A few years ago, the Beacon Hill neighborhood in Boston set what I hope is a record. Beacon Hill is a prosperous residential neighborhood near the central business district. It's quite compact; there are only 983 on-street parking spaces. Residents with parking permits had the exclusive use of these spaces. The city issued the permits for free.
So how many of these parking permits were there? 3,933, or four for every spot.
I have this story from Professor Donald Shoup (The High Cost of Free Parking, 2011 edition, p. 516 and footnotes 31 and 32 on p. 552). After I read it, I started to wonder about the number of active parking permits in my neighborhood in Philadelphia, which is covered by residential parking permit Zone 1.
My neighborhood is essentially the southwest quadrant of William Penn's original plan for the city, centered on Rittenhouse Square. Sometimes it's called Greater Rittenhouse. I've taken to calling it CCRAville, after the Center City Residents' Association, the local civic group.
CCRAville extends south to South Street, but Zone 1 keeps going all the way down to Washington Avenue. The South of South Neighborhood Association looks after the area from South Street to Washington Avenue, which I call SOSNAland.
Both of these groups have recently performed parking inventories. CCRAville found 1,584 Zone 1 spots. SOSNAland, which is larger, found 2,103. So there are 3,687 Zone 1 parking spaces in Zone 1.
And how many parking permits are currently in effect? Take a guess. Go ahead. Get a piece of paper and write your number down.
Okay. I filled out yet another Right to Know request and sent it off to the Philadelphia Parking Authority. A few days later they sent me a note saying they needed a little more time, and a few days after that they sent me the numbers.
As I've said before, I've found my recent interactions with the PPA to be productive and even pleasant. (There was that parking ticket six years ago.)
There are 6,957 Zone 1 parking permits currently active -- roughly two permits for every available Zone 1 spot.
How does that compare to your guess? Were you higher, or lower? Perhaps I influenced you with my story about Beacon Hill. Or maybe you couldn't believe a government agency would invite 12 people to play musical chairs when there were only six chairs.
Where Are the Extra Cars Parked?
One interesting question is where all those extra sticker owners are parking. I think the Beacon Hill story can give us some guidance here. Professor Shoup reports that in 2004 the price of a condominium parking space on Beacon Hill was as high as $167,500 (plus a monthly condo fee and annual property tax). Professor Shoup calculates the annual cost of one of these spots as $11,000. People are willing to pay a lot to be sure of a space.
By contrast, here in Philly in 2015 there is a garage a block from my house that charges $250 a month, or $3,000 a year. I've always thought that was kind of expensive, but it depends on what you compare it to -- $11,000 in Boston, or $35 at the curb in Philadelphia.
At any rate, Mike Axler and I have shown that at least 87 percent of households in CCRAville are not parking on the street in their neighborhood.
Why would you buy a sticker and never use it? The answer is that you can use it occasionally. Every once in a while there's an open spot on my block. If I know I'm going out again in an hour, I may park at the curb instead of putting the car away in the garage. It doesn't happen very often. But it's only $35.
Splitting Zone 1
There's a proposal to split Zone 1 at South Street, so SOSNAland and CCRAville would each have their own parking zones. SOSNAland seems to feel that some of its congestion issues come from CCRAvillers parking south of South. I'm inclined to agree that this happens, but I have no way to size the phenomenon. Personally I'm in favor of the proposal because I think it would make it easier to raise the price of a parking sticker in CCRAville. (There's no particular reason why all the zones in the city should have the same permit price, and yet they do.)
As part of my request to PPA, I asked for a breakout of the number of Zone 1 permits held by residents living in each of the two proposed zones. I combined those numbers with the number of spots in each area to produce these two tables.
CCRAville
Total on-street spots - 3,161
Zone 1 spots - 1,584
Zone 1 permits - 3,863
SOSNAland
Total on-street spots - 4,884
Zone 1 spots - 2,103
Zone 1 permits - 3,121
As you can see, CCRAville has 2,000 more stickers than Zone 1 spots, and it seems likely that some of them are parking south of South, although I think the bulk of them are parking off-street.
