PGH Council's study implies parking lease price is fair (Pittsburgh: buy, subsidized)

[pman]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

1. Maybe, maybe not: 50 years is a long time.
2. I thought your preferred use of the $120 million "windfall" was to pay down debt or other liabilities. Spending that $120 million plus $180 million more on parking subsidies isn't paying down debt. And again, we have no way of knowing if the City will consistently choose over the next 50 years to do that.
3. Agreed. I honestly think there is a lot of status quo bias going on here. If the City had $450 million in cash but didn't have the relevant property rights, I doubt anyone would be advocating that the City use that $450 million in cash to buy up those property rights. But because the City currently has the property rights but not the cash, suddenly people are talking about "public assets".
4. Agreed again. I see no good reason not to just sell the garages/lots with no strings attached, and I'd actually be fine with the parking authority running the meters, provided it would commit to running them with rates based on reasonable occupancy/turnover targets. But practically, I think it may be necessary to privatize operations in order to get that result.

1) not saying it's right or wrong, but that's where the money would have otherwise come from.
2) yep. I just get nervous that "windfall" to politicians means pork projects.
3) true
4) you're probably right.


Not an unreasonable task, but in my view most of the opponents of the lease on the Council are either politically motivated, or they have concerns that I simply don't accept as valid (such as wanting to keep parking rates artificially low).

And I am quite serious about the point above--some of these proposals, including this one by the Comptroller, aren't actually doing anything to reduce the City's long-term liabilities, but rather they are just increasing debt to make the required pension payment. Any plan that doesn't result in a very significant total liability reduction is a non-starter in my view.[/quote]

[BrianTH]

On (1), my point is just that the City isn't somehow locked into continuing to subsidize parking by the Comptroller's plan. It could continue to do that, but that will be up to 50 years-worth of politicians to decide.

[pman]

LAZ Parking would open a 50-person Pittsburgh office if it is assigned to manage the city's public parking assets...LAZ Parking and J.P. Morgan Asset Management also plan to invest $90 million in upgrades to garages and meters within the first seven to 10 years of a proposed 50-year lease, their representatives said today.
...The garage improvements... would include demolition and reconstruction of garages at 9th and Penn, Smithfield and Liberty, and on Third Avenue Downtown, plus rehabilitation of the garage at Fort Duquesne and Sixth. The would lead to a net increase of 1,800 spaces, through increases in height and density of garages.
...

Read more: Financiers offer their vision for Downtown parking

[BrianTH]

I always thought some people were underestimating how important the capital improvement portion of the lease deal would be. The estimated future revenues are all conditional on those investments being made, and that is a lot of money the City wouldn't have to come up with in order to provide decent parking services (and hopefully a more attractive Downtown--some of those garages are eyesores).

[pman]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I always thought some people were underestimating how important the capital improvement portion of the lease deal would be. The estimated future revenues are all conditional on those investments being made, and that is a lot of money the City wouldn't have to come up with in order to provide decent parking services (and hopefully a more attractive Downtown--some of those garages are eyesores).

yeah, esp since it sounds like those improvements wouldn't be possible under city ownership.

[pman]

Three city-run parking garages are in such poor condition that they pose significant "structural and life safety issues" to users and should be demolished, according to an engineering report released late Wednesday...The Third Avenue, Ninth and Penn and Smithfield/Liberty garages in Downtown received an "unfavorable condition" rating..
The 900-member police union is not endorsing the mayor's plan but isn't opposing it... The union wants the mayor to put the $120 million left over from the deal into the pension system.

"It's all in, or we're not a willing participant," O'Hara said.

Three city-run parking garages should be razed, engineers say - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

so replacing those garages with something isn't a nice to have, but mandatory

[BrianTH]

More reporting on how this would effect Downtown residents:

Downtown residents' parking leases would go up

Rates would go up, but they would keep their tax-exemption, which would now be worth 40% (the lease deal will allow an increase in the parking tax). I was also glad to see a specific mention of allocating spaces to car-sharing services like Zipcar--that is really a great way to go for people who live Downtown and only need a car for occasional purposes, and it can save them a lot of money while also freeing up spaces. Finally, they would market discount cards (e.g., $100 of parking for $80) to residents and businesses, which it seems to me would be handy for businesses who want to subsidize employee parking.

