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Portland Is Building Parking For Cars That Won’t Ever Park

August 31, 2016 By TonyJ 3 Comments

Within a matter of days, Ford has announced plans to mass produce fully-autonomous vehicles by 2021, Uber said it would be debuting (semi) self-driving taxis in Pittsburgh, and folks in Singapore started taking rides in robot taxi cabs. Simultaneously, Portland plans to renovate a public parking garage for $25 million and build a 425 stall parking garage next to a Rose Quarter light rail station.

Autonomous vehicles are coming. The technology is here, the industry players are lining up, and given their track records with disruptive technology (see: Uber, AirBnB, Tesla Autopilot) our cities are unlikely to stop driverless cars from operating on our streets. But rather than crafting regulations to ensure that this technology is applied to solve transportation and planning problems, Portland is planning to spend millions of dollars to build more garages for conventional automobiles.

The threat of robot cars making things worse is real. It won’t do much good for us to trade privately owned single occupancy vehicles (SOV) that sit idle in parking stalls 98% of the time for privately owned SOV that sit idle in traffic 98% of the time. There are people making great arguments about what we should do to prevent a worst-case-scenario and Portland is lucky to have a planning commissioner, Chris Smith, who is pushing for policy about self-driving cars to be included in the upcoming Transportation System Plan.

The End of Parking?

While the virtues of autonomous cars and the timelines for their arrival are still open for debate, it is increasingly acknowledged that self-driving vehicles will greatly diminish demand for on-site parking in most areas with even a moderate amount of commercial or residential density. Wasting valuable land and money on parking stalls (already a bad idea) will be completely impractical once cars can park themselves in the hinterlands or, more likely, spend the entire day moving people and goods.

The possibilities for repurposing on-street and surface lot parking are exciting. Surface lots can be re-developed into new buildings. On street parking can be removed and replaced with bike lanes, parklets, bus rapid transit (BRT), or even additional lanes for car traffic. The curb lane is a massive public asset, worth billions of dollars in a mid-size city and how we’ll use it in a post-parking world is an exciting thought exercise.

Like a banana slicer or a butter cutter, a parking structure is, generally, only good for one thing.

Parking garages, however, are single-purpose structures. Like a banana slicer or a butter cutter, a parking structure is, generally, only good for one thing. Standalone parking garages can be torn down and housing or offices can take its place, but the parking built beneath or within a building is single-use space we will be stuck with for generations.

We can see the end of parking demand as we know it and it’s time to stop building parking for future generations; they won’t be needing it.

There’s Money For Parking But Not For Housing

In the past month Portland officials have committed over $40 million dollars to publicly financed parking garage projects and the Portland Development Commission (PDC) is just getting started. These projects are simultaneously in opposition to the city’s own mode split and climate action goals and foolhardy investments.

But why must we ask voters to pay for housing while we pay for parking garages with available funds?

As we have covered, the PDC is committing $18 million dollars to build a 425 stall parking garage as part of the convention center hotel project which PDC claims will be profitable for decades to come. Will visitors to Portland in 2025 rent cars and personally drive them to a hotel which is immediately adjacent to the MAX line? Only in the most dystopian of futures.

Parking garage at SW 10th and Yamhill — SW 10th and Yamhill Garage

Perhaps even more foolish is a plan to renovate the SmartPark garage on SW 10th and SW Yamhill. This project, which will cost $25 million dollars is said to be necessary because the building is old and the ground floor retail is lacking in modern amenities. It is irresponsible to spend this much on a parking garage, which will last many decades, in the heart of downtown Portland just as we begin a transition into a very different era of transportation. At the very least, if the city must rebuild this garage, then housing or office space should be built on top of it. A city that is moving forward in 2016 doesn’t just replace an old parking garage with a new one. It’s shameful.

Our city council is asking us to commit $250 million dollars in new property taxes to build affordable housing. This is a critical need and a worthy ask. But why must we ask voters to pay for housing while we pay for parking garages with available funds? Isn’t this backwards?

Voters should be asked if they want to raise taxes to rebuild a parking garage and city council should use those dollars to build affordable housing. City Council should direct PDC to abandon its bizarre parking garage strategy and, instead, to look to affordable housing as a long term investment.