On the other hand SOSNAland, on its own, has 1,000 more stickers than Zone 1 spots. So splitting Zone 1 into two pieces will not be a panacea. There still won't be enough Zone 1 parking spaces for all the permit holders.
But wait -- SOSNAland is blessed with quite a few parking spaces that are not Zone 1 -- or at least not yet. There are 2,781 of these spots. Some of them are two-hour spots, which means they're not suitable for long-term storage, although they're a good place to park overnight. Many of the spots, though, are uncontrolled -- anybody can park for as long as he or she wants.
The uncontrolled blocks are often completely filled with parked cars. Who owns them? Once again, residents tend to point to outsiders -- for instance, Penn and Drexel students who bring their cars to school and store them for extended periods. I expect this happens, but again I have no way to size the phenomenon.
What if the vast majority of people parking in these uncontrolled spots are actually residents of SOSNAland -- Zone 1 permit holders who can't find a Zone 1 spot, and other residents who choose not to buy a Zone 1 permit?
It would be good to know who's parking there. If you convert these blocks to Zone 1 status, and the people currently parking there either have Zone 1 permits or can easily buy one, then you have gone to a considerable effort and made precisely no progress in controlling parking congestion.
This brings us to an important lesson: Parking permit zones are good at excluding outsiders. When the problem is too many insiders, things get complicated.
Showing posts with label CCRA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CCRA. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Monday, April 6, 2015
Parking: Storage v. Access
At the end of March, my friend Mike Axler and I were walking home from the Kenyatta Johnson-Ori Feibush city council debate. It was actually warm.
I suggested that we were done with our field work. Mike noted that we managed to finish just as the weather was starting to warm up.
Since the previous fall, Mike and I had been trudging around the CCRA village (basically the southwest quadrant of William Penn's original plan for Philadelphia). Working as volunteers for the Center City Residents' Association, we were counting parking spaces -- on-street and off-street, in big garages and little.
There was more we could have done, but we were tired, and what was the point of running up the score. We'd already established that at least 87 percent of households do not park a car on the street. We probably could have gotten the number over 90 percent, but what's the point?
I'll go over the numbers in a minute, but let's look first at what they mean.
The Plumber
Some time in the good weather last year, there was a knock on my door about 7:30 in the morning. It was a plumber, and he needed to replace a connection in the street. There was a car parked where he needed to dig, and he was wondering if I knew who it belonged to. Perhaps we could knock on that person's door, and ask him to move his car?
I was speechless. This very nice man thought the cars parked on the street belonged to the people who lived on the street. Maybe in Mayberry, but not in Center City Philadelphia. When I was parking on the street, I was happy if I found a spot within three blocks of my house.
However, the West family was able to help the plumber. My wife glanced at the rear window of the car, noted that there was no Zone 1 parking sticker, and suggested that the car would probably be leaving shortly after 8 a.m. Which is what happened.
Underlying Assumptions
We all know that curbside parking in the CCRA village is very tight. And people are constantly looking for ways to expand the supply of on-street parking. Can't we add one more spot at the head of the line, up by the corner -- thereby decreasing visibility and dramatically increasing the likelihood of pedestrians getting hit by cars in the intersection.
There are a couple of underlying assumptions here. One is that it is possible to increase the supply of curbside parking in a way that would help to meet the demand for spaces. It's not true.
Another is that most people with cars are parking them on the street, and that the street is the primary and natural resource for parking an automobile.
Well, no. As I noted above, at least 87 percent of households in CCRAville do not park a car on the street. Three-quarters of those who own cars park them off the street.
And half of households don't own cars. Some people seem to have difficulty processing the idea that there are parts of the United States where most people don't own cars. However, in some parts of the CCRA village, the figure is over 60 percent. (See Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Philadelphia 2035: Central District Plan, Existing Conditions, Issues, and Opportunities, May 2012. The relevant chart is entitled Vehicle Availability.)