Then this article is specifically about more business-friendly services and options:

Parking perks would outweigh price hike, CEO says

Some excerpts:

"We're leaders in initiating programs like park-shop-and-dine, shuttle operations, discount cards, state-of-the-art technology that makes it easier for business owners," said Mr. Lazowski [CEO of LAZ parking]. . . . That's Mr. Lazowski's pitch. Cleaner, safer, better lit garages with friendly staff and technological innovations, he said, will outweigh price concerns. . . . Automated garages and multi-space meters that take credit cards will also make life easier for shoppers and patrons of Downtown entertainment, he said. Visitors will be able to use cell phones to locate available parking as they approach Downtown, and may be able to consult in-garage displays telling them which floors have open spaces. Though rates will go up, there will be discount programs for the garages, he said. Employers will be able to lease spaces in bulk, at discounts, within limits written into the lease. Where needed, LAZ will arrange a shuttle service from garages to offices. Retailers and merchant groups will be able to create branded discount cards, he said. Organizations like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust will be able to include a parking space in an arts event ticket package.

Then there is this bit about street parking:

The replacement of meters with pay stations should allow more cars per block in areas like South Side, said Peter Levin, CEO of Pittsburgh Parking Partners, a creation of LAZ and J.P. Morgan Asset Management. One pay station replaces eight meters, and uniformly sized spaces give way to the natural efficiency of the marketplace. LAZ's system also allows people to pay for street parking in one location, place the pay station ticket on their dashboards, and continue to use that ticket until the time runs out in any location with equal or lower parking rates.

I've actually seen this arise a lot in various neighborhoods--there is room for more cars, but not enough meters to go around. Being able to use tickets in more than one spot would also be great--I know that when I have been doing more than one errand in a trip, I have wasted money in meters not knowing how long it was going to take me for any one stop.

Of course all this fits a general theme noted at the end of the article: the idea that the parking operator would simply price themselves out of business makes no sense, meaning they need people to still park. What all these measures are designed to do collectively is make sure that even with higher rates the parking assets will be well-used, and that the available parking will be going to the people and business that value parking the most. Which is what is good for local businesses as well.

[pman]

I think I'd prefer a system where you can refill your time from any station over this but either way it's a big improvement over the old meters (though there's no bonus time anymore). what's the average cost of parking? if parking rates go up on average, could that not induce more operators to build garages or add more spaces? I wonder what the revenue per space vs cost to build is. it would also play into the nsc idea of having people park there and take the T in since they could, perhaps, more effectively compete on price. not sure about that though.

[BrianTH]

I know they've made room for the idea of refilling by cellphone in the lease--that's not on the list in these articles, but it seems like a good idea whenever the technology is ready. I don't see why they couldn't do refilling from other stations using the same technology (the hard part is having a system where you can check a remote network to find out whether a parked vehicle has paid for time--once you have that, any way of putting paid time into the network should work equally well).

There are schedules of rates available, and they would be going up by different amounts in different meter-areas/lots/garages. It is possible those rate increases would induce a lot more parking development, but I actually doubt it--land in the relevant areas is usually too valuable for that to make sense, and you can see how the operator is being smart about making sure that people who own and operate land nearby would have discount access to parking for employees, customers, residents, and so forth if they want it. About the most I would expect is some existing surface lots to look at becoming garages, but even then a lot of surface lots are already being looked at for other developments anyway.

I do think the long term model is to have more of the people working/visiting Downtown using alternative modes, as it should be. Of course more residential Downtown is part of that, as are some of the various trail projects, as is the NSC. And they could do more with park-and-rides elsewhere too--for example, a lot of park-and-rides in the PAT system currently are surface lots, and you could add a lot of spaces by going to garages instead.

[pman]

"Let me be clear, all proceeds from the parking garage lease should be put into the city's pension fund. Going from 28 percent to 50 percent funding is laudable, but the overall goal should be nothing less than to get the city's pension system back up to 100 percent funding," state Sen. Jane Orie, R-McCandless, said in an e-mail.

Read more: Error in pension law thwarts mayor's plan