Wednesday Parking Round-Up: Carless renters pay $440 million a year for parking they don’t use, Oslo plans to ban cars from the central city by 2019, and more

August 24, 2016 By Shoupista Leave a Comment

400px-Chicago_ILL_River_North_Marina_city_1964_1 — (Photo source: Wikipedia)

Carless renters forced to pay $440 million a year for parking they don’t use. A study published by two UCLA urban planning scholars show that minimum parking requirements creates huge equity issues for carless renter households.

A future without cars: Oslo, Norway, plans to completely phase out cars from the central city by 2019. How will they do that? By replacing parking with bike infrastructure.

The high cost of public parking garages: Des Moines has a parking problem. But it’s not one that drivers complain about. Public downtown parking garages cost the city a $19 million deficit in the past decade due to mainly a surplus of parking.

The most Dallas thing ever! Dallas plans to build parking garage, next to a park, on a deck that covers a freeway.

Special treatment for church-goers? San Francisco launched a pilot project to legalize on-street double-parking on Sundays

Keep Philly Weirdly Parked? A newcomer urbanist in Philadelphia wants to ban illegal parking in the middle of the road that has been a long city tradition. That, of course, upsets a lot of people.

Diversifying Portland’s Parking Toolkit with Unbundling Parking and Parking Cash Out

August 15, 2016 By Shoupista Leave a Comment

8715267346_57f4c2d72f_z — (Commuter traffic coming off the Broadway Bridge. Photo source: BikePortland.org)

Two weeks ago, Portlanders for Parking Reform wrote about the proposed Central City 2035 (CC2035) Plan may create more parking by increasing existing parking maximums in some of the Downtown parking sectors. While “parking is a fertility drug for cars”, to change travel behavior, parking policy cannot only target the supply side of this issue. If the City of Portland wants meaningful parking policies to help meet its mode-share targets–85% non-single occupancy vehicle (SOV) trips–and climate goals, such policies must address both supply and demand. Not only may the CC2035 Plan take a step backward on curbing parking supply, it also does not mention any parking demand management policy.

The good news is that there are viable parking policy options that can be applied to Portland’s downtown and neighborhoods to reduce the demand for parking. The Planning and Sustainability Commission and City Council ought to consider adopting unbundling parking and parking cash out for Portland’s Central City and gradually expand these policies into other neighborhoods.

Bundled Parking: Paying for Desserts That You Don’t Eat

Building and operating parking has high costs. Unbundling parking means separating the costs of parking and charging the users of parking directly. To illustrate how parking is currently bundled with the prices of housing, goods, and services that we consume and the need to unbundle it, let us think about the following scenario:

Imagine that the City of Portland requires restaurants to provide free dessert with every meal ordered by customers. The price for meals would increase to cover the cost of “free” desserts. While this may be good news to people who love desserts, such requirement has negative consequences. First, all diners now have to pay more for each meal whether or not they want to eat dessert. Second, some people would eat desserts they would not have ordered if they had to pay for them separately. Bundling desserts with food induces people to over-consume desserts, which leads to more obesity, diabetes, and heart diseases.

The City of Portland does not require free desserts with every meal but it does have parking minimum requirements for new development. Although the Central City district is exempt from such requirements, there are no guidelines on unbundling the costs of parking from development. Just as unbundled desserts would give diners more control over what they eat, unbundled parking will give travelers more choices by allowing people to decide how much parking they need and want to pay for.

When cities require developers to build off-site parking spaces, the cost of parking usually doesn’t get separated from the other costs of the development, making unbundling parking difficult. The good news is Portland’s Central City has no parking minimum requirement, which makes implementing unbundling policy more feasible. Parking can be unbundled from housing by offering residents the option to lease apartments and parking spaces separately, thereby reducing the cost of housing for those who do not own cars. Parking can also be unbundled from office and retail leases, allowing businesses to only purchase the number parking spaces they deem necessary for their employees and customers. Alternatively, parking costs can be listed as a separate line item in commercial lease agreements to show tenants how much parking costs and allow businesses to recover such cost by charging parkers directly.

