Permit Pricing

Eight Reasons To Support Parking Reforms

January 24, 2016 By TonyJ 1 Comment

A Parklet in San Francisco — 1300 Fulton St. Parklet in SF

Why is parking policy, such a seemingly mundane and boring feature of our lives, worth spending time and energy on?

Simply stated, there are few local opportunities for change that can have as wide and effective of an impact on such a list of problems as parking and each one, on it’s own, is reason enough.

Here are only eight of the reasons we should support parking reform, post your own in the comments:

… it leads to more affordable housing;

… it creates more walkable downtown districts;

… it preserves pedestrian friendly commercial corridors and neighborhood business nodes;

… it supports local businesses by encouraging turnover for customers;

… it reduces emissions and preventing traffic injuries from drivers cruising for a spot;

… it encourages no-car living in transit rich areas;

… it frees up valuable space for nature, recreation, and active uses;

… it provides a stable and equitable funding source for street repairs and beautification, safety improvements, and alternative modes of transportation.

A Primer on Portland’s Possible Permit Programs

January 2, 2016 By TonyJ 20 Comments

Recently an advisory committee tasked with making advising City Council on parking management tools for Portland neighborhoods finished up and made a recommendation.

The recommended program design, which passed unanimously, has several key features:

Residential permit zones will be drawn around 20 or more contiguous block faces (4000 sq/ft) in residential (R) zones. Permit zones will not encompass commercial (C) or mixed-use zones (MU). Many of the higher density apartments with little or no on-site parking are built in commercial or mixed-use zones.
Residents in mixed-use or commercial zones may not be able to buy permits. Priority access to permits will be given to residents inside the zones. Since zones can’t surround C or MU property, residents in those zones may be excluded.
The number of permits sold will be limited to less than the number of estimated on-street spaces. This is fairly novel in permit programs in the USA. Most permit programs sell 2-5X the number of permits as spaces. These permits are often pejoratively labeled “hunting licenses.”
The price for a permit will include non-administrative fees. Nearly all permit programs charge a very low rate. Portland’s area permit programs cost only $0.16/per day ($60/year). Portland’s permits will probably be more than people are expecting. For one, selling a limited number permits means the per-capita administrative costs will be higher as fixed costs will be divided among less permits. Furthermore, the committee recommended that PBOT collect additional money to pay for Transportation Demand Management (think: bike maps, discounts for car share, discounts for bus passes) and small local safety improvements. At this point (1/2/2016), no one knows how much they will be, any claims to the contrary are false.
People with driveways could pay more. People with multiple cars pay more, too. Permits will be progressively priced, the second will cost more than the first, etc. Residents with off-street parking will pay a higher price for their first permit.
Neighbors will be able to customize the program. With staff assistance, neighbors and business representatives will decide how many permits to sell, whether to sell any guaranteed permits to residents outside the zone, desired hours of enforcement, and length of visitor hours.
Permits will be sold in multiple rounds. A first round of permit sales will be open to households in the permit zone, plus any others as decided by the permit committee. It is possible households will be limited to one or two permits in this round. A second round of sales will be offered which would be open to the wider community, as well as households in the zone seeking additional permits.

Nothing is set in stone with this proposal, but a unanimous committee recommendation is a great first step. Join PDX Shoupistas to help pass the best policy possible.

Parking Permits and Low-Car Lifestyles

November 10, 2015 By TonyJ Leave a Comment

Not everyone can ride a bike.

It’s true and it’s easily a top 5 argument given to oppose policies and projects that either favor alternate modes or ask that people who drive pay more of the social costs of their lifestyles. But it is also true that most of us can ride a bike, most of us can take a bus, and most of us can walk comfortably for a mile. It’s also true that 1/3 of Oregon residents don’t even have a driver’s license.

Managing neighborhood parking projects by pricing permits at a near-market rate can provide benefits both to the people who feel they must drive a car and for those who are already driving less or not at all.

The costs of car ownership.

