in the AM. So I went to the deli across the street and ordered a tuna on white toast at 9 AM. I was told in no uncertain terms that they didn’t serve anything except breakfast until 11:30. I had to go to five different restaurants before I found one that would serve lunch, well kinda – you couldn’t order fries until after 11. At least the waiters live up to NY standards, gruff, snotty, and rude.

Oh well,  I can take comfort that New York, as I was told by a friend who lives there, is the “nexus of all learning, knowledge, art, science, and literature” on the planet. There is absolutely nothing one can say to that little bit of self centered snobbery. So I won’t.

Ah, New York -- a great place to visit, rather like Disneyland for adults.

JVH

 

The International Downtown Association

I’m in New York attending the International Downtown Association’s annual convention. There are 1000 movers and shakers from business development districts, downtown associations, and city governments from across the country, and five companies from the parking industry – POM, AmpcoSystem, Carl Walker, T2, and Parking Today. There is one other parking person here, Kim Jackson, IPI leader and IDA board member.

This is a group of folks who deal with parking daily in their communities. Do they buy equipment or services? Some do, but all of them influence parking policies in their community and those policies affect us all.

There are over 130 seminars for these folks over the four days of the conference. Three, count em, three have to deal with parking – one, given by Dennis Burns of Carl Walker and Kim, focuses on Parking and Transportation and me, the local surrogate for Don Shoup and the policies of using the free market to solve your parking woes. Another describes the issues dealing with parking when you have a university nearby. Where are you people? There’s a ton of business here.

Our industry needs to reach outside the more traditional ways of promoting our goods and services. This is a great place to start.

JVH

The Shoup Evangelical Movement Has Turned a Corner

I have been attending the International Downtown Association Conference in New York and listening to the buzz about parking. In discussion after discussion the focus is on market rate pricing for downtown parking and how it can help revitalize the downtown area.

I have been one of Don Shoup's disciples for a couple of years now and have given talks on the subject here and there (one of the "theres" was the IDA meeting this week. The room was full and engaged.

There is little question that the concept of market based pricing, returning money to the area from whence it came., and  doing away with mandated parking requirements is catching on in cities and towns, big and small, across the land.

Although I expected some resistance, there was little if any. These folks, mostly heads of downtown associations, realize the benefits of cutting back cruising, having parking readily available, and generating considerable revenue to be used for revitalization, promotion, and alternate transportation.

Shoupistas seem to be everywhere, even when they don't go by that name. Kim Jackson, Dennis Burns, and Linda Kauffman were in attendance and singing the praises of the concept. WOW!

JVH

Industry Notes is Current

I have been playing with a new feature on Parking Today's web site, the ability to add "industry notes" at will. I love it. Now tidbits of information that go usually in PT's "gossip column," "Industry Notes," can be updated daily if we want on the web site. That means that a bit of news that happens say today but since we just sent the October magazine to the printers, wouldn't appear in print until November, can be put on the PT home page.  Check it out -- www.parkingtoday.com. You can see the beginnings of the first few notes on the home page (there are different ones up there every time you log on) and then click on the link to see and read all the notes. There are over 40 "notes" listed there today and I'll be adding more as they happen.

Content, its what the internet is all about -- and CURRENT events.  Log on to our web site often and get the current parking news.

JVH

Parking goes to the movies

I went down to Hollywood yesterday to take a cover shot for October's PT. It will be great, of course. What I found was Hollywood being all things Hollywood. They were shooting the crash scene of a movie right in front of the Hollywood/Highland center, just a few feet from the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel where Marty Stein is holding the NPA's annual Convention next month.

I took a few pictures of the "shoot" and share them here. First, the scene -- in the background is the Egyptian looking Hollywood/Highland center. The NPA's host hotel is right behind it. Convenient for movie buffs. I don't know if there will be a location shoot going on right there in October, but there certainly will be somewhere nearby. Note: The Kodak Academy award theater is a part of the complex.1

Here's another angle:                                                                                                                           

And of course, I you want to see whether or not your hands or feet match those of Marlon Brando, or any one of hundreds of others, you can walk a few feet to the Chinese Theater...

