Parking Meter Rate Increases (port authority, money, business)

[fleetiebelle]

Originally Posted by Enough_Already

$2-$5 IS a significant amount of money over a longer period of time. What if someone drives downtown for happy hour 40 time per year. That $5 parking rate adds up to $200. That is enough money to buy some substantial things. Also your "significant distance" comment actually works the other way for many people. Many people can get to a similar business outside the city just as fast (or faster) as they can get to a business in the city. If at current gas prices many people can drive 30 miles or more for the price of parking downtown at night. Also you must include the time factor of accessing a several story garage, finding a parking space, going to a machine to pay. Then there is the time if the person returns to their car just after a game or show has ended.

But even before the recent parking changes, there was never really a glut of free parking downtown, especially during events. You were always going to drive 30 miles; you were always going to pay for gas, you were always going to have to park somewhere, pay, and have to walk to your destination.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Enough_Already

$2-$5 IS a significant amount of money over a longer period of time. What if someone drives downtown for happy hour 40 time per year. That $5 parking rate adds up to $200. That is enough money to buy some substantial things.

Again, all that would apply but even more so to the other costs of those 40 trips.

Also your "significant distance" comment actually works the other way for many people. Many people can get to a similar business outside the city just as fast (or faster) as they can get to a business in the city.

If they can truly get to an identical business more conveniently somewhere else, then they should never come to Downtown, free parking or not.

Seriously, people will only make a special trip to Downtown if there are some attractions there they can't get in their own neighborhood (or some other neighborhood more conveniently located to them). In that sense, all these hypotheticals about identical businesses somewhere closer to their homes prove way too much--if there are in fact such businesses, parking costs are irrelevant, because they won't come to Downtown no matter what.

One immediate implication of this observation is that to get people to make special trips Downtown, Downtown has to offer attractions you can't get just anywhere. Otherwise, it never gets off the ground at all.

A second implication is that once you have done that, small parking charges aren't necessarily going to serve as a serious constraint. By hypothesis, people are already willing to make a special trip to Downtown because of its unique attractions, even though that is already costing them the equivalent of several dollars in terms of inconvenience and trip charges. A few more dollars for parking probably isn't going to push a lot of people from wanting to visit those unique attractions to not wanting to visit those unique attractions.

A third implication is that while this doesn't mean you can charge arbitrarily large amounts for parking, other parking considerations can quickly become more important than the exact price for parking. Specifically, knowing convenient spots, which are convenient to pay for, will be available can become a lot more important than a few dollar difference in parking price. And in that context charging too little for parking can become just as much a problem as charging too much, because it can mean not enough spots are left open to make parking convenient.

So to sum up, when it comes to inducing people to make special trips Downtown:

(1) Downtown needs to provide unique attractions, or it won't work at all;

(2) Charging a small amount for parking is not necessarily a problem, and it can be more important to make sure parking is convenient.

If at current gas prices many people can drive 30 miles or more for the price of parking downtown at night.

Gas is only one of the costs of driving around. Ultimately you have to allocate a portion of all your vehicle costs, which is how the IRS comes up with its annual allowance, and also put some value on your time.

Also you must include the time factor of accessing a several story garage, finding a parking space, going to a machine to pay. Then there is the time if the person returns to their car just after a game or show has ended.

But those costs exist regardless of the price.

As I noted above, no one is arguing people should have to park in garages when street parking is abundant. But when street parking starts becoming scarce, some people are going to have to park in garages. The question then becomes how to price things so that the right people are going to the garages. And because the costs you just noted are basically fixed, it makes sense for the people who will be in the area the longest to be encouraged to use garages by the pricing system.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

But even before the recent parking changes, there was never really a glut of free parking downtown, especially during events. You were always going to drive 30 miles; you were always going to pay for gas, you were always going to have to park somewhere, pay, and have to walk to your destination.

A big event no, every other night of the week, yes.

