The City Answers Your Parking Questions (20. April 2007, 00:01 by Derek) ~ Where Oh Where
The answers to questions that arose during the city’s first round of parking meetings are now online. I would summarize… but there are a lot of them. The questions and answers are broken down my meeting date/location. Anything missing?
Link to the City of Tacoma
(Thank you, Erik)
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The most revealing information concerning the city’s position on the off-street parking requirement is in response to question No. 8 submitted at the UWT forum. Here, a questioner asks if the city will change the “off-street parking requirements to encourage more density.”
The best that can be said of the response is that it states “[t]he City’s [off-steet] parking requirements can be reviewed and adjusted.” The rest of the response looks to justify the policy by re-stating it.
The city response makes no effort justify or explain the basis for the current policy or address any of the detrimental effects the off-street parking policy has on Tacoma.
Andre Stone’s letter/analysis posted on exit 133 and sent to the city a month ago concluded that Tacoma’s off-street parking policy would force a 40 story to build a $24 million and unfeasible 14 story parking garage. To my knowledge the letter has received no response, and thus, is presumably accurate.
Some additional questions that come to mind are
1) Why is Portland, Seattle, Bellingham, Olympia and San Francisco mistaken in their off-street parking policy and Tacoma right?
2) Does Tacoma seek to grow its downtown like Portland and Seattle (without the off-street parking requirement) or in a sprawlish manner like Bellevue and Los Angeles (with the off-street parking requirement). This is the fundemental policy question that Tacoma residents and the Tacoma City Council is going to have make. What kind of downtown do we want?
3) Urban Planning Professor Donald Shoup has written the authorative 700+ page text on parking issues through the American Planning Association which has been extentively peer reviewed and has consulted with cities throughout the United States. He is by far the most recognized authority on parking issues in the United States and has concluded that cities should have no off-street parking requirement in their central business districts. What is the basis for believing that Professor Shoup is mistaken in his analysis and conclusions and Tacoma correct?
I say that the letter be resent every week to city hall until they get off their lazy, no good, butts and responed….we have to have the most anti-growth city council and mayor in the country….I say, recall them all…......and get some folks that aren’t being bought by who knows who…..what a fricken lazy *ss council…....I’m so tired of this crap….the council will be the death of Tacoma if something isn’t done…..
2 | Posted by rich | Apr 20, 08:10 AM
Off-Street parking requirements are a mixed bag and not as easy as Dr. Shoup makes them out to be. As former President of the California Public Parking Association I learned by analyzing parking demand and inventory along with the geography of a city and its relationship to residential and commercial districts. Increasing density can sound like a great idea, however if there is no infrastructure in place for mass transit the result will generate traffic.
Thanks for the post Don.
According to your web page, you “[c]reated, developed, and implimented The Los Angeles West Side Cities Parking Coalition over a decade ago and currently mananges and negoties contract for the West Side Cities Coalition.”
If Tacoma wishes to take the sprawlish form of Los Angeles, your suggestion may make sense.
At any rate, the proposal in Tacoma is a modest one which allows developers to track the public transportation that is available and to build the amount of parking necessary. (Although Tacoma already has light rail running through downtown). Developers will still be able to build as much as is economically justified.
I note that some California cities such as San Francisco go much further and place a maximum on parking spaces permitted.
I may be wrong, but I believe a driving factor in the Pierce County parking regulations is to attempt to limit the environmental damage caused by sprawling surface-level parking lots – an effort to limit the amount of impervious surface and associated runoff problems caused by surface parking, which is not as much of an issue with integrated parking structures since they use a much smaller footprint.
6 | Posted by Observer | Apr 20, 02:18 PM
You’re right about some of the cause behind the PC regs. Green environmental is part of the reason, but social environmental is another. There was a concious effort to design some of the regulations to encourage non-vehicular dependent movement and uses. (yippee for jargon)
7 | Posted by DavidS | Apr 20, 03:03 PM
Erik,
Are you suggesting that the LA Basin sprawl was caused by parking – not by the tearing down of existing mass transit systems that were replaced by freeways?!
Or was that just a snarky response to someone who has some serious credentials in this area who disagrees with your hypothesis?
8 | Posted by beerBoy | Apr 21, 07:47 AM
The comparisons between Los Angeles and San Fransico comes up alot in the literature about parking because they have opposite off-street parking policies. There are different parts of LA and the downtown is certainly dense.
See Parking, People and Cities by Michael Manville and Donald Shoup for a discussion of the comparisons between the urban forms of these cities.
The impact of parking requirements becomes clearer when we compare the parking requirements of our three cities. New York and San Francisco have strict limits on how much parking they allow in their CBDs; Los Angeles, however, pursues a diametrically opposing path—where the other two cities limit off-street parking, LA requires it. This requirement not only discourages development in downtown Los Angeles relative to other parts of the region but also distorts how the downtown functions.
...
More important, if off-street parking is required, as it is in any cities, then it becomes rational for firms to locate in places where land is less expensive, meaning it becomes rational to locate outside the CBD. A parking requirement applied uniformly across a city implicitly discriminates against development in the CBD, because the burden of complying with the requirement is greater in the CBD than almost anywhere else.
...
A concertgoer can now drive to Disney Hall, park beneath it, ride up into it, see a show, and then reverse the whole process—and never set foot on a sidewalk in downtown LA. The full experience of an iconic Los Angeles building begins and ends in its parking garage, not in the city itself. Visitors to downtown San Francisco are unlikely to have such a privatized and encapsulated experience. When a concert or theater performance lets out in San Francisco, people stream onto the sidewalks, strolling past the restaurants, bars, bookstores and Disney Hall flower shops that are open and well-lit._
I might point out, Erik, that lack of reply to one letter does not make it accurate by default. I
Having taken a college course on the development and history of Los Angeles as a city, I can say first hand that the sprawl of the city is due much more to geography, historical events, and socioeconomic events than mere parking. I urge you to pick up the book “City of Quartz” by Davis or any of his other books or articles, for the fact of the matter. I don’t think he addresses parking specifically but he has a lot of great insights into what has made LA such a sprawling, disconnected city. I will point out that one reason is that what many consider “LA” is not, in fact, one city but many that have grown together – Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Culver City, Santa Monica, LA proper, etc. etc.