I know one is supposed to be sophisticated and worldly, but I just love the movie business. Its fun, its interesting, its art, and its larger than life. 

Its interesting to note, however, that most of the stars locked in concrete are from a previous generation. Wayne, Brando, Garbo, even a newcomer named Harrison Ford. But you don't see too many "current" stars. I guess they are too busy partying, getting divorced, and entering rehab. OK, lots of the old timers partied, got divorced, and went to rehab, but they did it with class.

The NPA is going to have a great time. If you weren't planning to go, I think you should reconsider. I'm sure there will be some parking talk there, too. This is such a great location -- just up the street is Musso and Frank grill, and Hollywood and Vine. When I took the shots above I was standing in front of the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel -- they say its haunted. With movie stars, no less.  You are less than a mile from Sunset strip, and about to same to Pinks, the best hot dog stand on earth., They sell over 2000 a day and there is a line from the moment they open, but its worth the wait.

The Hollywood Bowl is a short stroll up the street. I will be closed for the winter by then, but you can walk in and take a look, no charge.  And of course my personal favorite, the world famous Magic Castle is just up the block. You have to be a member or guest of a member to get in, but if you ask nice, I might just be able to swing a guest card or two.

Hollywood, its just a lot of fun.

JVH

Am I good, or what?

Let's face it, I am the all seeing, all knowing, all telling guru when it comes to all things parking. Here is another bit of proof.  Back in November, Matt Fegins of Walter P Moore in Houston, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, wrote in PT about the value of switching to a Segway two wheel personal transporter.  He listed all the benefits, many of which revolved (pun intended) around garages for Segways and how much easier they would be to build. I thought the article was on the mark and of course we printed it.  You can read it here

Now, GM in Germany has come up with a new car, the Opel Flexstream, which has two Segways built in. You can read that article here. The idea is that you can park on the edge of town and then take your Segway into the central city. The gizmos (2) fit in a special compartment and are charged by your car when you drive. Neat, huh? Buy a car and get two modes of transportation for the price of one.

I would, along with Matt, like to take credit for the idea and spreading it to the automotive world, but the numbers just don't pan out. It takes the automobile industry about 3 years to design and build a new car. This one came out this month at the Frankfort Auto Show. That means the germ of the idea had to be in 2004. A bit before our article. However, there is absolutely no question that Matt's concept was original and that PT's (read that my) cutting edge editorial sense to print it led the market in knowledge of the concept.

Ahhh, I sit here basking in the glory of prescient knowledge.

Remember -- if you want to know about it months, maybe even years before it happens, read this blog, and PT, regularly.

You humble servant

JVH

PS -- Matt returns to PT in November with his personal Lexicon of Parking. Subtlety is not his forte. You will love it.

If we assume facts not in evidence

A developer wants to revitalize downtown. He has bought a falling down building (once the largest industrial building in the world, covering 60 acres) and is putting in shops, restaurants, and 600 condos. Sounds like the best of all possible worlds for everyone. But...

He needed parking. The city built a new garage nearby. He cut a deal with the city in 2003 to pay 200 grand a year for 400 spaces to be reserved for his project. But the project won't be finished until 2008 but he has been paying since 2003. He has also run out of money and needs an injection of cash, Oh and they have discovered asbestos in the old building.

Now what?

Here's what I think -- At a minimum, the city should forgive the payments until the development is up and running. It seemed like a good deal at the time, and Mr Developer who was trying to woo the city to get approvals and the like probably felt it was money well spent. However this project seems like a perfect brownfield development that will mean a lot to the community.

But then what do I know?  Most people living in this little New Hampshire town probably would be just as happy if the place remained as it is.

JVH

And we are responsible for Pestilance, Drought, Flooding, and Britany's Blow Up

Here it comes -- The parking industry is responsible for just about everything. According to this article our industry first of all, provides 3 times more parking spaces than there are drivers. Plus our lots and garages cause urban heating and take up valuable crop land, etc etc etc.

Damn

I sort of knew that there were a lot of parking spaces, since I seldom have trouble finding one when I want one. It does make sense that there has to be at least two spaces for every driver, since you left one and you are going to one. But there also has to be more since there's no way to tell where I'm going to go and since they counted my garage and driveway as parking spaces.  Of course, there will be plenty of space around shopping centers (most required by cities, not the center) and spots on streets and the like.