It's not Mayberry. It's not even South Philly. It's the big city.
The Dream
The Dream will always be there. I should be able to park my car for free at the curb in front of my house whenever I want. Well, no. That's not the way it works here.
But because a lot of people think that wishing makes it so, a lot of things have gone remarkably askew on our streets.
The Zone 1 parking sticker, priced at $35 per year, allows residents to store their cars on the street, which they often do for weeks at a time. This use -- long-term storage -- conflicts directly with another important use of curbside parking -- short-term access.
Short-term access barely exists in the southern parts of CCRAville. However, if you go up to Rittenhouse Square, you can get a glimpse of what it looks like. With the exception of the north side of the square, most spots are loading zones. There's never a problem dropping Aunt Tillie off at the Barclay. And then you put the car in the garage.
The Numbers
Okay, so how about the numbers? Mike and I have previously reported that we found 1,584 Zone 1 spots in the CCRA village. (Total on-street spots, including the regular two-hour spots, the Zone 1 storage spots, and spots for diplomats, the handicapped, registered packaged delivery companies -- let's not forget car share and taxi stands -- were 3,161.)
Off-street facilities with less than 30 spots totaled 1,930.
As to garages and lots with a capacity greater than 30, we knew there were well over 11,000 of those, but we didn't know how many were monthly rentals -- as opposed to short-term visitors.
So Mike, who used to do this kind of work for a living, rolled up his sleeves, made phone calls, met with garage managers -- and very often came away with valuable information. Not everybody was willing to talk, but he found 2,894 monthlies in the big garages.
There are more, and we probably could have verified more, but we had what we needed, and we stopped.
Here it is:
2,894 (over 30) + 1,930 (under 30) = 4,824 parking off the street.
Versus 1,584 storing their cars in Zone 1 spots. So 25 percent of cars are being stored on the street:
4,824 (off) + 1,584 (on) = 6,408 (total).
1,584 (on) / 6,408 (total) = .247 or 25 percent.
But half of households don't own a car. So 12.5 percent -- be generous and make it 13 percent -- of households are parking on the street, and 87 percent are not.
What Do We Do?
The constituency for on-street storage is 13 percent. But, as I've said before, the constituency for access is 100 percent. Everybody wants the plumber to be able to visit.
We need change.
So what do we do? Well, here's a start: On page 696 of his book The High Cost of Free Parking, Professor Donald Shoup recommends destickering some of the spaces on each block in a neighborhood like the CCRA village. The rest of the spots would remain Zone 1 storage spots. The destickered spaces would become standard two-hour access spots during the day, and still be available for overnight parking. It won't solve the whole problem, but it's a start.
(See previous posts in this blog: The Parking Dream, Professor Shoup's Parking Book, Parking in San Francisco.)
I suggested that we were done with our field work. Mike noted that we managed to finish just as the weather was starting to warm up.
Since the previous fall, Mike and I had been trudging around the CCRA village (basically the southwest quadrant of William Penn's original plan for Philadelphia). Working as volunteers for the Center City Residents' Association, we were counting parking spaces -- on-street and off-street, in big garages and little.
There was more we could have done, but we were tired, and what was the point of running up the score. We'd already established that at least 87 percent of households do not park a car on the street. We probably could have gotten the number over 90 percent, but what's the point?
I'll go over the numbers in a minute, but let's look first at what they mean.
The Plumber
Some time in the good weather last year, there was a knock on my door about 7:30 in the morning. It was a plumber, and he needed to replace a connection in the street. There was a car parked where he needed to dig, and he was wondering if I knew who it belonged to. Perhaps we could knock on that person's door, and ask him to move his car?
I was speechless. This very nice man thought the cars parked on the street belonged to the people who lived on the street. Maybe in Mayberry, but not in Center City Philadelphia. When I was parking on the street, I was happy if I found a spot within three blocks of my house.
