TDM

PBOT Proposes Guidelines For Permit Surcharge Money

December 18, 2018 By TonyJ Leave a Comment

Northwest Portland has been the site of a PBOT parking management pilot for serveral years and the city is looking to apply what it has learned in that pilot to other parking management districts.

On Wednesday, December 19th, City Council will receive a report from PBOT on the activities and results of parking management strategies in the NW District. Council will then be asked to approve a list of “Parking Permit Surcharge Revenue Allocation Guidelines” which define what programs and projects are eligible for funding from permit surcharge revenues.

NW PDX is trailblazing on permits

The report on Zone M parking permits and management is a case study for modern residential parking management. Since council denied demands for residential parking requirements in 2016, the NW Parking Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC) has recommended increases in parking permits prices ($180 per year for a first permit with a discount for low income residents available) and progressive pricing for multiple permits ($360/year for the second permit and $540/year for each permit thereafter).

The process hasn’t been without pitfalls, however, A recommendation by the SAC to limit permits available to residents of apartment buildings was jettisoned due to being unfair to residents of older buildings. The current policy does limit the number of permits available to residents of buildings permitted since 2013.

• Permit restrictions will be applied to buildings that received certificates of occupancy (CO) after August 7, 2013 in the following manner: * Buildings with CO prior to 08/07/2013 – no permit restrictions on building. * Buildings with CO between 08/07/13 – 08/31/17 – restricted to .6 permits per number of units in the building. * Buildings with CO between 09/01/17 or later – restricted to .4 permits per number of units in the building. o Residents apply for permits through the City. If the resident lives in a permit restricted building, and there are no permits available, the resident may be added to a waiting list. — Permit restrictions are in place for residents of newer buildings

Where does the money go?

The big decision for City Council is whether to approve the surcharge revenue allocation guidelines.

To make progress on climate action goals we must reduce car trips in the central city and using parking revenues to build parking garages or additional supply undermines those efforts.

To that end, the eligible project examples given in the guidelines lean heavily toward subsidizing transit and cycling via universal transit passes and transportation wallets. Capital projects are included as well, but similarly the eligible projects are focused on making walking, cycling, scooting, and riding transit more safe, comfortable, and convenient.

Examples of projects/programs could include: • TriMet Universal Pass program to provide transit passes to district employees and residents • Free transit passes to low income residents and employees. • Transit tracker kiosks to provide arrival and departure information • Area walking maps and installation of pedestrian wayfinding signs • Design and installation of curb extensions and Installation of Rapid Flash Beacons • Design and installation of new sidewalks/filling sidewalk gaps • Carshare memberships • Permit opt-out incentive that allows residents to choose other transportation options, such as a transit pass or BIKETOWN membership, if parking permit is not renewed • Company or district-wide ridesharing networks with incentives to carpool • Free day and week passes on TriMet to encourage people to try transit • District-wide BIKETOWN zones that allow commuters and customers to park at any bike rack without paying a fee • Bike parking on public and/or private property • Free and/or reduced bicycling and walking safety accessories, such as lights, locks, and rain gear • Enhanced transit service in partnership with TriMet and/or Portland Streetcar • Transportation analysis related to future TSP projects to determine impact • Awareness campaign & education materials and services, such as graphic design and printing for promoting TDM related projects and programs • Evaluation and analysis, such as travel behavior and parking opinion surveys TDM programs, collateral and events that provide information, incentives, and encouragement to district employees and residents to walk, bike, carpool and use transit more often • Any project identified in the adopted Transportation System Plan (TSP) • Increasing public supply of off-street parking through development of shared use of existing supply and finding opportunities to share new parking supply in the future. Added parking supply should be in conjunction with TDM efforts to minimize the demand on parking — Projects eligible for funding from permit surcharges are, mostly, meant to reduce parking demand by incentivizing and promoting other modes.

More work to be done

The results of the NW parking pilot are encouraging, but there is a lot more that could be done. By eliminating guest permits and placing more stringent restrictions and higher prices on employee permits, the total number of permits sold in 2017 was 1,574 fewer than in 2016, but resudent permits sold increased by 6%.

