Shoup: Raise Parking Rates
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 12 August 2009 — 2 comments below »
This is what Donald Shoup told the City of Santa Rosa…
Shoup’s book [The High Cost of Free Parking] questions traditional municipal parking policies that emphasize the need to build acres and acres of parking to entice commercial and industrial development.
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That money [from raised parking fees in Old Pasadena] was used to bolster renovation efforts that included weekly sidewalk steam cleanings and landscaping and other pedestrian-friendly improvements that turned Old Pasadena into a place-to-be for shoppers, tourists and new businesses, he said.
The city not only reaped more parking revenues but sales taxes as well, he said.
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He said cities often claim they don’t have the enough parking to entice new retail and industrial development but that it’s his belief the issue “isn’t we don’t have too few parking places but that we mismanage them.”
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Shoup said in the additional parking revenues generated in Old Pasadena helped create a welcoming environment that made it the place-to-be for shoppers and tourists willing to pay for parking. “I don’t think the future of cities are dirty sidewalks and free parking. I think the future is in clean sidewalks and paid parking,” he said.
Hopefully the City of Hercules and the waterfront developers are listening.
First, I admit that I have not read the book, but I have a hard time accepting this argument. Walnut Creek and Menlo Park, to take two local examples, have inviting and thriving downtowns, and both have abundant parking that is free or nearly so. Doesn’t all of that thriving retail bring in some money for cleaning the sidewalk? Would anyone rather go shopping in Berkeley, with its car-hostile policies, than in Walnut Creek, where you can just park anywhere? In my view, if we want our new local businesses to thrive, we need to offer abundant parking that is free or cheap.
@Jeff Boore – We need just enough parking that is appropriately priced.