According to the AAA, a small sedan costs (on average) the owner about $4,500 a year, or $12 a day, before any mileage is accounted for. AAA estimates that driving costs about $0.16 a mile. For a very car dependent person, someone driving 20,000 miles a year, the cost per mile is almost $0.40 (total cost/miles driven). Counterintuitively, someone who only drives their car 5000 miles a year will be paying almost $1.00 per mile (although they will pay less total money in the year, the majority of the cost is fixed). This is for a small sedan, the larger the car, the higher the fixed costs and the more fuel needed.

Currently, where we have them, parking permits in Portland cost $60 a year. For $0.16 a day (coincidentally the incurred additional cost of driving one mile) you can park your car on the public right of way. While many car owners say that even $5 a month is an excessive charge, when taken in the context of the total expense of ownership, the cost is negligible.

For a car owner who drives only 5000 miles a year, the cost of a $60 permit adds barely a penny per mile to the cost of operating. For the car dependent person driving 20K miles a year, the permit adds barely 1/4 of a cent per mile. A $60 permit is unlikely to change anyone’s behavior or mode share, certainly not the car dependent driver.

The less you drive, the less it makes sense to own.

Conversely, if you already own a car, it makes sense to drive it more! All those people who can bike, walk, and take the bus, can do the math and see that they’ve already sunk so much into owning a car that it’s kind of dumb not to drive it. Still, many choose to maintain a car even though they rarely drive it. Common reasons include concerns about emergency transportation, loss of freedom, the desire to make weekend trips, and grocery shopping.

Market rate permits would change behavior.

Suppose the cost of a neighborhood parking permit was $600 a year. This is still a fairly fractional cost of ownership. For the person who drives a lot, it’s an additional cost of $0.03 per mile, but for our low-car household it’s $0.12 cents more a mile, almost as much as the cost of gas.

A household that is keeping a car (or a second car) around for convenience may look at that additional cost and question whether it’s worth it to keep the car. This isn’t entirely rational, after all, if you’re already paying $4,500 a year to just possess the car, why should $600 make the difference? I think there are two reasons, one is universal and one is more particular to a city such as Portland.

When you’re paying fixed costs, you don’t notice it. A certain amount of effort went into setting up the situation one is in and payments are likely automated and budgeted. When a new cost comes along, you take a step back and re-evaluate the situation. When your car needs $2000 in work, you decide whether it is worth the cost. Similarly, if we can implement market rate (or closer to market rate) permits in Portland, thousands of our neighbors will take a step back and consider whether the car they keep on the street for beach trips is worth the extra $50 a month to park it there.

Secondly, a low-car household in Portland has options, lots of them. When I sold my car in 2008 my family was able to take the plunge because we had Zipcar, Trimet, traditional rental cars, and cabs. Now we have access to Zipcar, Getaround, RelayRides, Car2Go, Trimet (with the streetcar loop and orange line added), Curb, Lyft, Uber, traditional rental car, and Spinlister (which gives a household access to cargo and other utility bikes). Next year, the city will add bike share.

Anecdotally, I have asked people who ride their bikes, but still own a car for trips what they’ll do if they need to buy a $300-600 permit to park. The answer is usually, sell the car. When I ask them what they’ll do with a $60 permit cost, the answer is, buy the permit. The price matters.

The framing will be critical.

I suggest the city craft a particular outreach message to low-car households when a permit district rolls out in their neighborhood. For $600 a year, you can rent a car every other weekend all summer. For $600 a year you can spend 50 a month on car share (which is a fair amount of driving). For $600 a year you can buy a new rain jacket, gloves, and panniers. For $600 a year you can buy 10 day passes from Trimet a month.

This doesn’t even take into account the savings from getting rid of your car.

The more that we pass the true cost of car ownership and usage onto the beneficiaries (the owners and drivers) the easier it will be for people to make rational decisions about transportation. The imposition of a market rate parking fee with need-based discounting will not force anyone who “needs” to drive to have to get rid of their car. What it will do is cause occasional drivers to re-evaluate what they are spending money on and have an opportunity to make a smarter decision.