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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.

Will City Council Finally Approve Performance Parking Management?

July 22, 2018 By TonyJ Leave a Comment

CALL TO ACTION: City Council needs to hear from YOU about your support for Performance-based Parking Management. Send an email to cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov before Wednesday July 25 (put Performance-based Parking Management in the subject). Tell City Council why you think it’s time to get politics out of parking prices by using a data-driven approach to parking management.

Should a prime, convenient, and coveted parking spot, right in front of a busy storefront cost the same rate as a, relatively, crummy spot near I-405?

That is the question that Portland City Council will grapple with on Wednesday, July 25th when they consider the Performance-based Parking Management Manual and new Parking Pricing and Event District Policy for approval.

A month ago, on June 13, council heard a presentation and testimony on this policy, but concerns from various commissioners led to a delaying a second hearing. Some commissioners were, reportedly, worried that adjusting prices based on demand would make downtown Portland less accessible to people with lower incomes.

But a look at preliminary data from the city shows that there are many areas of downtown and the central city which would likely see rates decrease under the new policy. Furthermore, many of the blocks likely to see increases are near city-owned Smart Park garages, a lower-cost and longer-stay alternative to prime street parking.

A map showing areas of downtown and the Central Eastside which have previously been observed to have parking occupancy that would warrant an increase or decrease in parking rates. Much of the core of downtown would potentially see increases. — Most areas likely to see increases are near Smart Park garages, many areas will likely see decreases. Image courtesy of Sightline Institute.

PBOT has returned with a new resolution and ordinance that should, hopefully, clear up some other concerns that commissioners had about the proposal in June.

Concerns about the impact of a policy like this on low-income people are valid and important, but too often those worries manifest in policy that provides a subsidy to all car-drivers, the majority of whom are not low income. Meanwhile, transit dependent people are stuck paying ever-increasing rates to sit in buses, idling in traffic caused by single-occupancy commuters. Performance-based Parking Management is just one of many strategic policies the city can use to reduce traffic, save people time, and encourage other modes. The most promising option for a sustainable and equitable solution to Portland’s transportation problems is to prioritize transit above other modes via enhanced transit corridors and bus/freight only lanes.

After years of work, seemingly countless committee meetings, and several false starts, Portland seems ready to join San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Seattle, and many other cities and apply simple market economics to on-street parking. Will City Council finally take that step?

CALL TO ACTION: City Council needs to hear from YOU about your support for Performance-based Parking Management. Send an email to cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov before Wednesday July 25(put Performance-based Parking Management in the subject). Tell City Council why you think it’s time to get politics out of parking prices by using a data-driven approach to parking management.

Performance Based Parking Management Coming Before Portland City Council

June 11, 2018 By TonyJ 4 Comments

ACTION ALERT: send a quick email to cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov with subject Agenda Item 652: Parking Management Manual. Let City Council know that this is LONG overdue and that you support data-driven parking management for a safer, cleaner, and more prosperous city.

On June 13th, Portland City Council will consider adoption of a set of guidelines aimed at modernizing our parking management policies. The Performance Based Parking Management Manual (PBPM) will inform the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) when creating and managing parking meter districts.

If passed, Portland will join at least 11 other US cities in implementing policies developed and championed by Professor Donald Shoup, as explained in his book The High Cost of Free Parking:

Eliminate Minimum Parking Requirements
Price on-street parking so that there is always a space available per block
Use parking meter revenue in a way that benefits the locality in which it’s collected

Graph showing meter rates in various Portland parking districts. Downtown hourly rates were 20 cents in 1970 and are 2 dollars in 2018. There have been 8 increases in between. — Portland meter rates since 1970

Portland is slowly, but surely, reducing and eliminating minimum parking requirements throughout the city, but parking meter rate setting is still a lengthy and political process. Currently, to get a meter rate increase downtown, a stakeholder committee must be convened and city council must approve any rate increases. This was last done in 2016 and the process is so cumbersome that meter rates downtown have only been adjusted 8 times in the last 50 years!