However, the West family was able to help the plumber. My wife glanced at the rear window of the car, noted that there was no Zone 1 parking sticker, and suggested that the car would probably be leaving shortly after 8 a.m. Which is what happened.
Underlying Assumptions
We all know that curbside parking in the CCRA village is very tight. And people are constantly looking for ways to expand the supply of on-street parking. Can't we add one more spot at the head of the line, up by the corner -- thereby decreasing visibility and dramatically increasing the likelihood of pedestrians getting hit by cars in the intersection.
There are a couple of underlying assumptions here. One is that it is possible to increase the supply of curbside parking in a way that would help to meet the demand for spaces. It's not true.
Another is that most people with cars are parking them on the street, and that the street is the primary and natural resource for parking an automobile.
Well, no. As I noted above, at least 87 percent of households in CCRAville do not park a car on the street. Three-quarters of those who own cars park them off the street.
And half of households don't own cars. Some people seem to have difficulty processing the idea that there are parts of the United States where most people don't own cars. However, in some parts of the CCRA village, the figure is over 60 percent. (See Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Philadelphia 2035: Central District Plan, Existing Conditions, Issues, and Opportunities, May 2012. The relevant chart is entitled Vehicle Availability.)
It's not Mayberry. It's not even South Philly. It's the big city.
The Dream
The Dream will always be there. I should be able to park my car for free at the curb in front of my house whenever I want. Well, no. That's not the way it works here.
But because a lot of people think that wishing makes it so, a lot of things have gone remarkably askew on our streets.
The Zone 1 parking sticker, priced at $35 per year, allows residents to store their cars on the street, which they often do for weeks at a time. This use -- long-term storage -- conflicts directly with another important use of curbside parking -- short-term access.
Short-term access barely exists in the southern parts of CCRAville. However, if you go up to Rittenhouse Square, you can get a glimpse of what it looks like. With the exception of the north side of the square, most spots are loading zones. There's never a problem dropping Aunt Tillie off at the Barclay. And then you put the car in the garage.
The Numbers
Okay, so how about the numbers? Mike and I have previously reported that we found 1,584 Zone 1 spots in the CCRA village. (Total on-street spots, including the regular two-hour spots, the Zone 1 storage spots, and spots for diplomats, the handicapped, registered packaged delivery companies -- let's not forget car share and taxi stands -- were 3,161.)
Off-street facilities with less than 30 spots totaled 1,930.
As to garages and lots with a capacity greater than 30, we knew there were well over 11,000 of those, but we didn't know how many were monthly rentals -- as opposed to short-term visitors.
So Mike, who used to do this kind of work for a living, rolled up his sleeves, made phone calls, met with garage managers -- and very often came away with valuable information. Not everybody was willing to talk, but he found 2,894 monthlies in the big garages.
There are more, and we probably could have verified more, but we had what we needed, and we stopped.
Here it is:
2,894 (over 30) + 1,930 (under 30) = 4,824 parking off the street.
Versus 1,584 storing their cars in Zone 1 spots. So 25 percent of cars are being stored on the street:
4,824 (off) + 1,584 (on) = 6,408 (total).
1,584 (on) / 6,408 (total) = .247 or 25 percent.
But half of households don't own a car. So 12.5 percent -- be generous and make it 13 percent -- of households are parking on the street, and 87 percent are not.
What Do We Do?
The constituency for on-street storage is 13 percent. But, as I've said before, the constituency for access is 100 percent. Everybody wants the plumber to be able to visit.
We need change.
So what do we do? Well, here's a start: On page 696 of his book The High Cost of Free Parking, Professor Donald Shoup recommends destickering some of the spaces on each block in a neighborhood like the CCRA village. The rest of the spots would remain Zone 1 storage spots. The destickered spaces would become standard two-hour access spots during the day, and still be available for overnight parking. It won't solve the whole problem, but it's a start.
(See previous posts in this blog: The Parking Dream, Professor Shoup's Parking Book, Parking in San Francisco.)
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