Unbundling: Tried and Tested

Many cities in the U.S. has adopted unbundling parking policies. For example, San Francisco’s zoning code requires off-street parking spaces for residential buildings with 10 or more dwelling units to be sold or leased separately from the rental or sale of dwelling units. Berkeley also adopted a similar ordinance that requires unbundling parking. In central Seattle, approximately 50% of all multifamily units have unbundled parking from rent.

Lastly, Los Angeles’s Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO) has permitted developers to unbundle parking to encourage converting and redeveloping old buildings. A recent research study shows that ARO apartment units with bundled parking cost about an additional $200 per month, proving that housing does become more affordable when it gets separated from parking.

Unbundling parking may be difficult to apply retroactively to all existing buildings, but it is not impossible. The City should at least explore the option of unbundling parking for current affordable housing units. This will offer existing low-income residents the same benefits of not paying for parking they do not use, freeing up more budget for housing. Portlanders for Parking Reform urge the Planning and Sustainability Commission and the City Council to consider adopting unbundling in CC2035 first for new development and then apply the same policy to existing affordable housing units.

Parking Cash Out: A Second Paycheck

According to the Parking Cash Out Report, “free parking is the most common fringe benefit offered to workers in the U.S., and 95 percent of American automobile commuters park free at work.” Most employers in Portland either provide parking for free or partially-subsidized employee parking. Even though many workplaces provide additional commuter benefits such as transit passes, the financial subsidy for parking often exceeds the subsidy for transit or other modes. Therefore, free or partially-subsidized parking is an invitation to drive alone to work.

Another policy to effectively reduce demand for parking is to offer workers the option to “cash out” their employer-paid parking subsidy. Parking cash out provides commuters the option of cashing out their employer-paid parking subsidy, and use it on other transportation modes or to keep it as a second paycheck. In addition, parking cash out would reward commuters who do not use parking by giving them financial incentives to use healthier and greener modes of transportation, such as walking, biking, and public transit, thereby changing travel behaviors and contributing to the City’s mode share targets and climate goals.

California passed a state law in 1992 that requires many employers to provide cash out options to their workers. A 1997 study in Los Angeles County estimated that mandatory cash out reduced the number of daily vehicle trips to work by 11 percent and commuter parking demand by 13 percent, or 0.4 spaces per 1,000 square feet of office space. If Portland wants to meet its mode-share targets for Downtown (85% non-SOV trips), it would need to set parking maximums at 0.25. That is an ambitious number that will undoubtedly cause a lot of political push back. However, parking cash out is an appealing policy option to help meeting that goal because it brings modest and incremental change and does not require employers and commuters to suddenly change behaviors.

Good for Employers

According to the U.S. EPA, “employers provide an estimated 85 million free parking spaces for commuters—spaces with a net worth of nearly $31.5 billion”. The same U.S. EPA report estimates that annual per space costs vary between $360 and $2,000. In the High Cost of Free Parking, Donald Shoup shows that employers save $40 a year per $1 annual cost for doing parking cash out, with the assumption that the capital cost per parking space is $10,000 (this number is likely far below the average cost of an office parking space in downtown Portland).

Subsidizing parking costs employers a lot of money. Coupled with unbundling parking, parking cash out can significantly reduce demand for parking and offer savings to businesses. There are several benefits to employers associated with decreasing commuter parking demand:

(1) Employers can reduce costs associated with leasing or owning and maintaining parking spaces.
(2) Lower parking demand allows businesses to convert employee parking to customer parking, which may attract more customers.
(3) Businesses can also convert parking spaces into profit-generating activities.
(4) Reduced commuter parking demand will eliminate the need for new parking construction.
(5) Recruit and retain workers by offering parking cash out as a valuable fringe benefit.

Good for Employees

Not only does parking cash out create benefits for employers, it also does for employees. For starters, it increases equity among all commuters. Employer-paid parking does not benefit commuters who ride public transit, walk, or bike to work. However, cash out allows commuters receive the same benefit regardless of how they travel. Secondly, cash out benefits non-auto commuters without disadvantages for auto-commuters. Workers who want to park for free can continue to do so, but they will be able to receive the same amount of benefits if they decide not to drive.

