PT's Parking Blog

Because I can!

A woman in a Mercedes was patiently waiting for a car to clear a parking space so she could park. Just as she was ready to pull in, a fellow in a tiny car zipped in front of her and took the space.

"Why did you do that?" said the woman. "Because I can" said the fellow.

So the woman promptly put it in reverse and smashed into the tiny car.

"Why did you do that?" Cried the fellow.

"Because I can afford to."

There are some days it pays to have a lot of money.

JVH

Brother is this show ‘Green”

This booth tells the tale:

The company is "Green Parking," The idea is that if you use their equipment you are lowering your carbon footprint (It uses chip coins rather than printed ticket.) I got a demo and the pitch is familiar: "No evil paper or mag stripes to foul the environment." I asked if the machines shut down to save electricity when not in use (huh?). I asked if they knew the amount of fuel saved by using AVI systems (Huh?) – Transcore take a bow. I asked …well you get the idea.

Most of the seminars had a 'sustainability" component (see my comment on University parking below) and in virtually every booth there was new literature "spinning" the features of the equipment into a sustainable model. There were ways to provide electric charging stations and ways to charge for the power used. There were LED lighting systems on every corner and software programs to get people out of cars and into car pool, ride sharing, rapid transit, bicycling, and walking were ubiquitous. When I asked about setting parking rates based on the free market to entice alternative methods of transportation they looked at me like I was speaking Klingon. OMG, the public would never stand for that. However the recent desire by the European Union to have no cars in cities by 2050 seems to garner no concern at all.

JVH

Common Complaints about Parking

I attended a seminar at Parkex and found that in the UK, University Parking is fairly backward. In Birmingham, for instance, they have 3,000 parking spaces for 40,000 students and staff but readily admit that their parking systems simply don't work. Their biggest problem is poachers that visit the local hospital and for some reason park for free on campus rather than pay to park at the hospital. They also admit that their parking controls are being driven by a sustainability program, and not by any real desire to set up a system to control parking per se. After all, they receive grants from the government based on their carbon reduction programs. Sound familiar?

Although I'm certain they will catch up quickly, I would guess that Higher Ed parking in the UK is a good 15 to 20 years behind the same in the US. There are a couple of issues they must overcome including the fact that they don't what to charge for parking on campus, and are loath to build any parking structures. They do have some charging programs on a few campuses. In one case, the cost is predicated on the salary of the vehicle owner with those making more, paying more. I know, that this is a system to "equate" incomes, but frankly it makes no sense to me. After all, if people make more money, they can afford a higher fee and will simply pay it. The idea of restricting parking because it costs something simply goes away.

They do readily admit that parking is subsidized when there is no fee charged (Don Shoup call your office) and have computed that subsidy as something between $6 and $12 a space per day. However they are considering a fee of from $3 to $8 a day. They are attempting to get people to take the train but the round trip cost on the train is considerably more than the proposed parking fee. The solution, of course, is to subsidize the rapid transit fare. Of course then the government will tax the subsidy.

At about this point, I lost interest.

They opened the event with a quote that could fit any seminar on University Parking anywhere:

A university is a diverse community held together by common complaints about parking.

JVH

Parkex…

For those of you who don't know, Parkex is an annual event held by the British Parking Association. Every other year it's held in conjunction with Traffex, a large transportation infrastructure event, and Streetex, an exhibition featuring street furniture and lighting. I believe that the organizers expect about 15,000 people to the event this year, with about 2,000 focused on parking. Some of the attendees were a little strange, however – Here some imperial storm troopers pose in front of the PT booth with our assistant Mandy:

And to prove they know how to build booths in the UK, here's the Siemens booth:

More in May PT

JVH

I missed some blogging –

I'm in the UK on a relatively fast trip and have had little time to blog. I'm attending the Parkex Exhibition in Birmingham. I'll be back to full time blogging on Monday.

JVH

Those Damn Yankees, parking that is

I have commented on the Yankee Parking Structure fiasco in the past. Here's a Bloomberg article as to where it stands today. Basically it says that the folks who issued the bonds that are nearly in default, will not default this year because they will be able to use its reserve fun to find the money to make the interest payment on the bonds. How bad is it? They are having to take $5.5 million from reserves to reach the $6.9million they need for the payment. I'm no financial wizard, but doesn't the bond issuer have to come up with the money to pay off the bonds when they mature? In this case its $237 million.

As I have commented before, one garage is closed except on game days. The other never fills. The reason? There are plenty of garages within in couple of blocks to handle non game day parking, and they charge half what the Yankee garage charge. And strangely enough, the local garages fill on game days.

The parking wizards at Morgan Stanley are quoted in the article as saying that the bonds are now worth about 80% of their original value because, get this, there is pricing flexibility. In other words, as fewer and fewer people use the garages, they simply have to raise prices to meet their income goals. So the $237 million I mentioned above, are now worth $189 million. $48 million has already evaporated. Anyone want to guess who is going to have to pay the $237 million. Yep, the taxpayers of the city of New York.

To avoid default, and assuming the same occupancy rate, the Yankees would have to raise prices to $55 a car in the next few years. Can anyone out there tell me what happens when you raise prices in a market where you don't have folks lining up to buy your product? What is that banker smoking?