This doesn’t mean the policy isn’t working, given the amount of housing coming online in the permit zone, an increase of only 188 resident permits is good, but higher annual fees are probably needed to really have an impact on parking demand. At $180 a year, the city is renting some of the most valuable property it owns for $1 per square foot a year, or $0.50 per stall per day, or $15 per stall per month. No matter how you look at it, it’s a steal.

Table showing permits allocated in NW and change from 2016 to 2017. Mushiness permits declined by 688, 1094 guest permits were eliminated, but residential permits went up by 188

Another improvement to NW parking management would be to extend the hours of enforcement at parking meters later into the evening. Such a move is justified by occupancy rates in the evening dining/entertainment hours and it would have a number of beneficial impacts. Residents would have an easier time finding parking in meter zones if enforcement were extended and businesses in the area, particularly restaurants, would benefit from an additional wave of patrons as parking stalls would turn over an additional time in the early evening.

Such a change was, in fact, recommended by the SAC and was slated to come before council for approval on Wednesday, but it was pulled and delayed until later next year.

Tell council what you think

The council hearing is scheduled for 3PM on Wednesday, December 19th. Public comment is accepted in person or via cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov

Central City In Motion Plan Acquires A Parking Parasite

November 13, 2018 By TonyJ 3 Comments

City council could approve a backdoor plan to spend public money on parking garages in the Central Eastside and it’s cynically tied to a long awaited project to reduce car trips in the central city.

City Council needs to hear from YOU about this secret parking policy. When you’re done reading, send an email to cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov before Thursday November 15 (put Agenda Item 1184: CCIM Parking Strategy in the subject). Tell City Council to cut out any new publicly funded parking supply from the CCIM Parking Strategy Report. Tell Council to stay the course with Transportation Demand Management and don’t undermine the great projects in the Central City In Motion Plan.

Central City In Motion (CCIM) is a plan to keep the central city of Portland moving. It’s made up of 18 great projects that will make streets safer for walking, more comfortable for cycling, and faster for transit and, sometimes, freight.

After many years and thousands of public comments and meetings the project is finally scheduled to come before city council this week, on November 15th at 2pm.

But Central City In Motion has acquired a companion report and it’s not so good.

The Central City In Motion Parking Supply and Demand Management Strategies Report was released to the public, for the first time, on November 8th. Many people only learned of existence of this report earlier that day when the City Council agenda was released with a second item for CCIM.

Who Was At The Table?

Over the last 5 years, Portland has overhauled it’s parking policy, and it’s getting pretty good. This has taken countless volunteer hours, open houses, and hearings. There have been at least four stakeholder committees to review our parking policies, covering everything from loading zone signage to residential parking permits. At every step of the way, advocacy groups, the public, and business interests have been at the table to shape these policies.

Staff has held meetings with numerous stakeholders and potential partners, both within the City and private entities, to develop the accompanying report and strategies. Key partners involved in shaping the report and providing input include, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, City of Portland Spectators Venue Program, the Central Eastside Industrial Council, the Portland Business Alliance, Portland Public Schools, Multnomah County, and Go lloyd. — Stakeholders Only Included Business Interests And Land Holders

But the CCIM Parking Supply and Demand Management Report was developed internally with input mostly from business interests like the Central Eastside Industrial Council and the Portland Business Alliance. Other groups consulted are primarily large land holders or managers of existing off-street parking supply that the city proposes to open up for public use.

It does not appear that any community groups, transportation advocacy organizations, or neighborhood groups were brought into the process.

And the report’s findings reflect that lack of any countervailing viewpoint among the stakeholders.

A Path Forward To Build A New Garage

The Central Eastside Industrial Council has been angling for new publicly funded parking for years, but new publicly funded parking is among the lowest priorities for PBOT. Thwarted thus far, the CEIC has supported some good parking policy instead. The area has many metered streets and the parking permit program charges almost $25 a month for residential and commuter permits.

The CEIC would seemingly prefer to apply that cash-flow toward new parking supply, perhaps by partnering with Prosper Portland, the city’s development fund that has pursued commuter parking projects in recent years. But, so far, there hasn’t been a policy that provides a path to building more parking.