Research in transportation planning has repeatedly demonstrated that higher-income individuals are more likely to drive to work alone, while lower-income individuals are more likely to carpool, ride public transit, bike, or walk. As a matter of fact, using the best available data from the Census Transportation Planning Products, BikePortland reported that only about 5% of all downtown Portland workers who drive alone to work are low-income.*

5% of all drive-alone downtown commuter earn less than $30,000 a year — Image source: BikePortland

The same general trend is also applied for homeowners versus renters (Portland renters are 6 times more likely to not own a car). Thus, without parking cash out, many employers regressively provide subsidies to help wealthy commuters save money on transportation but excludes poor commuters from the same benefit. In addition, just as unbundling parking would lower housing costs, cash out would provide financial benefits to car-less low-income households and renters who are increasingly getting priced out of Portland’s housing market.

Basically, parking cash out is a win, win, win.

Moving Forward

On July 26th, Portlanders for Parking Reform asked the Planning and Sustainability Commission to amend the proposed CC2035 draft, incorporate unbundling parking and parking cash out as recommended policies, and direct city staff to study how these policies will be implemented and administered. Portland has set ambitious transportation and climate goals for the next twenty years, but our currently proposed policies, namely parking ratios, only focus on managing parking supply and lack demand-based approaches.

Unbundling parking and parking cash out are the other side of the parking equation that have proven to be effective, low-cost, and more politically favorable. These policy ideas are not only important to Portland’s long range plan but will also influence the results of the City’s current parking projects, such as the residential permit program, performance-based pricing, and shared parking. Unbundling and cash out will diversify our current parking toolkit but most importantly, they will also contribute to other community goals such as housing affordability and access to more travel options.

Update: *The author added a sentence and a chart to highlight percentage of drive-alone downtown commuters who are low-income

WEDNESDAY PARKING ROUND-UP: PDX’s BACKWARD STEP IN PARKING, TRADING PARKING REQUIREMENTS FOR MORE MOBILITY OPTIONS, AND MORE

August 3, 2016 By Shoupista Leave a Comment

(Photo Source: TriMet)

A recent article from Grist describes how many cities in the U.S. realized that requiring excessive supply of parking does more harm to their cities than good. Portland gets a mention for it’s backward step in 2013 and its recent debate on parking minimums for NW Portland.

Trading parking requirements for more mobility options is a much effective policy for address urban transportation needs. Instead of requiring developers to build parking, try allowing them to provide transit passes, car share, bike share, bike parking, etc. to swap in with parking minimums.

Listen to a 12-minute podcast interview with Professor Donald Shoup on why parking should not be free.

Americans are forced to pay off the cost of parking construction whether they can afford it or not. A recent study by Professor Donald Shoup argues that “[i]n a misguided attempt to provide free parking for everyone, cities have created a serious economic injustice by forcing developers to build parking spaces that many people can ill afford.”

When LA’s new Expo Line opened people worried about park n’ ride station not having enough parking spaces. It’s been over two months since the new light rail line opened and all three of its new park n’ ride parking lots sit half empty.

Experts recommend backing into a parking space is much safer, and yet most of us don’t do it. Why? But George Costanza got it right.

A Step Backwards: Portland May Invite More Cars Into The Central City

August 3, 2016 By TonyJ 6 Comments

Downtown needs fewer cars per worker. But the proposed Central City 2035 Plan would make room for the ratio to increase.

Portland has ambitious goals for its future, but do we have the will today to set the proper course for tomorrow? Today, 40% of trips to downtown Portland are made by people driving alone. The city has, since at least 2009, had “drive alone” mode share target for the entire central city of only 25%. The proposed draft of the Central City 2035 plan (page 5) sets a goal for only 15% of trips to downtown Portland to be via single-occupancy-vehicles (SOV). But do the policies in the proposed draft support these goals? If ample cheap car parking is a “fertility drug for cars,” then the policies probably are not sufficient to meet our goals.

Curbing Parking

Since 1975 the city of Portland has limited the amount of parking that can be built downtown. In order to improve air quality, the city placed a “parking lid” on downtown, allowing a maximum of 39,680 non-residential (or hotel) parking spaces. In 1996, the Central City Transportation Management Plan (CCTMP) removed the lid on parking. In place of the parking lid, maximum parking allotments were created for the central city. The ratios allowed a certain number of commercial spaces per 1000 square feet of office space and varied geographically based on the sector’s access to transit and other modes of transportation. The most dense parts of downtown, for example, allowed .7 stalls per 1000 square feet of office space. This ratio reflected the major investments in light rail infrastructure in downtown.

