Rethinking the parking space

Bottleneck Blog contributors have sounded off about Steve Lopez's report on the L.A. parking enforcement officer who gave a ticket to an illegally parked car as a cancer patient attempted to exit. They sounded off on the rising prices of parking spaces around L.A. Now, the WSJ has a report about a new trend in city parking: Instead of making more cheap parking available, some cities are charging variable market (i.e. more expensive) rates:

Since the parking meter was first introduced 70 years ago, in Oklahoma City, the field has been dominated by two simple maxims: Cities can never have too much parking, and it can never be cheap enough. Now a small but vocal band of economists, city planners and entrepreneurs is shaking that up, promoting ideas like free-market pricing at meters and letting developers, rather than the cities, dictate the supply of off-street parking. Seattle is doing away with free street parking in a neighborhood just north of downtown. London has meters that go as high as $10 an hour, while San Francisco has been trying out a system that monitors usage in real time, allowing the city to price spots to match demand.

Wonder how that would work on L.A.'s trendy West Third Street, where Times reporter Martha Groves writes about some "creative" ways merchants might be fulfilling their parking requirements?

Comments

[clint rosemond]

I am a professional urban/regional planner with 30 years experience in the profession. Twenty-two of those were spent as a planner and community liason representative with SCAG, the regional planning agency for southern California. Most of the transportation problems that are now choking the region were identified at least 20 years ago. The political system simply did not identify the analysis showing decreasing levels of service on the freeways and major arterials as being important enough to respond to with plans and resources sufficient to ward off the developing gridlock. More importantly, nothing was done to change the land use pattern for housing development in the region that continuously presses further and further into the undeveloped parts of the region with low density housing which only guarantees increased loads on the freeway system absent a viable rail system at a minimum. Our way of doing development has trapped us and there is no way out short of finding ways to reduce VMT - vehicle miles travelled - on our roadways. That is a daunting task and not likely to occur given current housing development practices. The development of housing opportunities in downtown LA is evident that a significant portion of the population is willing to live in denser environments and that the single family detached dwelling is not the sole viable preference given our diverse population.

[Marilyn Terrell]

Here;s an interesting story about how a London suburb is planning to use a sliding scale to charge residents for street parking, based on the carbon emissions of their cars-- gas guzzlers get to pay more: http://www.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGBF2Q16OXE.html

Why not?

[Mark Jolles]

HELPING WESTSIDE PARKING, AN OLD CHEVIOT SOLUTION DOES IT? I'M CONFUSED, ARE YOU?

March 23, 2000 MTA BOARD MEETING - Engineers Report

"There have been suggestions to reroute the LRT north on La Cienega Boulevard, turning southwest at Venice Boulevard and traveling to Sepulveda Boulevard. At Sepulveda, the alignment would turn northwest and continue back to the Exposition ROW. This alignment would allow the LRT system to avoid traveling thorough residential areas. This detour would add nearly 1.5 miles to the project, extend travel times by 12 minutes, and increase the overall cost by approximately $120,000,000."

"In the Board deliberations, Supervisor Yaroslavsky began, saying, "Why punish ourselves on a route that has opposition?" He spoke for the Venice Blvd. detour, saying it was wide, "bisects two high-density communities" of Palms and Culver City, and although is "slightly longer than a direct route" it would serve more people.

WHO'S THE ONE THAT WILL REALLY GET PUNISHED, LOOK OUT ZEVVY!

The final vote, for BRT and LRT EIR on Exposition with the detour, was 11-1 yes; Supervisor Antonovich voted no.

SOMEONE HAD SOME BALLS!

Friends 4 Expo's take on this....

"The good news: we're moving forward, there is relative consensus, the Cheviot Hills opponents no longer have a reason to object, Venice Boulevard could become a remarkable new transit-oriented place, there is room within the 100-foot Sepulveda Boulevard right-of-way to add light rail (and still keep most of the parking), and if properly designed the travel time won't slow by more than five minutes."

WHAT?

[Mark Jolles]

If you have lousy transit, you're gonna need parking, or you'll kill your tax base. Now start circling for that space!

[Mark Jolles]

Great reporting Steve. This new trend has been established in most transit oriented cities for decades. San Francisco taxes their parking to keep the price high and limits parking to 7% of the square footage of development since the late 70's. For the new $450 million Bloomingdales mall attached to BART, I think no parking was added.

DC requires virtually no parking and the DC suburbs require parking near transit to cost more than a round trip fare. Also garages must are no CLOSER than a five minute walk to the transit stations and I think employers must offer transit subsidies equal to parking. The list goes on and on.

But they have more cars and income per household than in L.A. County, so they have to be stricter. San Francisco has more cars than registered drivers. Canadian and European cities have been just as strict for decades as well.

Ever heard of Travel/Transportation Demand Management. Steve, join the 21st century. We'll be waiting for you at a transit stop.

If you're under 13 years of age, AND HAVE BAD ALLERGIES, you may read this message board, but you may not participate. Now use your enhaler, do your breathing exercises, and practice your spelling words! There's a test on Monday!