Enter “Strategy 8” the “Off-Street Parking Investment Fund.”

Undertaking a new, wholly-publicly owned parking garage is an expensive investment in Portland’s Central City. In addition, there are no obvious City- owned properties where a new publicly owned parking garage could be straightforwardly implemented. However, the City could invest public funds by issuing bonds to increase the number of parking spots being built as part of another new development. This type of partnership would remove the need for the City to purchase property speci cally for a parking garage and allow the city to minimize risk. — $50,000/stall is optimistic. Convention Center Hotel parking is costing more than $60,000/stall

If City Council approves this project, CEIC will perceive this strategy as an endorsement of the desire to apply revenue from on-street parking to this investment fund. While the strategy claims the strategy of buying parking in new developments would reduce risk, this is a stretch. It seems very similar to an attempted deal between Prosper Portland and a prospective developer in Old Town/Chinatown. Under that deal, the developer would build to their maximum allowable parking allotment (they were planning to build only 1/2 of their allowed stalls) and after construction, Prosper Portland proposed to buy ALL the underground parking from the developer and lease back the stalls to the developer for use by residents in the building. Far from minimizing risk to public funds, this type of deal puts all the risk of long-term parking onto the city.

Worse Than Risky

Investing in parking garages in 2018 or beyond is a bad bet. Construction costs are sky high, parking demand is declining at many destinations, transportation is changing rapidly, and the city is working hard to reduce automobile trips. But even if it wasn’t a bad fiscal play, building new parking will undermine our ability to reduce car trips, reduce emissions, and make our streets safer.

The amount of parking in our city center is, effectively, the minimum number of car trips that are accommodated by our built environment. Most (if not all) of the time, the city has excess parking supply in the City Center. It might not be exactly in front of the restaurant someone is going to, but it is there. The fewer stalls that exist in the central city, the more inconvenient and expensive it will be to park. If there are more stalls, then it is easier to make the choice to drive to the central city rather than to take transit, bike, or walk.

CCIM and associated projects are designed to reduce the number of car trips to the city center. Reallocating on-street parking to other modes is a very effective way to do so, it makes driving less convenient and makes other modes more convenient. Replacing that lost parking supply undermines the goal. It invites more cars into the central city on one hand, while the other hand is trying to discourage them.

Isn’t Traffic Bad Enough Already?

The amount of parking in the Central Eastside is already supporting unacceptable congestion. Traffic congestion is consistently among the most cited complaints of Portlanders. But would the CCIM projects even actually reduce the parking supply in the Central Eastside? Not if new private parking is considered.

A project under construction right now at SE Stark and SE Water Ave, contains 6 floors of commercial parking. A few blocks away at 525 SE MLK, another building under construction includes underground parking. We still aren’t heading in the right direction in regards to parking supply in the Central Eastside, to meet our mode split goals we cannot add any more car trips to the central city, regardless of expected population and job growth.

New Parking Under Construction At SE 7 Stark Ave

What Should We Do?

The CCIM Parking Strategy and Demand Management Report isn’t all bad. There is one very, very good strategy mentioned. It’s also the one already being implemented, it’s proven to be successful, and it’s relatively cheap.

The Transportation Wallet

The first strategy mentioned is to increase funding for transportation demand management (TDM). The city is currently running a program to provide discounted, or in some cases free, Transportation Wallets to residents and workers in areas with parking meters and permits. Money from the meters and permits is used to subsidize a package of alternative transportation options. Right now, that package includes $100 on a TriMet Hop Card, a Portland Streetcar pass, and an annual BIKETOWN membership. The CCIM parking report suggests that people who opt-out of parking permits could be provided with an annual TriMet pass and providing deeper discounts for low income workers.

The city could go even further. Right now the CEIC is paying $250,000 a year to operate a sparingly used parking lot circulator shuttle. A bold TDM strategy would be to scrap the shuttle (which is near both the streetcar and the Eastbank Esplanade) and provide 2,500 Central Eastside workers with free transportation wallets.

The city is looking at expanding the options provided in the wallet as well. Car share and e-scooters are two mobility options that could be added to the wallet soon.