The parking regulations in the CCTMP were fairly complicated and contained provisions for monitoring and reporting which were rarely enforced. There were more than 25 different “parking sectors” each with a different set of maximum parking entitlements. In January 2015, the city began a Central City Parking Policy Update project to review, revise, and simplify these regulations.

Shared Parking: A Double Edged Sword

The Central City Parking Policy Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC) met nine times in 2015 and unanimously approved a proposal that greatly reduces the number of parking sectors, imposes maximum parking entitlements for all land uses in all parts of the central city, and relaxes restrictions on how parking can be used in the central city.

Under current regulations parking which is built to serve residential or hotel uses cannot also be used for commercial uses. The same is true for parking built for commuters, it cannot be leased to residents. To understand the impact of this policy on parking supply and the double edged sword of relaxing this policy, imagine the following example.

A developer is constructing a mixed-use building which needs 10 parking stalls for residents and 10 stalls for commuters to the office space. The developer builds a parking lot with 20 parking stalls.

A building with 20 parking spaces under it. In separate groups of 10. — A developer today must build separate supply for residential and commercial uses.

This policy can lead to an overbuilding of parking. Many of the stalls allotted for residential use will be empty during the day, as tenants will drive to their jobs elsewhere in the city. Conversely, many of the stalls reserved for commuter uses will be vacant during the evening hours when office workers are not at work.

The proposed draft of the CC2035 Plan aims to deal with this inefficiency by allowing buildings to use their parking entitlements for any use. Under the new plan, the developer of our hypothetical mixed-used building can take the habits of her future tenants into consideration. Suppose 80% of the residential tenants move their cars during the workday, and 80% of office workers are not at work during the evening hours. The developer can choose to “share” eight stalls between residents and commuters and might choose to build only 12 stalls (which might well save $1M dollars in subterranean construction costs).

A building with 12 parking stalls, 8 are shared between residential and commercial users. — Under new rules, a developer can build less parking, at a significant savings.

So far so good! The proposal encourages the building of less expensive parking by allowing more efficient use. This could help lower the cost of housing, lead to more development, and leave our children with fewer levels of underground parking to fill up with consumer goods when robots are driving us around.

But there’s a downside to this efficiency. In the short term the plan could lead to a substantial increase in the supply of parking for commuters to downtown, which could lead to more traffic, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. When the plan goes into effect, the developer who built 20 parking stalls, 10 for their residents and 10 for their commuters, can rent additional spaces for residents and commuters.

A building with 20 parking stalls, all in one supply. — Current parking supply, which was restricted for use, can now be sold to tenants which could induce traffic.

While this might be cause for some concern, the effect of this policy could be mitigated by a parking congestion fee, parking cash-outs, TDM, and the reality that not all restricted parking spaces will be opened up for other uses. Unfortunately, that’s not the only part of the proposed plan that will lead to more parking and traffic.

Going Backwards

Downtown parking regulations are complicated. The city core is split up into 6 parking sectors with three sets of parking ratios for commercial uses.

Map showing the downtown parking sectors. In 166 aces of the central city, where the 1.5B Ankeny Blocks proposal is sited, parking maximums can increase 42% from .7 stalls to 1 per 1000/sqft. A 56 acre parcel will have maximums decrease from 2 stalls to 1 per 1000/sqft, but it is unlikely to redevelop. — More parking will be allowed in a vast swath of the city core.

In Sectors 2 & 3, salmon colored on the map, the maximum parking entitlements are currently .7 stalls per 1000 sq/ft of commercial space. These 166 acres make up the bulk of the downtown core and include the east/west MAX couplet, much of the 5th and 6th Ave transit mall, and Pioneer Courthouse Square. But it is not what currently exists in this area that we must consider, but what will be built under the new parking maximums.

Picture of the 11 towers proposed as the Ankeny Blocks Project — All 11 of these proposed towers would be entitled to 42% more parking under the proposal.

