While some people may think that paying for curbside parking is un-American, Donald Shoup says it's very American to pay for what we use. "We are not a nation of freeloaders," he said. By not paying for public parking, we deny the city needed revenue and make motorists waste time driving around looking for spots.
Shoup, speaking at Fordham University last night, is in town to meet with public officials, business people and city planners to discuss parking. Transportation Alternatives, who sponsored the talk, are advocating (in addition to PlanNYC's congestion pricing) the imposition of curbside parking fees on the Upper West Side. A professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, Shoup is probably the country's foremost expert on parking.
He maintains that even though most of Manhattan's curbside parking is free, the cost is borne by everyone, even if you are too poor to own a car. By charging for parking in commercial districts, it would have the immediate impact of culling cars that are not really necessary and rarely used. It would also reduce travel time, traffic congestion, air pollution, fossil fuel waste and greenhouse gas emissions as well as improve public services. The revenues gained from paid parking could be used to maintain sidewalks, plant trees and be remitted to merchants who could in turn improve their public space. The trick is to find the Goldilocks price--where streets would have only 85% of the spots taken at any one time. Shoup said this could be achieved by sophisticated high tech meters--ones that change the price paid by time of day or day of the week. There are even magnetic sensors that can monitor space for cheaters and alert parking enforcement to visit the blocks with the highest violations.
The average time spent looking for a parking spot is roughly the same in New York as Los Angelos--3.4 minutes, traveling around 10 miles per hour. While that may not seem like very much, it adds up when you consider how many people drive.
The only thing missing in his presentation? What to do when motorists who won't pay the commercial district prices park in residential neighborhoods instead.--Sherry Mazzocchi
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