A Proven Strategy

Transportation Demand Management works. On the same day the city finally published the parking strategy report, Sarah Goforth from PBOT presented a lecture at PSU’s Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC).

Goforth detailed how a combination of on-street parking management and the transportation wallet are leading to real reductions in parking demand. You can watch her presentation here.

Let The Current Policy Work

The most recent parking policy to go through a full stakeholder process, including representatives from the CEIC and PBA, was the Performance Based Parking Management project. This policy will lead to performance-based price adjustments in areas with parking meters, like the Central Eastside. The first adjustments will happen next year.

Additionally, several years ago, the city completed and passed a Central City Parking Policy Update (incidentally, the PBA and CEIC were represented on that committee as well). Among other things, the policy relaxed rules about shared-parking. This relaxation meant that parking which was built for one purpose, say residential use, could be used for commercial parking as well.

These policies were developed in the normal public process. They are hard fought policies that will produce results. We should not undermine our goals by passing a backdoor plan to build more parking garages and rent private parking spaces for public use.

A Call To Action

City Council needs to hear from YOU about this secret parking policy. Send an email to cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov before Thursday November 15 (put Agenda Item 1184: CCIM Parking Strategy in the subject). Tell City Council to cut out any new publicly funded parking supply from the CCIM Parking Strategy Report. Tell Council to stay the course with Transportation Demand Management and don’t undermine the great projects in the Central City In Motion Plan.

Testify In Person

There is a hearing scheduled on Thursday November 15 at 2 p.m. City Council Chambers: 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Portland.

We encourage you to support the Central City In Motion project, but please tell city council to cut new publicly funded parking strategies from the CCIM Parking Strategy Report.

City Council To Consider Plan To Build More Parking In Central City

September 5, 2017 By TonyJ 1 Comment

On Thursday, September 7th, Portland City Council will consider adoption of the Central City 2035 plan, a document which will guide development in the city center for the next 20 years.

Portlanders should be able to look at this plan and envision the city in 2035. Let’s do an experiment:

Think for a second about the world as it is now and what you would like Portland to be in 20 years. Think about where you’d like to live in the city, pretend you work downtown, and then close your eyes and imagine a commute in 2035.

How did you get there? Did you ride a bike? Did you take a bus? Was a robot driving that bus or a human operator? Maybe you lived downtown? Maybe you took a jetpack? Maybe you took a Lyft or Uber or something we can’t imagine yet?

Did your vision for 2035 include driving your own car to the central city and parking in a parking garage?

Probably not.

Why then do so many of the Performance Targets and Action Plans for our city’s next 20 years seek to incentivize and build new expensive car parking for central city commuters and visitors?

While Mayor Ted Wheeler has publicly criticized the plans of Prosper Portland to bet its future on parking revenues, when he (most likely) votes to pass CC2035 they will be codified in a set of Action Plans.

Building Parking, For Your Health?

For an example, look at the bizarrely named “Transportation Health and Environment” Action TR7. This action calls for “Incentives to Create Off-Street Parking” in an area that was “built prior to the automobile age.” The supposed problem for the Central Eastside is that developers don’t want to pay the high cost to build parking that no one will be using in 20 years. The solution proposed in this plan is to retrofit the district to accommodate automobiles, at a time in our history when we not only are well aware of the damage car culture has caused, but when we can, for the first time, see the likely end of the automobile age as we know it.

Old Town and Chinatown Parking Garages

But that’s not all they have planned for the Central City. Old Town / Chinatown is another area of town where they would like to mortgage our future tax revenues to build more parking garages. Check out Action Plan item RC44.

There are some great ideas in the CC2035 plan, we should definitely make more efficient use of the parking we have as peak car passes us by. It may even be the case that new parking garages will help spur development, but the public must be honestly informed about the true cost of these garages, the poor outlook for self-sustainability, and the negative impact they have on our transportation and climate action goals. Every dollar spent on a car parking garage is one less dollar we can spend improving transit, building affordable housing, and incentivizing non-car modes. We’ll lose the opportunity to spend many many millions of dollars on sustainable practices if we build more public parking garages and we will be paying the mortgage on them when they are, inevitably, empty.

