PT's Parking Blog

Charlie and Capitol Parking

I was waiting for the "parking connection" and the Charlie Rangel scandal. It has happened. Seems he parked an unregistered Mercedes in one of the two parking spaces he is allocated at the Capitol and left it there for four years. He finally moved it in 2008, but now says he has no clue where it is. Must be nice – own a Mercedes and just "lose" it. Must be like some of those tax dollars his committee oversees inside the capitol. You can read all about it here.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it seems that if this was a space that belonged to a staffer they would have been notified and fined. However since it belonged to a member, the parking police "overlooked" the violation. I think its time for one of the local parking operators in DC to call the Capitol and offer some services. They are outsourcing everything in Washington these days, Why not parking. Charlie would have been given a citation after his 45 day "storage" limit and he would have moved it, and would probably know where it is today.

JVH

Its all relative

From Mark;

After reading all the stories and blogs about all the multi-million dollar parking deals, and city's plugging their million $ budget holes by increasing meter rates I thought this was interesting.   

 "$804 was collected from the meters last year and $909 was collected in 2008. So far this year, $363 has been collected."

The Chevy Volt – Are all those charging stations going to waste

I know, I know – I'm not a particular fan of electric cars. The technology just isn't there. Sorry sports fans, but it's not. The new GM Chevy Volt is going to cost $41000 stripped and $45000 with some "accessories." Even with a $7500 government rebate – the thing will cost $33, 500. And that's a lot of bread for a car the size of a Chevy entry level Cobalt that costs $15 grand. Jay Leno says that it feels just like a Cobalt.

Here's a comment by Henry Payne at NRO:

A $41,000 Cobalt — or a $33,500 Cobalt — will always be a niche vehicle for limousine libs looking for a second car. For the great unwashed masses, however, rival gasoline-powered compact sedans priced under $20,000 — say a Honda Civic or Ford Focus — make a lot more economic sense. Rushed soccer moms won't have the luxury of adapting their lives to the Volt's demanding recharging schedule (it takes hours to recharge the Volt at home). But that's something Obama pal Leo DiCaprio can delegate to an assistant.

DiCaprio's present green ride, the hybrid Toyota Prius, is the first green status car. But the rest of the hybrid industry has not caught fire along with it. The Prius makes up a full 50 percent of hybrid sales — ten years after it and dozens of other hybrids came on the market. Today, only 1.9 percent of all cars sold are hybrids. There are only so many people willing to buy a car because it is "green." Most folks want a car for convenience.

GM knows this, which is why it is only initially producing 10,000 Volts. And most will be leased at a money-losing $350 a month — a signal GM sees the Volt as a halo car, not a meal ticket. "I'm not sure the Volt is going to be a volume vehicle," auto analyst George Magliano of IHS Global Insight told the Washington Post. "The technology still isn't there to make them cheap. At the end of the day, the consumer pays a hefty premium to make a statement."

I drove a Focus last week in Detroit and it is a fine little car. Handled well on the freeway, plenty of room inside, and got great gas mileage, nearly 30 MPG and about $18K loaded. But what do I know, I have a 30 year old gas guzzler that gets 15 in the city, 25 on the road. But it sure is comfy.

I notice my buddies at Laz are putting charging stations in some of their garages. It will be interesting to see just how much use they get.

JVH

UPDATE:

Ran into this tidbit over at Hot Air

Lets do some math:

Chevy Volt: $41,000 (True Cost)
Honda Civic: $20,000 (Average build)
Difference: $21,000

Gas: $2.45/gal (in Oklahoma City)
The difference in price would buy 8,571.43 gallons of gas. The Civic gets an average of 29 miles to the gallon. That’s 248,581.47 miles on the price difference.

Assuming the average driver drives 12,000 miles a year, AND you only drive the Volt on the 40 mile range of it’s battery, using no gas, you’d have to own the Volt for 20.7 years to justify the price difference in gas savings. How long’s that warranty again?