But then there's the dreaded pollution issue.  Cars drop oil and it gets on the concrete and then it runs off into the streets and rivers and kills all non human life. But...if there were no parking lots, the crud would drop directly on the dirt and the same thing would happen.  And did the writers of the article know that most new pavings and facilities have to take this little issue into consideration?  Probably not.

And what about those quarter of a million bushels of corn that could have been grown on parking spaces if they were left to farm and not collect oil and pollute?  Are those the same bushels that are now being used for ethanol?  What about the millions of acres of farmland that lies fallow because the government pays farmers NOT to grow anything? Aw Jeese..Don't you hate it when that happens.

You know -- I think we are responsible for Global Warming. According to the article, there is something called the "urban heat affect" and that means that cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside. (That must be why people take Sunday drives -- whoops).  Anyway.  Because of parking lots, cities are warmer, and since most temperature monitoring stations are located in cities.....

And they spent good hard earned money for this survey -- no it wasn't earned, it was your tax dollars at work.

You get the idea. 

JVH

Chip Coins

Remember the "chip coin." It's a thingie that looks like a thick poker chip and has a computer chip inside. It replaces a parking ticket. You get one when you enter a garage. The chip inside carries your entry time. If you need to validate, you place it on a validator and the chip picks up that information. When you pay, at a pof, the chip gets that info too. You then place the chip in a chip acceptor when you leave and the machine keeps it and its reused, over and over.

Its history goes back to Intellichip and a German named Johann Farmont. He was a tinkerer and developed the gizmo well over a decade ago in Europe. In the late 90s he hired Bill Pearce to sell the product here in the US. It appeared to be ahead of its time. The company folded and that was that.

Well maybe not. Scheidt and Bachmann has placed its huge market presence behind the concept and is manufacturing and selling the product, of its own design. They have been successful in numerous installations including the Cities of Baltimore, Manchester, NH, and Memphis, TN.

This is a bit of a change from what we are most familiar, however it has a lot to be said for the concept. It's high tech, reduces a lot of the mechanical requirements of dealing with tickets and ticket transports, and frankly I think the public will like it.

The machines I have seen simply use gravity. You drop the chip in the top of the machine and it falls through and then out the bottom where you pick it up. While inside an electronic device will write on the chip all the information needed. this means that maintenance is minimal, and  jams a thing of the past.

Neat, huh...

Rumor control

A little bird told me that Dave Witts, formerly with Parkeon, has taken over the reins of the US operation for Metric parking, the UK manufacturer of Pay and Display machines. Jim Meany, the former US manager, has moved on to other opportunities.

Metric is a huge player in the P and D field in the UK and in many countries in the rest of the world. This appears to be a move to become more aggressive in the US.

Developing

JVH

They seem to miss the single, works every time, solution

An editorial in the Western Carolina University lists five things students can do to alleviate the campus parking problem. Read it here. These "solutions include everything from "taking the first space you find" to "Camping out in the space" to "Parking you car there the night before" to "Take the bus."  However they miss the one solution that will work, and works every time. The university needs to charge more for parking. Let the free market work.

Based on the article, all the parking problems one finds on university and college campuses exist at Western Carolina.  There appear not to be enough spaces. Students spend hours cruising the lots for spaces,  often pass perfectly good spaces looking for those closer to the classrooms, emotion and anger are rampant a near fistfights often break out over a simple piece of real estate.

The editors of the Western Carolinian have defined the problem, but they miss the solution. Students would be motivated to use one or more of the solutions they list, if they had to pay more for the spaces. Those that wished to pay, would find a place to park, those that didn't, would take the bus, walk, or carpool. Seems simple to me.

And for those that think that this is a less than egalitarian approach consider this: If market rates were charged for parking, there would be money and motivation available to provide more parking (and shuttles, carpools, vans, and other programs.) When more parking was available, the price would go down (remember econ 101 -  that old law of supply and demand -- supply goes up, demand goes down, and so to prices.).

However, providing simply bandaid solutions to the problem will make them worse.