Convertible Parking Garages? Not In The Plan

Proponents of new parking like to point to trendy articles about converting parking garages into housing or offices. This is probably less likely than we think. Underground parking will only be used as housing in dystopian scenarios and building parking to be convertible makes it even more expensive.

But there’s another reason we probably won’t see convertible Prosper Portland parking garages in the future, it’s not required in the plan. Developers won’t build much parking at all, unless we force them. Prosper Portland knows new parking garages won’t pay for themselves, so it’s trying to get PBOT to help pay with meter money. Any requirement to make new parking be “convertible” would only make those projects harder to pencil out.

City Council should require that any structured parking built with public subsidy be convertible to other active uses (not just storage). If PBOT and Prosper Portland claim these projects can be turned into housing or retail space, then there should be no resistance to this amendment.

Tell City Council To “Stop Building More Parking Garages”

There is a hearing on CC2035 on September 7th at 2PM at City Council and there will be another hearing on September 14th. If you plan to testify, please mention that the city should not build more parking garages. Let developers build parking if they require it. Demand that any new public parking be completely convertible to active uses.

Please write to city council today and tell them to commit to climate action goals, transportation goals, and affordability by removing Action Plans TR7, TR22, and RC58 and modifying RC44. Tell them that new parking will be a significant cost burden on the city and will tie up critical funds that could be better used subsidizing transit or housing.

Please send an email now and demand that any parking built with public money (or in agreement with Prosper Portland) be built such that it is convertible to an active use by design.

For more inspiration, check out our coverage of the CC2035 Discussion Draft and read over the testimony sent in by Portlanders for Parking Reform.

Building more parking now in 2017 is a mistake; it certainly shouldn’t be part of our long range plans for Portland.

How to Testify

To testify, please provide your full name and address. Testimony to City Council is considered public record. Testifiers’ names, addresses and any other information included in the testimony will be posted on the website. You may submit testimony to the Portland City Council on the Recommended Draft CC2035 Plan in any of the following ways:

By Email
Send an email to cc2035@portlandoregon.gov
Subject: CC2035 Testimony

In person at the public hearing
September 7, 2017 at 2 p.m. City Council Chambers: 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Portland
Additional hearing dates may be scheduled. Please confirm dates and times by checking the City Council calendar one week in advance.

Innovative Permit Changes Proposed In NW Portland

May 1, 2017 By TonyJ 2 Comments

When Portland City Council decided not to extend minimum parking requirements into Northwest Portland in July 2016 the Northwest Portland Parking Stakeholder Advisory Committee (NW Parking SAC) began looking at other options to manage parking. The district had recently installed parking meters in the most congested parts of the zone and had a permit program which allowed for an unlimited number of annual on-street permits to residents and businesses for $60/year. According to a 2016 survey, there are 5,264 metered or permit on-street stalls in the parking district and 8,558 annual permits (employee, resident, and guest combined).

New Parking Rules Coming to Zone M This August - The goal of these changes is better parking management. We want to make it easier for residents, visitors, and employees to find parking. — Snippet from PBOT ad in NW Examiner

At a meeting on April 19th, the NW Parking SAC, which is made up of neighborhood and business representatives, recommended changes to their permit program which would increase the price of permits, limit availability through attrition, and provide incentives for residents who choose not to renew their permits.

The cost of permits will increase from $5/month to $15/month ($60 to $180 annually). Verified low-income residents will keep paying the original rate (a $120 annual subsidy). Low-income residents currently without cars will receive no transportation subsidy.

The revenue from the increased fees ($10/month) will be spent locally on incentives for residents who don’t renew permits to take other modes of transportation, this is referred to as transportation demand management (TDM). Non-renewing residents will have a choice between a $100 TriMet HOP card, an annual BIKETOWN membership ($144 value), or a 50% discount on an annual TriMet pass ($550 value).

All current permit holders will be allowed to renew their permit, there will be no lottery or auction to reduce the number of permits sold. Residents of multi-family housing, however, will be subject to attrition. A new building with 100 apartments would receive 40 permits for distribution and an existing building with 100 apartments would be entitled to 60 permits. These limits will apply to all buildings with 30 or more units. Residents of condominiums, smaller apartments buildings, and single family homes, however, will not be subject to limits.

