Driving around looking for a parking spot – or, worse, periodically shifting your car because of parking time restrictions – is something that really annoys the hell out of me. It’s a waste of my time, it’s a waste of fuel, and it clogs already congested roads.
But American economist Donald Shoup has dug a little bit deeper and figured out just how large the societal costs of crazy parking policies – both on-street and off-street – are. I can’t embed it, but this five-minute video is a great introduction to Shoup’s main thesis.
If you’re interested, this presentation and Shoup’s original paper provide more details.
This is an aside, but I never put money in parking meters. The money I have saved far exceeds the occasional fine.
Call me irresponsible. Meh.
Fixed a borked link for you, Rob (you’d dropped the last two digits in the URL for the video)
Cheers, thanks.
I’ve had a quick reading of the linked paper and the money quote for mine is this:
The real problem question is, how do we reduce free parking without creating equity problems like those imposed by the London Congestion Charge?
Excellent idea, even though from a man with mismatched shirt and tie – charging for parking might keep the hoi polloi away from the high-class sort of shops that I patronise. Can we have first-class carriages on trains, too?
Better public transport systems so people don’t need to use their cars? Is there a real need to make owning and running a car affordable for all?
Interesting conclusion. I thought he was going to conclude that all parking should be taken off-street to improve traffic flow, and all parking should be paid for in large (economies of scale) parking blocks.
Not so.
Just as an aside, the author himself is a machine when it comes to the deployment of bad analogies:
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
And finally, his magnus opus, Exhibit C:
I wonder what would happen if I included such tenuous analogies in my dissertation?
“The real problem question is, how do we reduce free parking without creating equity problems like those imposed by the London Congestion Charge?”
What equity problems?
Russell,
“might keep the hoi polloi away from the high-class sort of shops that I patronise”
But why would they want to patronise those shops? And if they can afford to do so, surely they can afford parking charges too.
I&U – status seeking.
But the charges create one little hurdle they’d have to jump over – walking to the ticket machine and back – and cashed up bogans are too lazy to do it.
Yeah, but Benjamin Franklin was a genius.
Not being a driver I’m not worried by such things. Though I had a mate who would regularly forget where he parked his car, sometimes for days. Consequently when he went shopping he always had to get someone to go with him, so he could have them remember where he’d put the car. He got a fair few parking fines because of this genuine disability. And I got quite a few free bars of chocolate, which he used to buy me for disrupting my day when I went shopping with him, though I’d have gladly done it without reward.
Those downtown blocks like Pasadena are gentrified exceptions to the strip mall pattern to be found almost everywhere in the US. Shoup’s solution may work well for such areas, but most Americans, like most Australians, jump in their cars to shop at decidedly unpicturesque strip malls.
There are cultural factors too – Cottesloe Town Council would love to charge for parking in its beachside parking areas, but they’ve been over-ruled by the state government that agreed with the public that charging for parking at the beach was un-Australian.
Fair point Katz, but shopping centres are increasingly charging for car parking (in Australia, dunno about the US).
In any case, Shoup is not trying to solve every problem relating to automobile use, just some of them.
I don’t trust that Shoup character. He’s a professor, has a beard and rides a bike. This is a sure sign of bias.
How can you trust someone who ticks all those boxes?
Re the equity argument, the current situation has its own inequities. Poor people can’t afford cars, yet have no choice but to live in car-centric cities, and so face problems accessing the things they need. Parking minimums subsidise the rich.
I do get Shoup’s broad point. What we really ought to be doing is cutting down all but delivery/PT access to the city and its major hubs, providing oparking at the peripehery and offering efficient shuttle services where the walking distances are substantial. Perhaps that could be bundled with the parking.
Simon,
“Poor people can’t afford cars”
Exactly. Those bleating “equity” are those who can afford cars and want to see their use continue to be subsidised.
Robert
Harry Clarke has been banging on about this sort of stuff for years and written “proper” papers an all – check out his blog
Well you could read HC, but wouldn’t you more usefully spend your time reading the far superior Melbourne Urbanist?:
https://melbourneurbanist.wordpress.com/tag/parking/
Thanks for the pointers guys.
I pointed to Shoup because I found the video and thought it was a short, understandable explanation.
Well Urbanist quotes Harry – but if you don’t like primary sources I guess…
There are opportunities here. We could for example reduce individual carpark size so that they are only suitable for very small cars, or even better, narrow track vehicles. (With massive fines for big cars taking up more than the allowed space.) Even with parallel parking we could paint in enough space for cars to get in and out while prohibiting a parked car to be over the painted space.
We could limit park times so life becomes impossible for those who want to use cars to commute to the center of town. We could……
Fran @16: I have a beard and ride a bike. It’s those teachers and their muddled thinking you have to worry about.
@18: I dont like parking at the periphery. It is much better if you can keep the cars in garages if they can’t make the full trip. Small shuttle buses, bikeways, more electric bikes etc. should be used to acheive this.
John D, sounds like Hong Kong! Only the super rich have private cars, there are taxis and private minibuses that have set routes but will stop anywhere on the route you want to get off, or on. Private people mover cars for the middle classes to hire when they need a ‘private car’ and great mixed, cheap, public transport. Cheaper on weekdays when more people need to get round the city. Oh and lots of walking. I was sad to note a lack of pushies, but was witness to a big memorial bike ride for those killed riding bikes on HK roads. Hundreds of cyclists took part. Very few traffic jams.
Yeah, Harry might be a dyed-in-the-wool Librul with disagreeable views on Laura Norder but he’s pretty much the go-to guy in Australia on the economics of congestion charges, tolls and parking. In fact the Henry Review of taxation commissioned him to scribble on it for them (not that they were game to take all his advice). If you want a professional, not just a smart blogger, then on this topic he’s where you look.