PPP and Public Policy

In my head cold driven ravings below I opine that Privitization of on street parking and parking in general as it has been done in Chicago and other places may be bad public policy. Correspondent Mark commented and his bon mots are important enough to bring out here on the blog proper:

For the most part it was "bad public policy" in the first place that put these cities in the position where they need to sell off parking operations and other assets. Are they leaving money on the table? The investors certainly hope so, but there is also the chance that they could be getting double what the deal is actually worth.

Who's to say what might happen if gas went up to $5 or $6 gallon next year, or what the results would be if other expenses escalated to the point where people cut back on their driving? There is tremendous risk in deals this large, and in exchange for assuming that risk it is reasonable that they would also want to reap the larger share of any potential reward.

That being said, these deals should not be entered into without serious consideration of the long term consequences for both sides. The problem is that some of these cities are "on the brink", and this is the only lifeline available to them. It may not be the ideal solution, but for some it may be the only "realistic" or "doable" solution. In those situations they are not negotiating from a position of strength, but rather from one of desperation. The drowning man doesn't negotiate for a lifesaver and it's too late for swimming lessons.

My general take on these deals is that the City's have known about the pending budget problems for years, but kept putting it off. They were effectively paying off a maxed out credit card with the minimum monthly payment, and all the while were maxing out their other cards as well. At some point it catches up to you, and the economic meltdown of the last couple years has exposed those bad policy decisions from years past.

Well said. See what happens when brain power, unaddled by drugs, even those for headcolds, is brought to bear on a problem. Bad public policy is rampant. Perhaps what we see now is the result of years of neglect.

JVH

Don Shoup’s Parking Agenda is more profound than you think

Paul Barter, Assistant Professor in the LKY School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore (NUS), has a "infrastructure blog" and holds forth on all things dealing with infrastructure here.

He talks about Shoup's theories and evokes a number of interesting questions and comments, one from a current Shoup student:

I am in Shoup's graduate class on parking at UCLA right now. I asked him about the association between markets and right-wing ideologies. He made a careful distinction between the "free-marking" neoliberal ideology and the simple idea of using market incentives. He thinks we should use market incentives. Prices are a market incentive that influences transportation choices; price parking right, and you encourage other modes of transportation while eliminating cruising. The price and value of land is also an opportunity cost. Developers should face market incentives when they decide how much parking to build, rather than being required to dedicate vast amounts of valuable land to parking.

The "free-market" ideology usually comes with more drastic claims about privatization. You'll find none of those in Shoup's book. He thinks that public entities (like city governments) can successfully use market incentives to manage resources like curb parking.

Paul Responds:

Yes, I agree, Prof Shoup is calling for deregulation off-street but he is NOT calling for privatisation of on-street parking. He just calls for market-like incentives for the public-sector owned on-street parking.

As a matter of fact, the links I provided in the post as examples of people who embrace the market-orientation of Shoup's suggestions do indeed both suggest different kinds of privatisation or in one case a kind of public-private partnership for the on-street parking. These might be taken as rather neoliberal (certainly Klein uses neoliberal rhetoric and Siebert's article is published in a rather neoliberal outlet in Austrlia).

My interest at the moment is more on the off-street parking. Shoup talks about private choices being allowed to determine off-street parking supply but doesn't explicitly talk about markets. My paper argues that Shoup's ideas do point towards more market-based off-street parking.

This also suggests to me that we may need to keep an eye on how such markets develop, to make sure these markets work well. Local monopoly is one possible problem but there are others which I discuss in the paper. For example, if local parking markets don't get going by themselves maybe we should try to kick-start them? So I suggest we may need some 'market-fostering' policies.

By the way, the CBDs of big cities sometimes already have something akin to local parking markets off-street. And regulators are already keeping an eye on them. There have been anti-trust investigations of city-centre parking in some American and Australian cities to make sure there is enough competition.

Interesting stuff and good insight JVH  

The Press actually did some good…

I reported below that I was considering the "Baghdad by the Bay" award for the New York State Legislature for passing a bill that would essentially stop booting and towing cars belonging to parking scofflaws in the State. I now withdraw that nomination. Read about it here.

The sponsor of the bill, when he read about the unintended consequences of his missif, has prepared an amendment to take care of this problem before it goes to the governor for signing. Seems many of the legislators actually voted for the bill without reading it. Hmmmm where have we heard that before. After the story broke in the Daily News and PT's blog, the legislator realized his mistake and changes are being made.