A wealthy homeowner with 4 cars will still be able to get 4 permits.

These programatic changes are a step in the right direction and the incentives for not renewing a permit are a great use of permit revenue.

Will it work? Time will tell, but given the high cost of off-street parking in the neighborhood these measures probably don’t go far enough. Future changes will have to find ways to encourage people with rarely used cars to either share them, sell them, or garage them off-street.

This is one of two programs in the city testing out progressive parking management. Unfortunately, NW Portland and the Central Eastside Industrial District are the only neighborhoods currently empowered to test these methods and try to solve their parking problems. Commissioner Dan Saltzman should work quickly to pass the parking permit program developed by the Centers + Corridors Stakeholder Advisory Committee in 2015 and allow PBOT to work with neighborhoods to discover the most effective and politically palatable solutions.

Parking Is Often Over-Supplied at Transit-Oriented Development

February 13, 2017 By Shoupista 4 Comments

(Pearl District. Photo source: Explore the Pearl)

In the past two decades transit oriented development (TOD)—compact, walkable, and mixed-use development centered around high quality transit—has become an increasingly popular approach to tackle the urban ills of traffic congestion, lack of affordable housing, and neighborhood disinvestment. However, restrictive land use regulations like minimum parking requirements have thwarted the success of many TOD projects by compromising the quality of project design and the surrounding built environment with parking.

Parking requirements are problematic for TOD because (1) excessive parking incentivizes driving and works against the purpose of TOD, which is encouraging people to shift from driving to transit and making destinations more accessible by walking; and (2) land in proximity of a transit station is the most valuable and holds most potential for housing and retail, but much of this prime real-estate is wasted on underutilized parking.

So how much (less) parking should be required for transit-oriented development? To answer this question, Professor Reid Ewing and his team at the University of Utah studied parking occupancy, trip counts, and travel behaviors at five TODs in the U.S.:

Englewood, CO in the Denver region;
Wilshire/Vermont station in Los Angeles
Fruitvale Transit Village in Oakland
The Redmond, WA station in the Seattle region;
Rhode Island Row in Washington, DC.

In a newly released report, the researchers concluded that the five TODs in the study generated considerably fewer trips and used less parking compared to the Institute of Traffic Engineers (ITE) guidelines. In addition to having much less parking than the ITE guidelines, the actual parking utilization during peak times was considerably lower than the supply, between 58 and 84 percent. The findings suggest that existing professional engineering standards and local regulations result in parking over-prescription, stifling the development of housing and other valuable uses near transit stations.

What can Portland learn from the findings of this study?

Lessons For Portland From Five TODs

1. TOD is likely to fail if it is built to accommodate cars

The Englewood TOD had the lowest peak parking occupancy rate—58 percent. This oversupply of parking is the result of negotiations with Walmart, which insisted that residential development provide a 1.5 parking spaces per dwelling unit ratio (instead of 1 parking space per dwelling unit proposed by the City) to prevent residential parking from spilling into retail lots.

Englewood turned out to be an auto-oriented TOD. Sixty percent of trips to the site are done by cars, and it had the lowest rail mode share—14 percent. Consequently, the civic center and ground floor retail area directly adjacent to the transit station has struggled to generate activities and foot traffic. Ironically, the more auto-oriented commercial areas with lots of surface parking and further away from the station performed better. The study concludes that “TODs may not achieve their full potential if designed for the automobile in a hybrid configuration like Englewood’s”.

I wrote about the Peloton Apartments and the ludicrousness of offering free parking while charging $1,800 for a one-bedroom unit when Portland has a housing emergency. The Peloton Apartments is not a TOD but it has just as much access to transit (four bus routes within 0.5 miles plus bikeshare stations) and the same lesson applies. Press Blocks, a proposed mixed-use development only steps away from the Providence Park MAX station in Goose Hollow, has proposed to add 487 underground parking spaces. If we want housing near transit to be more affordable, don’t over-build parking (an underground parking stall costs $55,000). If neighbors want less traffic in their neighborhoods, don’t incentivize new residents to bring their cars with free parking.