Because of this antiquated and political process, some parking downtown is underpriced, and completely full at peak hours, while other areas have overpriced parking, leading to lower than ideal utilization.

The new process will use a data driven approach to adjust meter rates annually. Observed occupancy in a parking zone of above 85% will trigger a rate increase, while occupancy below 65% will trigger a rate decrease. The rate adjustment will be ±$0.20-$0.60 depending on how congested (or vacant) the parking zone is. The proposal would cap maximum rates at $5.00/hour and set a minimum rate of $1.00/hour in metered areas.

a chart showing how various observed occupancies will lead to meter rate adjustments. — Observed excess parking congestion or vacancy will trigger meter rate adjustments.

In practice, the average price for an on-street stall downtown will likely decrease. There are many areas in downtown where the current $2.00 rate is too high. This policy will allow cost-sensitive visitors to downtown to seek cheaper parking, perhaps a few blocks away from their destination, or incentivize parking in Smart Park garages. The areas with very high parking demand will see rate increases, but visitors to those areas who choose to pay the higher rate will find their costs offset by greater convenience and less time (and money) spent cruising for parking.

But That’s Not All

Performance-based pricing is the most critical policy outlined in the manual, but there are several other important topics addressed.

Creating New Parking Districts

The manual spells out how new parking districts can be requested and how they will be implemented. Getting meters installed would be a multi-step process starting with time-stays and ensuring multiple opportunities for stakeholders to give input.

Net Meter Revenue Allocation

Charging for on-street parking should not be a tax or a money grab by City Hall. Meter rates should be set to help create functioning and safe commercial districts and to signal that the city values its right-of-way as an essential public resource. The PBPM recommends “a majority of net meter revenue should go to services and programs within the meter district in which they were generated.” In addition, the committee recommended that PBOT review revenue allocation for downtown meter revenue, currently all downtown and Pearl District revenue goes to the general fund.

Time Limits and Loading Zones

The PBPM clarifies and standardizes how time limits and loading zones are determined and adjusted. The city currently has over 40 types of loading zones, the PBPM condenses them to five types.

Event Districts

The manual recommends a data-driven rate schedule for event districts (currently there is one event district, near Providence Park and in-force on Timber’s game days. Rates near the stadium during these hours would be adjusted ±$1.00-$3.00 depending on demand, with a cap at $10/hour.

A HUGE Step In a Great Direction

Overall, this is a comprehensive and well thought out manual. The stakeholder committee included representatives from the Portland Business Alliance, Venture Portland, Portlanders for Parking Reform [Disclosure: the author of this post served on the committee], freight interests, and several downtown neighborhoods. The committee supported the manual unanimously.

Certainly, improvements could be made to the manual. In particular, it may take several years of adjustments for some of the most congested downtown parking zones to see prices that provide relief from congestion. Ultimately, however, the most important policy objective is to depoliticize parking meter rates, and this proposal delivers.

If you agree, send a quick email to cctestimony@portlandoregon.gov with subject Agenda Item 652: Parking Management Manual. Let City Council know that this is LONG overdue and that you support data-driven parking management for a safer, cleaner, and more prosperous city.

Eliminate Minimum Parking Requirements In Favor Of More Affordable Residential Infill

May 13, 2018 By TonyJ 3 Comments

Action Alert: Submit testimony to the Planning and Sustainability Commission by Friday, May 18th. You can do this easily online at this link. We encourage you to support Portland for Everyone’s suggested modifications for the Residential Infill Project and to strongly support eliminating minimum parking requirements in all residential zones.

For several years, Portland’s planners have been crafting a proposal to encourage more housing to be built in our “single-family” neighborhoods. The general goal of the proposal is to discourage the 1:1 replacement of smaller, often more affordable, single-family homes with very large and expensive homes, often called “McMansions.” Instead, the city would like to see more housing created in these neighborhoods in the form of accessory dwelling units (ADUs), and internal conversions of large older homes into duplexes or triplexes.