Recently the Goodman family published a long-term proposal for their considerable holdings in downtown Portland. The Ankeny Project is a plan for up to 11 new developments, many of them considerable high-rise towers with the potential for over 4 million square feet of residential, office, and commercial space. All of these buildings would be built in what are currently Sectors 2 and 3. All of these buildings, under the proposed draft of the Central City 2035 plan would be allowed 42% more commercial parking spaces than are currently allowed. If these buildings were built today, and were entirely office space, 2,800 parking spaces would be allowed. If the proposed draft is passed unaltered, 4,000 spaces could be built.

Meeting our mode share goals for the Central City will be difficult enough if we allow 2,800 parking stalls in these towers. Allowing 1,200 MORE spaces than we could build today is a major step backwards.

An Imbalanced Proposal

The Central City 2035 Proposed Draft points out that the average maximum commercial parking entitlement remains at an average of 1 stall per 1,000 square feet of office space. This average is maintained by reducing the entitlement in the 56 acre Sector 6 from 2 stalls per 1,000 square feet to 1 stall per 1,000 square feet. A closer look at Sector 6, however, reveals that this reduction is unlikely to have any impact on the number of cars parked in the future downtown.

A 3-D Image of sector 6. Most of the sector is residential condos. — Sector 6 is nearly completely residential. The two vacant parcels pictured will be developed with residential or hotel uses before the Central City 2035 plan goes into effect.

Sector 6, is almost entirely condos or hotels. The two parcels in the photo which are undeveloped are a residential complex and a 6-story Hyatt hotel. The condos near the marina are relatively new and very unlikely to redevelop in the life of the comprehensive plan. Little-to-no office space will be built in this sector. The maximum entitlement could have been reduced to literally nothing and it would not have reduced the number of drive-alone trips we can expect in 2035 to the central city.

How To Move Forward

On July 26th, Portlanders for Parking Reform asked the Planning and Sustainability commission to amend the proposed draft and recommend a maximum parking entitlement for the downtown core of no more than .6 stalls per 1000 square feet. This ratio will not be a step backwards from where we are now. To meet our mode share and climate action goals in 20 years we must ensure that downtown parking is not so abundant as to make driving alone the cheapest and most convenient option.

Even a ratio of .6 stalls may not be enough. New parking for residential uses will be allowed at a ratio of 1.2 stalls per housing unit (currently 1.35 stalls per unit are allowed in sectors 1-5 and 1.7 stalls in sector 6) and the shared parking allowance will enable these stalls to be used by commuters to downtown. If the city is serious about meeting it’s stated goals, these ratios should be much, much lower, ratios of .25 stalls per housing unit or 1,000 square feet of office space are more appropriate for our 15% drive-alone mode share goal.

The policy suggestions are generally good. Simplifying the code and allowing shared parking are smart decisions, but a holistic examination is needed to ensure that shared parking and too-high ratios won’t lead to an increase in supply that could lead to more driving.

The Planning Commission and City Council must ask to see the math that supports the proposed parking maximums. Realistic projections of new development and the likely increases in car traffic and drive-alone commutes that will come along with this proposal must be justified and mitigated. These ratios are too high to meet our goals.

The Planning and Sustainability Commission will hold its final hearing on the CC2035 Plan on August 9th at 4PM. Testimony can be sent to psc@portlandoregon.gov asking the commission to reduce the maximum parking ratios to at most .6 stalls, across the board and the commission should direct PBOT staff to show how any proposed ratios support the mode share goals. Be sure to include “CC2035 Plan Testimony” in the subject line and your full name and mailing address.

[Note: Previously this article stated that Central City Parking Review (and likely Transportation Demand Management) would be required for developments with new parking. This was incorrect. Grant Morehead from PBOT says: “Under the existing zoning CCPR (and therefore a TDM Plan) is almost never required if the parking is accompanied by new development. Office uses (see 33.510.263.A.1 and Table 510-5) and residential uses (see 33.510.263.E.4 and Table 510-9) are allowed to build up to the maximum, if the parking is in a structure, without going through CCPR. CCPR in conjunction with new development is intended to address situations where there is no maximum (applies mainly to non-office uses outside of downtown/Core Area).”]