JVH

 

Art and the Parking Garage

Santa Monica, CA, has a refurbished parking structure that supports its new Santa Monica Place shopping mall. They have commissioned "Parking Lot Art" for the outside.

Personally I think this type of art is great – Our garage designers are moving away from simply a utilitarian parking building to something that adds to the ambiance of the community.

JVH

Musings and sniffles

I have a cold and not really up for blogging today, however I feel like I have to comment on the parking world so here goes, sniffles and all.

PPP and Public Policy

I have been following the Pittsburgh and Chicago privatizations and am moving rapidly to the position that these procedures, while in some forms may be good, are in general bad for public policy. Someone who is close to the Pittsburgh project sent me the following comment:

I don't understand why they structure these concession agreements so they are a lose/lose proposition in the long run, instead of a win/win.  But then I'm only a lowly consultant out in the parking fields. Bad public policy -- that's about the only kind we have these days -- in any field.

Politicians want a big payday. They see a billion or so sitting there and want to get their hands on it. Naturally, the bidder wants the best deal they can get…and off we go.

My consultant friends is right – why not a 'win-win?' It just doesn't happen.

 Pessimistic about San Francisco

Why am I so pessimistic about parking programs in San Francisco? I love the city. It's beautiful and a great place to visit. I always look forward to the time I spend there. However, ever since I have been even peripherally involved in their parking plans, (more than 20 years) it seems they just can't get their act together.

When I think about parking policy I think about it from the ground up. First you have to be able to control the lots, collect all the money, provide good service to your customers. Then you need to ensure that enforcement is consistent and even, that fines are collected, and that groups of people aren't taking advantage of parking rules (can you say disabled cheaters).

San Francisco over the years has done a poor job of collecting even the tax due the city. If there is no clear understanding of how parking operates and how to ensure that you can collect the parking tax, how can you run city garages, how can you develop a policy to ensure parking is available (in, for instance, a Shoupista mode) if you bottom line activity doesn't cut it. They are moving to an extremely high level of technology and were having difficulty dealing with virtually no technology. Replacing a pencil and paper with a computer doesn't help if you don't know what should be on the paper.

Someone just texted me to drink lots of fluids and take vitamin C. I'm going home to do that. C U tomorrow

JVH

Bob a Job – A Funny

From Peter Guest in the UK

I don't know if you have "Bob a Job" week in the states; it was a traditional way of the Boy Scouts raising money by sending out the little darlings to raise money by doing things like cutting lawns and washing cars. Now of course everyone is a potential paedophile and the idea of sending a small boy to knock on a stranger's door; well it just doesn't happen.

Anyhow, in the good old days a boy scout knocks on an old curmudgeon's door.

"Bob a Job guvnor" says the little imp.

"Go away" says the curmudgeon.

"Aw c'mon guvnor" says the imp; "it's for the Scouts"

"Oh alright" says the grouse; go cut the lawn". He closes the door thinking that it would take the scout the rest of the afternoon and he would get some peace but a few minutes later there is another knock and our hero is back.

"All done guvnor; anything else I can do for you?"

The curmudgeon wants rid of the boy so thinks of the nastiest, messiest job that he has that needs doing

"I tell you what young man, go and whitewash the porch and I'll give you ten quid"

The gallant scout disappears in to the garden shed and reappears with a large tin of whitewash and a brush. Two hours later there is another knock on the door; it's the scout come for his money.

The curmudgeon pays up and as the boy walks away he calls over his shoulder; "By the way it's not a Porsche, it's a Ferrari".

If they are “green” reward them by enticing them to drive more…

You know what I think of giving "free" parking based on the type of car you drive. I think its idiotic. Here's an article about some "green" activity in Nashville. Correspondent Mark nails it:

Proposals like this always get me.  They push people to buy fuel efficient hybrids in an attempt to reduce our consumption of oil, then they give them an incentive to drive more.  That's like rewarding someone with a free double cheeseburger because they ordered a diet coke.     

JVH