I still have yet to here a coherent argument as to why the city should charge for after hours parking downtown until demand picks up - i.e. lots of people are out & about & the streets are bustling with activity.

And even if downtown became the rage at night, & some people managed to park on the street for free who cares? As pointed out there are ample parking garages downtown that the rest of the people could use, its not like all those are ever going to fill up from the socializing nighttime crowd.

I will reiterate, I completely see the need for high priced metered spaces all day as there is a finite amount of parking downtown that does get filled up & needs to be available, I see no such public good need in the evening.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Sorry, I honestly thought you were asking it as a policy question.

In Pittsburgh, right now the City Council sets a schedule of authorized rates and enforcement hours, and then the Parking Authority (which is an independent agency organized under state law) adopts that schedule. I believe, although I am not sure, that the Parking Authority could set lower rates and shorter enforcement hours if it wanted to, but I know it can't exceed what Council has authorized.

Well that's a definite improvement over the arrangement we got here where the meter thieves have wide discretion to establish whatever rates and enforcement hours they feel like. Downtown meters are now enforced 24/7/365, which is patently ludicrous. I can't imagine why they think anyone is going to pay $5/hr to park at 3 in the morning. Not surprisingly, nobody does, so they don't actually get any money out of it. But apparently getting no revenue by way of absurd rates and hours of enforcement is better than getting no revenue by way of letting people park for free during periods of very low demand.

[gg]

They are rolling the time back to 6PM. Now, if we could get rid of the drink tax we would in good shape.

[pman]

Last night around 9 nola was slammed, wingharts was full (not hard), moes was closed, and chipotle had one person. Primantis was full and the oyster house.was slow.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by UKyank

I still have yet to here a coherent argument as to why the city should charge for after hours parking downtown until demand picks up - i.e. lots of people are out & about & the streets are bustling with activity.

You haven't heard that argument here because that is a strawman--no one here is arguing that Downtown parking policy should be set regardless of demand (unless perhaps it is the people insisting parking should be free regardless of demand--more on that below).

But I would suggest your measure--"lots of people are out & about & the streets are bustling with activity"--is not a proper one. Again, you should be looking at occupancy rates during the relevant time period, and targeting keeping occupancy rates under 85% or so.

And even if downtown became the rage at night, & some people managed to park on the street for free who cares?

This is a well-studied problem. What happens when street parking is priced too low and occupancy rates go over 85% is that people start to drive around in order to find available parking spots. This contributes very significantly to local road congestion, local air and noise pollution, and so forth, and actually makes the locale less desirable for prospective visitors. It also means the relatively scarce street spots are not going to those who value them the most, but rather those who value their time less than a couple bucks, which is economically inefficient and again likely to be bad for local businesses.

I will reiterate, I completely see the need for high priced metered spaces all day as there is a finite amount of parking downtown that does get filled up & needs to be available, I see no such public good need in the evening.

So can you at least agree this is an empirical question? Do you actually object to targeting a range of under 85% occupancy?

Because if you are not objecting to such a target, there really isn't a fundamental disagreement here, and it becomes a question of monitoring occupancy rates and pricing accordingly.

[gg]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

This is a well-studied problem.

If it was so well studied, why are they rolling back the time to 6PM for FREE parking? Seems they didn't study enough. As usual, I think you are grossly overestimating the so-called people in charge. Much of the time they are totally clueless and have no common sense at all.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

If it was so well studied, why are they rolling back the time to 6PM for FREE parking?

Because the people setting parking policy (City Council) don't know what they are doing. Again, I don't think anyone here is defending how Council has actually approached this issue, and in fact I made it quite clear above that I am not defending what they have actually done.

[gg]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Because the people setting parking policy (City Council) don't know what they are doing. Again, I don't think anyone here is defending how Council has actually approached this issue, and in fact I made it quite clear above that I am not defending what they have actually done.

I thought you approved of the parking meter time extension?