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Research

How Do We Grade Parking?

February 16, 2021 By Andrew Kiefaber 1 Comment

Part 2: Creating a Parking Survey

This is part 2 in a 3-part series. If you missed it, here’s part one.

This is where the wheels hit the road (metaphorically, clearly, we are trying to reduce the number of wheels on the road). Tony and Jane produced a survey to begin making a database of on-street (non-residential) parking management in our lucky top 14 cities. The survey they produced collects data on 5 categories for scoring parking management: On-street parking management, technology (single-space meters, pay stations, pay by plate, etc.), curb space allocation (loading zones, parklets, etc.), meter revenue allocation, and equity.

Demo scorecard for Portland - Five evaluation areas and how to improve them. Scores out of 100. Evaluation areas are: on-street parking prices, technology and management, curbspace allocation, equity and inclusion, and revenue allocation.
Picture links to the 2-page pdf with demo scorecards for Portland and Chicago.

To kick off the research effort, Jane and Tony both filled out as much of the survey as possible for each of their respective hometowns, Portland and Chicago, to demonstrate what the finished scorecards might look like.

General information on parking management was easy enough to find. Information on hourly rates for parking is easy to come by on city webpages, and we were able to find data for all 14 cities (the most expensive parking was $7 per hour in downtown Chicago). After collecting the basic information on street-parking such as, daily meter maximums, parking time limits, and what the hours of operation are, information about street-parking becomes significantly less transparent on city webpages. Data on how meter rates are set can be hard to find. Normally the best way to find it is to search local news sources. The mechanics of who recommends rate adjustments and how often adjustments are made can be very tricky to find without an insider from each parking department to help out.

Finding which technology was used for collecting parking revenue was easy enough, but figuring out how parking occupancy is measured (manual parking survey, direct measurement by payment or sensors. Drones?) is not information that cities make readily available. Again, the best bet for finding out how occupancy is measured is to comb through local news sources on the subject.

Of the five categories we collected data on, the place where research generally hit a dead end (another road metaphor, you’re welcome) and had the least available information was Equity and Outreach. Here our goal was to find information on what different municipalities are doing to assess the impact parking policy reform has on low-income and BIPOC residents. How does the municipality reach out for consultation on parking reforms? Does the city offer discounts or subsidies for low-income residents using street parking? And how are parking violations enforced?

It is important to look at parking through an equity lens similar to other aspects of the transportation network. Like most aspects of our transportation system, inequity is built into our parking system. Most members of the Parking Reform Network see the fight against free parking as a fundamental step for fighting climate change, addressing runaway housing costs, and creating a more equitable and safer built environment, yet we also have to recognize that for many people driving a car is the only viable transportation option.

As rent goes up in neighborhoods that are well connected to jobs by various forms of transit, those who cannot afford the rising housing costs are forced into further-flung neighborhoods or suburbs where having a car is, for all intents and purposes, a must. Forcing these already over-burdened residents to then also have to pay higher parking costs just because they cannot afford to live in transit-rich areas is one of the many ways our transportation system makes being poor very expensive.

What reforms can our cities make to adjust parking prices so that those who can afford it have to pay a fair price to park their car in the city, while those who have no choice but to drive still have access to all parts of the city? And how do we make sure that parking tickets and fines are not used as a tool to collect revenues from those who are least able to afford it? In essence, a healthy parking system collects more revenue from fares than it does from fines (see Westworld blog post on healthy parking systems here). It is often the case that fines fall disproportionately on those who are least able to afford them, and this is a situation that parking agencies should address.

This will be one of the major questions we explore as we move into the next phase of data collection where we reach out to municipalities to confirm the data we have collected. If any members of PRN know any good examples of parking management strategies that address equity concerns, we would love to hear from you.

Next Step: Presenting results from Data Collection

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Filed Under: Research Tagged With: parking survey

How Do We Grade Parking?

January 25, 2021 By Andrew Kiefaber 2 Comments

Part 1: It’s a work in progress.

One of the persistent questions at the Parking Reform Network is what services can we provide for our newly formed community? What services will help advance the various initiatives of our members? One of the most useful tools for persuasion that advocates can use to advance their goals is comparison. “Peer city X has had success with policy Y, we too could benefit from policy Y!” But within the parking reform community, there is no standard model for comparing parking policies across municipalities. The Parking Reform Network exists for sharing information, strategies and educational materials to help support a nationwide (multi-national even- with members in Canada, Australia and Singapore) network of parking reformers. But the first task for sharing is having a shared set of criteria.

How do we compare parking management strategies? There are many other grading systems available for comparing different aspects of urban life, such as walk or bike scores, or cost of living scores, but a comparable parking score does not exist. Creating a similar parking score is a very challenging task as, much like a snowflake, each city is unique and has its own reform and regulatory needs. One city may need to reform parking to create more space for housing, another might be preparing to build more bike lanes, and some cities might simply be looking to recover parking revenues. How each of these municipalities measures the success of their parking policy will vary wildly. Who determines what parking policy is objectively “good”? What the heck does good mean anyway? In order to build a tool for comparison, first we had to determine a standard model for what “good” parking policy looks like.

Research for the project started with data collection on parking policies across several large American cities. We chose to start with the cities that have the most PRN members. The cities that we chose to collect parking policy data on were Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington D.C. and Madison Wisconsin (not technically a large city, but it is my hometown, and I couldn’t resist).

The first step in creating a scoring model was to gather all of the relevant sources for each city. We collected sources on residential requirements, residential parking permits Transit Demand Management (TDM) Programs, on-street meter parking, public garages and parking authorities. Then we determined that the most practical place to start was to compare on-street meter parking. Meter parking is the aspect of municipal parking policy that has the most abundant information and materials on municipal websites. It is also one of the primary places that residents regularly encounter parking policy. This is also the area of parking reform where some of the most interesting work is being done to reform parking policy changes such as dynamic pricing, parking benefit districts and especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, parklets and pedestrian streets.

Part Two: Creating a Survey.

Filed Under: Research

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