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  • January 20, 2010

    Woe is Parking.

    BY COLLEEN MCHUGH

    As someone who has lived in this city for virtually my entire life, there is one thing I know for sure – parking is a pain.  Were I to calculate the total time I’ve wasted cruising for a parking space or the total amount of money I’ve spent in parking tickets, I might go insane.  However, we are not just losing our time, money, and sanity in this parking climate.  We are also increasing traffic congestion and, in the process, greenhouse gas emissions.  But how can we fix this conundrum?

    [Image: Colleen McHugh]

    Last Thursday’s lunchtime forum addressed the Parking Problem on a regional scale and proposed parking reform strategies aimed at alleviating this issue as well as at incentivizing other forms of transit.  Valerie Knepper from the MTC addressed the strong need for innovative regional reform.  Among the current regional parking flaws, Valerie noted a number of parking requirements for employers, developers, and businesses that in effect subsidize driving and encourage sprawl.  Valerie suggested possible local reforms (expanding the parking cashout program for employees, charging market rates for parking in high demand areas, unbundling leases with separate rents for parking, removing minimums and setting maximums for parking requirements) and proposed ways the region can encourage such local reform (for example, by extending “indirect source” regulations to parking).  Valerie concluded her presentation with a call-out for innovative parking reform strategies that are high impact, jurisdiction-wide, innovative yet cost-effective, and support Priority Development Areas.

    As an example of success, Redwood City Downtown Development Coordinator Dan Zack explained how he incorporated parking reform into his city’s downtown plan.  Some of the highlights of this reform are performance-based pricing that increases meter prices in high occupancy areas and decreases prices in low-occupancy areas with a target occupancy rate of 85% throughout the downtown area, eliminating time limits, using surplus parking revenue to improve the surrounding downtown area, and upgrading from single-space coin-operated meters to multi-space meters with more paying options.  Dan reported an overall success in the program and shared the lesson that “Good pricing creates turnovers and vacancies.”  Learn more about Redwood City’s parking reform by visiting their website.

    Tags: MTC, parking, Redwood City, transportation
  • October 23, 2009

    SF Battles the Yogi Berra Parking Problem

    BY BEN LOWE

    Yogi Berra once posited about a restaurant suffering a perceived decline, "Nobody goes there anymore -- it's too crowded."  San Francisco parking faces the same dilemma: high parking occupancy and low turnover make parking in San Francisco a headache as drivers are forced waste upwards of 45 minutes orbiting for a space, adding to traffic and burning gasoline.

    To combat this problem, the SFMTA is considering two proposals: SF Park, an initiative to use parking technology to make finding and paying for parking easier, and the recently unveiled  the Extended Meter Hours Study (EMHS), which would extend parking meter operations in a number of neighborhoods. Increasing turnover and making more spaces available should be quite welcome in a number of neighborhoods where parking is at 100% utilization (or more, when counting cars double-parked, left in illegal spots, or parked on the sidewalk).  Implementing the EMHS would also raise an estimated $9 million per year for Muni.

    There has been some push-back.  Some merchants are concerned that an increase in the cost of parking will push shoppers to drive to malls where parking is ample and free.  And advocates of the EMHS are concerned about the fate of a similar measure in Oakland, where the City Council saw fierce resistance to, and ultimately retreated from, an attempt at extending parking meter operations and raising the parking fee.  Public outreach regarding the EMHS is ongoing; hopefully SFMTA will be able to provide easier parking for motorists and higher revenues for transit.

    Tags: parking, transportation