OK, politically raising prices is difficult. One might need to provide some bribery to make it more palatable. The school could take some of the money generated and provide it to the students in the form of low cost loans, support of student activities, discounts in the student store, maybe a new student union. All paid for by parking fees. Properly publicized, the raise in fees would not only be supported by the students, but lauded as a great solution to a perennial  problem.

JVH

But they didn't enforce it - A problem with "grace periods"

The University of Texas at El Paso had a problem. They had chaos in their parking operations. So they put in place a plan to sell permits. They sold about 8500 permits for 9200 spaces. So far so good. However they then proceeded to hold a "grace period" for the first week of the semester. And what happened?  Chaos continued to reign. Read about it here.

I have never understood this. You put a new program in place, and then you give people the opportunity to not use the program and continue the problem. As the woman in the story said -- "I think its awful."  Now we don't know what was "awful."  It could have been that she had to pay and didn't have a space, or that the new program was in effect but chaos still reigned, or that she hadn't heard about the new program and parking was as it always had been.

My feeling is that if you are going to make a rule, you enforce it or you don't make the rule. By giving people an "out" you are simply bringing more problems on yourself and the system.

Hopefully UTEP is enforcing now and the problems are slowly unwinding. 

JVH

The same stories every summer

But this one has a bit of a twist.  A father left his 2 year old daughter in a car while he visited a brothel in the Reno area of Nevada. Fortunately the security guard for the establishment heard the child crying and rescued her before damage was done. The father is in jail (where he belongs) and she is with protective services. Hopefully his time at the brothel will be his last bit of recreation before his long incarceration.

This seems like such a no brainer. Temperatures inside vehicles can be as much as 75 degrees higher than the surrounding air. And in the summer, the air can be pretty hot, particularly in the desert around Reno.Not a healthy environment for children and other living things.  My guess is that child was 10 minutes or less from death.

Parking operators need to keep a weather eye out for such stupidity. We are on the front lines to defend against idiots who leave kids and animals in their cars. Personally, I think that the best way to open these vehicles is with a tire iron through the window. Takes a lot less time and is effective. Don't even try the door, it might be unlocked.

The second thing to do is call the cops. They will take care of the car's owner.

JVH

St. Augustine Got it backwards...

But they are correcting the problem. The City of St Augustine, FL, built a parking garage to service downtown. They are charging $1.25 to park there. On street prices are $.50.  Where do you think people are going to park.

The problem was that the city didn't have a way to collect much more since the existing parking meters didn't take anything more than quarters and asking a person to put in six quarters was not in the cards.

So in the past year, the garage lost about a quarter of a million dollars. The city says that's OK since the difference is made up by tax money (Don't get me started on this one.) However the other problem is that the original idea of getting cars off the street, lowering congestion, etc, didn't happen. For some reason, people parked in the cheaper more convenient spaces before they parked in the more expensive garage. DUH!

So the city has replaced its meters and is raising on street pricing to $1.50, keeping the garage at $1.25.  My guess is that this will help substantially. However we won't know if the $1.50 works until it goes into effect. It might be too much, not enough or it might be the magic Goldilocks number.

Cities planning garages to pull cars off the streets need to think about how to attract parkers to the new monoliths. They had a couple of years during the garage planning and construction to take care of the on street issue.

At least they have made the fix now, and good for them.

JVH

A refreshing change.

Chula Vista, CA, a burb of San Diego on the Mexican Border, is considering removing parking and putting up condos. Read about it here.

While city after city across the fruited plain are considering parking garages and increased supply, Chula Vista has discovered that its parking lots are empty. A solution, fill them with urban style "loft" condos.

Everyone wins -- the is more housing downtown, the merchants will have greater density within walking distance and therefore more customers, the tax base increases, all is right with the world.

Sounds like the folks in Chula Vista are thinking about the future, not just pouring concrete and building garages that aren't being used.

Take heed, North Park in San Diego.  You covered a perfectly good surface lot with a huge garage that for the past two years has sat empty. Millions spent, nothing gained.

Way to go CV.