I'm told that most of the people that attend Yankee games ride the subway and if they are coming from Connecticut they take the train, both of which have stations nearby. Who would drive if you could easily ride the rails and save a (now) $23 and (Later) a $55 parking tab? Think how much beer and dogs that would cover. Plus, if you don't mind walking three or four blocks, you can drive, park down the street, and pay under $20.

A buddy of mine tells me that parking is a business that is run on the ground. He means that you have to go out and walk around your parking facility, you have to see what's going on in the neighborhood, and you have to understand the motivation of your customers. I'm not sure you can do any of that reading a spread sheet on mahogany row on the 37^th floor of a high rise on Wall Street.

They were wrong when they conceived of building all this parking, wrong when they did the feasibility study, wrong last year when they talked about the scale of the financial problems with this project and they are most likely wrong today. Can anyone spell default?

JVH

So I went to the Doctor’s

I go a couple of times a year for a checkup /follow up. No big deal. A few days ago I noticed that one of my thumbs was grayer than the other one. R told me to wash my hands. Sigh – I knew my circulation was going to hell and I was certainly going to lose the use of a limb.

When the doctor walked into the room, I held up both thumbs. "One is grayer than the other" he said. (That's why they get the big bucks.) "Have you recently been arrested? It looks like a thumb that had ink on it a day or so ago and hasn't been cleaned properly." (Did he take a call from my wife?)

He listened, felt, and declared me AOK. With a dirty thumb.

Sigh

JVH

NCIS and Parking

I think I beat our Pop Culture Guru Isaiah Mouw with this one – Last Night's Episode of NCIS opened with parking enforcement officers…Andy says that it points out at least a dozen, well maybe half a dozen, issues with parking enforcement. You can View it here, at least until next week. After that, look up "Into the Frying Pan…"

The issues I see are: first – I think they would be leading the street sweeper, not following it. Second, two officers in the car? Third – Old Style enforcement vs. new style customer based reactions. Fourth – The debasement of officers (Meter maid, rent a cop.) Fifth – "They broke the law, and for that they must pay." Sixth – Call the "real police." Plus, he admits the "job" cost him his soul.

Not bad, the writers got all this in 60 seconds.

FWIW – NCIS is the number three rated drama on TV, and last week was the sixth most watched show (and it was a rerun). (It came in sixth behind two American Idols, Two Bachelors, and Criminal Minds. In the drama department it was beaten out by House and Greys Anatomy.

JVH

The NPA Scores again

I received a note from NPA chief Christine Banning and learned a tad about the upcoming NPA convention (held this year in Las Vegas at Caesar's Palace October 3-6). She is really stirring things up over there. She sent me some "inside info":

• This year at convention we will have a big name book author and book giveaway, so our attendees get the best/current business experts & thinking.
• It will launch both peer network issue/trends discussions & Parking Power Place Roundtable discussions at part of NPA's hallmark leader networks.
• Special Public Sector Session: Parking Contracting: How to Get Peak Performance from Managed Services
• Special Private Sector Session: Better Service & Efficiency by Applying New High Tech Systems
• You can attend the NPA Convention at Caesars Palace and pay only $149 per night for a room. Convention October 3-October 6
• You can send your Top players/key performers sessions for a SINGLE training day Thursday, October 6^th for Early Bird $149 member, Early Bird Non-Member $199.
• You can as an exhibitor get prime visibility at NPA's 60^th anniversary convention. 2011 expo has sold 40% of the booth space in 4 days. Expecting a sold out show 6^th year in a row.
• You can attend the EXPO free of charge, Thursday, October 6^th
• NPA Convention & Expo web site opens in April

 

I thought the NPA did well in hiring Christine. I was right.

JVH

There Must Be Something in the Water Over There…

Here's the story. A wounded veteran in the UK in a wheel chair got a ticket for parking in a disabled parking spot. He had applied for a disabled placard but hadn't received it yet. He assumed that when he wheeled in to the parking office with his receipt for the placard, he would have the ticket voided. On the first go, it wasn't. However, after the local council and head of the parking department heard about the issue, they immediately voided the ticket, apologized to everyone in sight, and started training programs for their staff. All's well that ends well. Not quite for the parking department.

What was the headline?

Was it – War Hero receives disabled parking badge

Was it – Parking department gets its act together, finally

Was it – Poole Parking Puts Parking Ticket Right

Naaaaa – it was

Hero soldier blown up in Afghanistan fined £60 for parking in disabled bay despite the fact he's in a WHEELCHAIR

The headline wasn't even accurate – he wasn't fined £60, his fine was never assessed. When the story was written, the ticket had already been voided. There was nothing that said that the newspaper told anyone and then the ticket was voided. The article says "officials" at the local council refused to rescind his ticket, but in reality that was probably one clerk who was having a bad day. You find out about that in paragraph 20 just after they give you a list of his injuries and an ab fab picture of him and his "partner" in front of the parking structure. Note that in the picture he looks dejected (well, he had just been blown up) but in the picture taken in Afghanistan he looks cute and happy.

This wasn't even a story. But it gets headlines in the "Mail on line". This is why we have to be so careful and need to ensure that the folks what work for parking operations and meet the public have the ability to make decisions. Too much regulation and too little front line thought can cause all sorts of problems.

JVH