Although parking minimums are waived for development that provides affordable units near transit under inclusionary zoning, the exemption does not apply when developers pay a fee in-lieu for affordable housing. Parking should not be a required for development near transit regardless if it is under inclusionary zoning program.

2. TOD doesn’t need the “T”

The Redmond, WA TOD is an interesting case because it is the only TOD in the study that does not have a rail station. The 322-unit multifamily mixed-use project sits adjacent to The Redmond Transit Center served by ten different bus routes. The project was made feasible after the City amended its downtown zoning ordinance to allow higher density, encourage greater mix of unit sizes, and reduce parking requirements. While most trips to the area are done by driving (65 percent), it’s transit mode share (13 percent) performance is as good as the Englewood TOD anchored next to a light rail station. This may be the result of limited parking supply; the TOD has a 74 percent peak parking occupancy rate—second highest in the study.

The Redmond example supports the argument that proximity to rail station is not essential for TOD. A 2013 study by Daniel Chatman at UC Berkeley argues that distance from rail is not as critical as parking availability, quality of bus service, mix of different uses, density, and walkability in influencing transit use and auto-ownership.

Most Portland’s urban centers and corridors are very walkable, moderately dense,and have a mix of diverse uses. TriMet’s frequent bus routes like the #4 and #6 have the same service frequency as the light rail serving the Englewood TOD—15-minute mid-day headway on weekdays. Portland can reap the benefits of TOD without expensive and lengthy rail projects. For example, the Division Transit Project has the potential to spur development of housing, community gathering space, and retail destinations accessible by walking and transit on outer SE Division, but only if public agencies show leadership and commitment to prioritize transit over automobiles by providing dedicated transit lanes and limiting parking supply.

With more progressive parking policies like eliminating parking requirements, demand-based pricing, and residential permits, Portland’s centers and corridors would be well positioned to become transit oriented districts (TODs) and meet the City’s climate action and mode-share goals. Fixing our broken parking policies would be cheaper, faster and more effective than investing hundreds of millions of dollars in new rail transit infrastructure.

3. Reduce demand by sharing, unbundling and pricing parking

All five TODs in the study implemented parking management strategies including shared parking, unbundling, and pricing to reduce parking demand. The observed lower peak parking occupancy rate proves that progressive parking policies combined with access to rapid transit can effectively reduce parking demand.

Having the most parking management tools at its disposal, the Rhode Island Row TOD allows the same parking spaces to be shared between residential and commercial uses, unbundles parking from apartments by leasing each parking stall for $150 a month, and charges commercial parking $2 per hour or $24 per day. The results are indisputable. Rhode Island Row’s peak parking occupancy is only 64 percent of total supply. Almost 60 percent of trips are done by non-driving modes and it generated only 35 percent of trips compared to ITE’s estimate.

In Portland, parking is mostly bundled with housing, regardless whether renters want or use it. Parking is also mostly free outside of downtown, and not allowed to be shared among different uses. While the City is currently experimenting shared-parking in Northwest Portland and planning for performance-based pricing, more aggressive demand management policies such as unbundling parking from housing and residential parking permits will make our streets less congested, get more people out of cars, and free up more space for housing.

Think Deliberately and Flexibly

Putting housing, jobs, retail and services near frequent bus stops and rail stations can facilitate higher use of transit, walking and biking. On the other hand, over-supplying parking sends the opposite signal to travelers, encouraging more driving and neutralizing the intended benefits of transit-oriented development. If Portland’s planners and elected officials are serious about increasing affordable housing and transportation choices, and meeting our climate goals, they need to think deliberately about transit investments and advocate for prioritizing transit access. Spending $32 million on a parking garage in the Rose Quarter or imposing arbitrary parking ratios on new non-inclusionary zoning development near transit suggests they are not.

Flexible land use regulations and parking rules allow transit-oriented development to realize its full potential. Policy tools like shared parking, unbundling, and performance-based pricing can effectively manage parking demand and give developers more flexibility to produce high-quality development. With that in mind, planners and elected officials must be bold and make these parking management tools available so Portlanders can have increasing transit and pedestrian access to housing, jobs, and service, not empty parking spaces.