JVH

City of Riverside Votes Shoupista

The City of Riverside, CA has decided to follow the lead of Pasadena, Redwood City, and numerous other entities in the US and take a Don Shoup position on parking. At its meeting last week it past the following:

Parking Workshop Recommendations

That the City Council:

1. Adopt an 85% occupancy goal for each block of on‑street metered parking, surface lot, and individual level of each parking garage and allow administrative adjustment of parking rates to achieve the goal;

2. Eliminate time limits in all metered parking zones;

3. Eliminate metered parking in the Outer Core and RCOE areas, replacing it with 90 minute free, timed parking zones.

4. Approve 90 minute free parking in all garages (eliminating the validation requirement);

5. Designate 50% of net meter revenue for future parking garage construction and 50% toward security and other public improvements within the downtown parking meter area. Funding priorities shall be determined by a subcommittee of the Downtown Parking Committee working with downtown merchants. The Riverside Downtown Partnership's Downtown Parking Committee representative and the vice­chair of the Downtown Parking Committee would co‑chair the subcommittee.

6. Direct the City Manager to return to the City Council with an amendment to the Downtown Specific Plan to establish uniform parking criteria and an in‑lieu parking fee for new projects and eliminate parking criteria for existing buildings.

7. Direct the City Manager to install the New Generation Parking Machines in the high demand areas.

8. Report back to the council by 12/31/07 on results.

I will follow the results of this closely to see how these changes affect the parking situation in Riverside. Congratulations to Don who spoke to the council just prior to the 4-1 vote in favor of this resolution.

JVH

Heather a "Parking Terror"

According to the New York Post's Page Six gossip column, Former Beatle Wife and Dancing with the Stars performer Heather Mills is breaking every parking rule in the Hamptons:

HEATHER Mills has been hell on wheels in East Hampton. Paul McCartney's estranged wife, who's renting Nora Ephron and Nick Pileggi's mansion in the Georgica Pond area, has been racking up parking tickets in her rented Bentley convertible. "She's parking in front of fire hydrants and in handicapped zones without a handicapped tag," a source tells The Post's Braden Keil. The peg-legged "Dancing With the Stars" hoofer recently showed an unimpressed town cop her prosthesis while he was writing up her white gas-guzzler. She was then photographed sticking her tongue out at him as soon as he turned his back

Great -- She can turn back flips on TV but uses her handicap to try to get around the parking laws. I guess we can now understand why she had few supporters during her celebrated breakup with the lead singer of "Wings."

All the best to the enforcement folks in East Hampton.  They have to put up with this crap all the time.

JVH

New column in PT

Speaking of the October issue of Parking Today, we have a new feature, a periodic column titled The Amateur Parker. Its written by Melissa Bean Sterzick who bills herself as " a writer, proofreader, mom, and amateur parker in the Los Angeles area."  Her other claim to fame is that she is the final arbitrator  as to  spelling, grammar. and the like for Parking Today.  Melissa reads the magazine when it is complete but before it goes to the the printer. Since she has  been  on board (the last couple of years) the incidence of typos and grammar errors, misplaced commas, and strange jumps have been reduced to as near to zero as you can get. Note that she does NOT read this blog.

Melissa sees herself as a customer of parking. So when she talks about why women don't like to park in garages, perhaps as an industry we should listen. In her first installment, she takes garages to task, but with a wit that keeps you reading and tells the story.

Look for the Amateur Parking starting in October. Its worth the read.

JVH

This Prof Gets it Right

I felt the following article from the University of Florida Alligator was so right on the mark that I would past it here for all to read. These are the facts. You can try to change the economic laws but in the end, following the rules of supply and demand is the only solution. If the demand goes up and the supply remains the same, the price must increase. That is the only true way to solve the parking issue. Its fair, makes perfect sense, and works immediately. Read on, Matthew has the floor:

You're late for school. The time is 9:30 a.m. and you've just pulled onto Gale Lemerand Drive, hoping to find a parking space in the commuter lot. After searching for fifteen minutes, you give up and head to the O'Connell Center lot. Sorry, no luck - this lot is full, too. Despite being a bad way to start the day, thousands of students face this situation. The question is, how do we remedy the problem?

