Marta Parking (Atlanta, Reynolds: lease, income, cost)

[Zanarkand A East]

Originally Posted by noah

YES. Great example. One can justify a slightly longer commute on marta for the purpose of saving money but if you have to pay for parking forget about it. Will be quicker to drive to work and my company provides free parking downtown so its not worth it if I have to pay for parking and taking Marta and it takes longer.

This is the key difference. I work in Midtown and I don't know anyone with free parking. When I worked at BoA Plaza, the on-site parking was astronomical. Simply put, I'm jealous

[jsvh]

Sorry folks, you are going to have to move beyond your entitlement to having free parking ready for you right in front of where you are going. Parking is expensive and MARTA is realizing that there are better uses for land near their stations besides mostly empty parking lots.

It will be decades before all the free parking goes away at outermost stations. But realize the only reason you are resistant to paying for parking at MARTA is because you expect that subsidy for roads and other parking spaces. And those subsidies are slowly going away too.

[noah]

Its not being resistant to paying for parking, rather comparing alternatives and stating that if one had to pay for parking at Marta and the Marta fare than Marta is not the best alternative. In theory sure you could pick Marta in all instances but for most of us the reality is that time and money are limited and when Marta doesn't win in either category we aren't going to take it.

Originally Posted by jsvh

But realize the only reason you are resistant to paying for parking at MARTA is because you expect that subsidy for roads and other parking spaces. And those subsidies are slowly going away too.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by noah

Its not being resistant to paying for parking, rather comparing alternatives and stating that if one had to pay for parking at Marta and the Marta fare than Marta is not the best alternative.

If transit is not the best option for you you should not be forced to take it.

But we also should not force businesses and homeowners to build free parking spaces they do not want. And we should only make people pay for the roads (and transit) that they use and not pass those costs onto others.

[Clayton white guy]

When I was in college (early to mid 1990's) there seemed to be a nominal fee to park at the East Point and College Park stations. It was set up on a board with slots like so many unattended parking lots.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by Zanarkand A East

A bit off-topic, but why are the King Memorial parking spots off-limit on the weekends? Has Grady taken these completely over? It reminds me of the inexplicably roped off lots at East Lake, when the main lot has TINY parking spaces.

Grady leases the entire lot south of the station, but that will soon apartments.

[MattCW]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Kiss n ride is not parking and always has the drop off curb at most stations.

But at many stations such as Indian Creeek and Kensington, it would be very hard to practically add the barriers to separate the Kiss and Ride area from the parking lot without completely remodeling the traffic flows.

Originally Posted by jsvh

Yes, they need to start charging for daily parking at more stations. MARTA should be subsidizing transit, not parking. People should not get free parking for the day when they pay $5 for a round trip fare. Most pay lots are already well north of $5 a day.

jsvh, let me introduce you to a basic economic concept that perhaps you should learn about before continuing to comment on such matters. It's called the law of supply and demand. The part of it we'll look at here can be stated simply: assuming constant demand, as the supply increases, the price should decrease. The price is $0, it can't decrease anymore (unless you want to pay people to park at stations, which is fine by me) yet we still have excess supply as the lots aren't 100% full, most not even close to 100% full.

Originally Posted by jsvh

Having that money going towards more transit service will do way more to boost ridership than free parking. We can only dream of have ridership numbers near the DC Metro and their $8 daily parking.

What money? Can you answer one straight-forward question for me? Why do you think suddenly charging for parking will NOT decrease ridership (and thus the farebox recovery ratio) and increase revenue for MARTA? What is your reasoning?

Originally Posted by jsvh

Sorry folks, you are going to have to move beyond your entitlement to having free parking ready for you right in front of where you are going. Parking is expensive and MARTA is realizing that there are better uses for land near their stations besides mostly empty parking lots.

Wrong. This isn't "free parking" this is a necessary component of a transportation system. You have to get people to the system in order for them to use it. You could massively increase the bus system, but until you do, you're going to lose ridership. "Free parking" might be apt if this were municipal parking spaces where the "product" was the parking itself, but that's not the case here, the "product" is the transportation.

It will be decades before all the free parking goes away at outermost stations. But realize the only reason you are resistant to paying for parking at MARTA is because you expect that subsidy for roads and other parking spaces. And those subsidies are slowly going away too.

Actually, it's gone the reverse direction, MARTA used to charge for parking, you can see remnants on the signs at Indian Creek and Kensington. But even with "free parking" the lots still aren't full.

Originally Posted by jsvh

If transit is not the best option for you you should not be forced to take it.

But you would force people back onto the roads simply because of your outdated ideology?

But we also should not force businesses and homeowners to build free parking spaces they do not want.

How many businesses have ever tried to build less than the legal parking minimums? None that I can recall. Isn't Fuqua trying to ram massive surface lots into the city? Seems like your "free market" wants the "free parking."

And we should only make people pay for the roads (and transit) that they use and not pass those costs onto others.

HUH???? We already do, I pay for all the roads I use through taxes, and I expect everyone that uses them to pay as well instead of freeloading off of the drivers.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by MattCW

jsvh, let me introduce you to a basic economic concept that perhaps you should learn about before continuing to comment on such matters. It's called the law of supply and demand. The part of it we'll look at here can be stated simply: assuming constant demand, as the supply increases, the price should decrease. The price is $0, it can't decrease anymore (unless you want to pay people to park at stations, which is fine by me) yet we still have excess supply as the lots aren't 100% full, most not even close to 100% full.

Correct, there is an excess supply of parking. If something that costs more than $0 to produce has a market price of $0 then yes there is an obvious over supply. We should remove artificial laws like parking minimums that contribute to over supply and MARTA should continue to find better uses for their land like mixed use developments to replace parking lots.

Originally Posted by MattCW

How many businesses have ever tried to build less than the legal parking minimums? None that I can recall. Isn't Fuqua trying to ram massive surface lots into the city? Seems like your "free market" wants the "free parking."

If developers never desire to build less than the minimum then you must have no problem getting rid of the unneeded laws, right?

...But of course requests for variances from the parking minimum are quite common. In fact even Fuqua requested a variance to build less than the minimum parking in the original application for 800 Glenwood: https://drive.google.com/folderview?...WwtVHdGRk5raVU

Yes, that is right, that atrocious sea of parking planned for right along the Beltline is actually too few parking spaces in the eyes of current zoning law.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Correct, there is an excess supply of parking. If something that costs more than $0 to produce has a market price of $0 then yes there is an obvious over supply. We should remove artificial laws like parking minimums that contribute to over supply and MARTA should continue to find better uses for their land like mixed use developments to replace parking lots.

And that's exactly what's happening.

[alco89]

Originally Posted by NorthStarDelight

Fares need to be lowered too, no way it should cost anyone $5 round trip to ride the train.

You're kidding, right?