The plan hopes to achieve these goals by allowing homeowners and developers in “single-family zones” to build additional ADUs and allowing duplexes mid-block (currently they are restricted to corners). There are a lot of aspects to the proposal and you can read a detailed analysis and suggested improvements from our coalition partners at Portland for Everyone.

It is critical to push for a complete elimination of residential parking requirements if this plan is to succeed. Even though the plan recommends waiving parking requirements in many cases, many homes will never be built if shelter for cars continues to be given a priority over housing for humans.

As an example, a garage can be converted to an ADU without providing an additional off-street parking stall for the ADU, but in most cases the homeowner will still be required to maintain at least one off-street stall! This is even more ridiculous when one considers that an off-street stall requires a curb-cut which removes one public on-street parking stall from circulation.

Maintaining our current arbitrary parking requirements will lead to more traffic, less safe streets, more pollution, less housing, more expensive housing, and more trees removed. It’s a bad policy that benefits the few at the expense of the many.

For some inspiration, here is the testimony I gave at the Planning and Sustainability Commission hearing on May 8th.

Send in testimony now (certainly before May 18th) to ask the planning commission to support Portland for Everyone’s recommendations for the Residential Infill Project and, particularly, to recommend eliminating minimum parking requirements.

Affordable Housing, Open Spaces, Abundant Parking: Pick Two

March 13, 2018 By TonyJ 2 Comments

It’s time for Portlanders to pick their priorities and stick with them.

ACTION ALERT: Send email to betterhousing@portlandoregon.gov by Monday, March 19th telling staff you choose affordable housing and open space over parking requirements.

Portland planners are preparing a host of policy suggestions under the banner of Better Housing By Design. The project which is a counterpart to the Residential Infill Project has four goals for improving the zoning code governing multi-family housing including (from the project website):

Help meet Portland’s diverse housing needs, including housing that is affordable to lower income households and units designed for people of all ages and abilities.
Include open space and green elements that support healthy living for residents.

These are laudable goals, but Portland’s desire for more affordable housing and open space are at direct odds with our minimum parking requirements.

a picture of housing, a picture of a garden, a picture of a parking lot, the text reads, pick 2 — Portland must choose between affordable housing and open space and more parking.

Better Housing By Design allows more density in multi-family zones and adds new landscaping and outdoor space requirements to larger lots (20,000 sq/ft+). In addition, the proposal limits surface parking to 30% of the site area and limits impermeable paved surfaces to 15% of the site area. These restrictions are meant to reduce “heat islands” and excess runoff, and those are important goals, but this is greenwashing unless minimum parking requirements are completely eliminated first. What the suggested requirements in the discussion draft do are to complicate site planning for new housing and potentially make any required parking more expensive.

A developer building a project which triggers required parking will find it difficult to accommodate the open space requirements and the parking requirements without building structured parking. Structured parking takes up space that could be used for more homes and is much more expensive than surface parking.

This plan is over-thinking solutions to our most pressing problems. We need housing and we need open space much more than we need to require parking. Eliminating minimum parking requirements will allow the flexibility for builders to erect more aesthetically pleasing, functional, and affordable housing projects. Many developers will continue to build parking, but the parking they do build will be voluntary (and more “green”). If parking demand declines in the future, developers of new projects will be free to build fewer stalls without a city council fight to change requirements again.

The Discussion Draft of the plan has gotten better from the concept draft, staff are currently proposing to eliminate parking requirements for lots which are 7,500 sq/ft or smaller. They are also proposing to cut remaining parking requirements in half, from 1 required stall per home to 1 stall for every two homes in a housing development. This is a step in the right direction, but we need to go further. Ask staff to recommend eliminating minimum parking requirements for all multi-family housing zones as part of Better Housing By Design.

ACTION ALERT: Send email to betterhousing@portlandoregon.gov by Monday, March 19th telling staff you choose affordable housing and open space over parking requirements.