In January Philadelphia doubled the parking fees. The vacancy rate went from 2% to 17%. Read about it here.
For the four of you who haven't heard of Professor Shoup's approach to parking, here's an overview.
Let the market set the rates. Charge an amount that allows that there be about 15% of the onstreet spaces open at all times. This makes convenient parking available for those who want it, forces long term parkers (mostly local employees) off street into cheaper parking lots and structures, and greatly reduces congestion as people are motivated to quickly decide to either pay more and park on street or move to less expensive off street spaces.
There's more to his theories, the book is 1000 pages, after all. What should the city do with the revenue to make this approach more palatable to locals (plow it back into the neighborhoods.) The problem in Philly, and the rest of the universe, is that once city hall has its fingers on the money, there is little hope that the local neighborhoods that need the money will ever see it. But that's another story.
Philadelphia yesterday elected not to increase the parking rates again, as was planned last year, since the first increase did the deed. It made on street parking available, reduced congestion, and made for a lot of happy merchants and visitors in the city's central core.
Note the last line of the article. If the number of long term parkers goes up on street, the rates will be increased to maintain the 15% vacancy rate.
I might note that Don Shoup sees his pricing structure slightly more complicated than the one used in the City of Brotherly Love. He sees the rates changing hourly with the occupancy. For instance the may go down after hours when occupancy is lower (but go up in areas where there are restaurants and clubs and are crowded after hours.) Weekends could be less, except during events around a sports or entertainment venue.
The new meters that the city is installing this summer will give them the option to change rates quickly and easily, even hourly, as occupancy demands. Installing on street vehicle detectors would give the city even more information and enable it to set rates more exactly as it would have the data necessary to adjust rates on the fly, so to speak.
Congrats to Philly and its Parking Authority. Good job.
JVH
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