I would go further and say, Erik, that your hypothesis is flawed because New York and San Fransisco were dense, central cities before cars even existed, and Los Angeles has also been “sprawling” since its inception (also, before cars even existed).
Let’s be realistic: Parking alone will not make or break the density or centralization of a downtown area. It can help or hinder, certainly.
I wouldn’t know enough about the specifics of building parking garages to know if the cost is really prohibitive to developers, if they’re being asked to put too much parking in, or if they’re just griping in typical developer fashion (let’s face it, that certainly wouldn’t be a new phenomenon, just as cities placing unrealistic expectations on developers isn’t a new phenomenon) but I’m going to go against popular opinion here and say that I support the idea of off-street parking.
I have no desire to drive downtown when I know it will mean searching fifteen or twenty minutes or more for a spot and then having to run a few blocks in the rain to reach my destination—especially when I can find similar businesses and shops in places where there is plenty of free parking—and I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels this way.
I might add that upping the cost of street parking is also illogical, since it will only drive (no pun intended) more people away. It’s not comfortable to go shopping if you have to be constantly aware of a parking meter or afraid your car is going to be towed at any second. In my experience, off street parking adds to walking traffic on the street, precisely because people have more time and opportunity to look and browse, something that can only help businesses. Density should not imply exclusivity: If you limit parking, you limit the potential audience for downtown businesses to only those who live in the immediate area.
10 | Posted by Genevieve | Apr 23, 02:48 PM
I have no desire to drive downtown when I know it will mean searching fifteen or twenty minutes or more for a spot and then having to run a few blocks in the rain to reach my destination
Me either. That’s why Tacoma needs to charge the “right price” for on-street parking in the central business district as the article Driving in Circles explains.
Here’s some good quotes from High Price of Free Parking the American Planning Association published incorporating hundreds of parking studies:
“The purpose of right-priced curb parking is not to gouge drivers or to maximize revenue. Instead, the price is the lowest price that will avoid shortages.”
“Traffic engineers usually recommend that about 15 percent of curb space-one space every seven-should remain vacant to ensure easy ingress and egress.”(page 297)
“Parking should be free when occupancy is less than 85 percent at zero price…”
(Page 299)
You are right in that over charging for parking for parking would drive people out of a downtown. Yet,undercharging for on-street parking causes cruising, double parking and traffic congestion and people cannot find available on-street parking.
The goal is to set the rate so that the downtown streets are nearly full, yet there is always some parking spaces available (1 in 7 spots).
The last study in downtown Tacoma indicated on average, only (approx) 60 percent of on-street parking spaces were being used. Thus, there is probably only a few blocks in Tacoma where charging for on-street parking would be appropriate. The rest of the areas should be free. (Of course, that will change over time).
“The last study in downtown Tacoma indicated on average, only (approx) 60 percent of on-street parking spaces were being used. Thus, there is probably only a few blocks in Tacoma where charging for on-street parking would be appropriate. The rest of the areas should be free. (Of course, that will change over time).”
True, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t be charging for parking, period. What I’m saying is that in high-traffic areas, having some available off-street parking is a good idea. I’m also saying that off-street parking does not equal city sprawl or shopping centers where people don’t walk around—in fact, I feel it’s somewhat the opposite (hence my example of not being able to shop with a meter running)
“The purpose of right-priced curb parking is not to gouge drivers or to maximize revenue. Instead, the price is the lowest price that will avoid shortages.”
“Traffic engineers usually recommend that about 15 percent of curb space-one space every seven-should remain vacant to ensure easy ingress and egress.”(page 297)
Without alternative forms of parking in place, I can’t help but see this as circular logic:
People aren’t shopping at location A because there is nowhere to park. Increase parking prices so that people don’t want to shop there, therefore increasing the number of parking spaces so that people will want to shop there because there are places to park?
I think a combination is the best solution. Have on-street parking at the right moderately high price, with garage parking available in one or two locations at a moderately low price. This way those who want to stop by and pick something up from a store quickly will be able to do so, and those who want to shop or eat for long periods of time will also have an alternative to worrying about a meter or the astronomical costs of window shopping.
I sympathize with the developers, but can’t help but question the logic of someone who wants to create a building—presumably to sell or rent out—without the infrastructure in place to support it. Maybe the city’s costs are prohibitively high, but what is the point of building a commercial building without parking for the business it hopes to attract, unless the developer is hoping to offload the building on an unsuspecting investor and leave the costs of supporting it to the city? It’s like saying that a developer building a thirty home development shouldn’t be at least partially responsible for building the neighborhood’s sewer lines.
Maybe a better solution for off-street parking is to have the city and developers work together to find a fair way of gauging exactly how many spots are needed based on what customers the development hopes to attract, and for the city to subsidize any spots it requires above and beyond that amount. This way, nothing is built that can’t at least self-sustain itself in terms of parking, and the city is prevented from going to out of hand with its demands.
12 | Posted by Genevieve | Apr 24, 09:53 AM
A couple of interesting things were mentioned off the cuff at the streetcar meeting last night regarding the parking meetings. I’ve combed their contents, and indeed the questions and comments included motorized rickshaws and using the abandoned downtown tunnels...
13 | Posted by jamie from thriceallamerican | Apr 24, 10:09 AM
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