While teaching an introductory economics course over the summer, I had an opportunity to discuss the parking problem with my class. The resonating opinion of the students was that parking decals are too expensive and spaces are too few. I asked my students to pretend they were UF President Bernie Machen and propose solutions.

Some proposals included banning parking for freshmen, opening faculty lots to students and lowering parking fees or eliminating them altogether. Most UF students would be elated at the arrival of reduced parking prices. However, most students (and people) have a misunderstanding of basic economic principles. The real answer is to raise the decal price.

The fundamental economic problem confronting UF parking is a shortage. In economic terminology, the quantity demanded of parking exceeds the quantity supplied. In 2003, Transportation and Parking Services sold nearly 27,526 parking decals for about 19,371 available spaces, resulting in around a 42 percent oversell. Overselling is acutely felt in the commuter lots with about 7,655 decals sold for only 3,393 spaces, about a 125 percent oversell.

The shortage of spaces is only part of the problem. Costs of not being able to find parking include missing class, wasted gasoline and added road congestion while you drive around trying to find a parking space. These costs add to pollution levels and greenhouse gases, which economists refer to as negative externalities.

Despite my class' recommendation, reducing or eliminating fees would only aggravate the problem by increasing demand and deepening the shortage. The solution, according to a 1996 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, William Vickrey, is to increase the price of parking.

In economics, when a good faces a shortage, one way of removing the shortage is to raise prices. Parking, while expensive, is actually priced too low, according to the rules of economics. The scarce spaces available are not allocated to the students most willing and able to buy them. By increasing prices, the shortage of spaces is eliminated by reducing the quantity demanded of spaces.

By raising prices, the probability of finding a parking space increases because fewer students will buy a parking decal. Not only do higher prices reduce or eliminate the shortage, but the inefficiencies caused by time wasted hunting for a space are removed. This means you miss less class, waste less gasoline, and pump fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - benefits which may exceed the cost of a higher decal.

You may not like the solution, but you should have a better understanding of the economics behind the student parking problem.

Matthew Salois is a graduate student studying food and resource economics.

Amen

JVH
 

               

Of course aesthetics are important

In this article the fine citizens were asked whether or not they wanted to ban garages in their downtown area. They sided with banning, but it was non binding. Now the city council has to decide. There seems to be some wisdom in the Westwood area of New Jersey. You can have garages and they can add to your community.

Will it cost more, sure.  But a multiuse people friendly garage would not detract, but ADD to the community. They are right if there is truly a need for parking, it should not be an either or situation. The local council is looking to experts and from what I read, the experts have the right idea.

I just love it when people decide that to "keep the character" of the community they must ban cars, horses, and probably everything but wheelbarrows. Williamsburg is great, but you will notice that people only visit, no one actually lives there.

JVH

Its Hot

I have been working on the October PT and then took a couple of days off and went down to our place in Temecula/Murrieta. If you think its hot where you are, guess again. I walked outside at noon. It was 107 degrees in the shade and probably closer to 125 in the sun.  Your skin literally sizzles like you have some sort of rash. There is nothing to do except stay inside and pray the power doesn't go off.

We were fortunate that the heat wave hit on the weekend so much of the electrical consumption at factories and offices was reduced. That way, our air conditioners were kept on and working efficiently.

My wife and I live about 3 miles from the ocean in Los Angeles and even on the hottest of days, it seldom gets over 85 degrees. I got up in the morning in Temecula and looked out at the golf course. They were flooding the greens to keep them from being destroyed in the heat. I took a cup of coffee into to Robyn and said, "What the hell are we doing here, when we have a perfectly nice place where it is 20 degrees cooler." We packed up the dogs and hit the road. We were back home by noon and in our nice cool airconditionless house. The sea breeze picked up about 4 and we sat outside and had an adult beverage under the pepper tree in the back yard.

I thought about all those folks that were living in the San Fernando valley where it got DOWN to 90 at midnight and those we left in Southern California's Wine country where it was too hot even to go out to the mall. Then I remembered why we bought the place we did. How we predicted that we would only live there 5 years (that was 20 years ago.)

Life is hell, but someone has to live it.  But there are also no more excuses. I have to get back to blog, back to work.

Later

J