The High Cost of Free Parking

[RailBaronYarr]

We park our van out front, even did most of the winter, even though we have a 2 car garage. The front door is just more convenient to get in and out of. The back path gets snow all over it from the dogs, we need to go through multiple sets of doors (unlocking each) to get in, and yeah dealing with the alley is slower and tedious. Honestly, it's so dumb. But I suspect there are a ton of SFH owners, even in Uptown, who are doing this with at least one of their vehicles.

[mattaudio]

If anyone wants to pile on...
http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mp ... 44TI6J2Cqe

[Tiller]

I wasn't entirely sure where to put this ("The High Cost of Subsidized Driving", anyone?), but this thread seems like a decent enough fit. I just ran across this [new] article, which is worth the read:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... ts/412237/

A report published earlier this year confirms, in tremendous detail, a very basic fact of transportation that’s widely disbelieved: Drivers don’t come close to paying for the costs of the roads they use. Published jointly by the Frontier Group and the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, “Who Pays for Roads?” exposes the myth that drivers are covering what they’re using.

The report documents that the amount that road users pay through gas taxes now accounts for less than half of what’s spent to maintain and expand the road system. The resulting shortfall is made up from other sources of tax revenue at the state and local levels, generated by drivers and non-drivers alike. This subsidizing of car ownership costs the typical household about $1,100 per year—over and above the costs of gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees.

While congressional bailouts of the Highway Trust Fund have made this subsidy more apparent, it has actually never been the case that road users paid their own way. Not only that, but the amount of their subsidy has steadily increased in recent years. The share of the costs paid from road-user fees has dropped from about 70 percent in the 1960s to less than half today, according to the study.

[trigonalmayhem]

If anyone wants to pile on...
http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mp ... 44TI6J2Cqe

Well most of that raised my blood pressure unnecessarily. ):

[acs]

Ventura Village Market expansion is denied by Minneapolis ZPC because area residents complain about increased traffic and parking. Karmel Square expansion is only approved after agreeing to build structured parking. To me, this is a pretty clear example of how our transportation choices hurt small scale growth and small business the most, and I'm ashamed that for all the talk put out by city hall about being multi-modal this kind of thing still happens.

Unlocked: http://finance-commerce.com/2015/11/a-t ... ketplaces/

[EOst]

That may be true in general, but I'll also say that the Ventura Village Market really does wreak havoc on 24th. Think a lot of very inexperienced drivers stopping at odd angles in the middle of the road. It's a nightmare to get past, on bike or car.

The weird grid change at 24th doesn't help either.

[RailBaronYarr]

Honest question: is it fair to say that easily 50%+ of the people visiting the Village Market live within 2 miles? Just seems like there's gotta be some give and take on decisions like this, for a market on a non-crucial city or regional road (even by MNdible's standards). This isn't a major commuter street with transit on it, so backups don't really have major consequences but for the people on this particular stretch. I dunno. As an aside, I've been trying out different routes home from the 94 bus and have done the 11th Ave-24th St-Portland to the Greenway a bit (maybe 10-15 times?), and this stretch does get backed up but I haven't really had a problem getting by on my bike. Though vehicles exiting parking lots or turning from streets have cut me off a few times.

[BoredAgain]

Ventura Village Market expansion is denied by Minneapolis ZPC because area residents complain about increased traffic and parking. Karmel Square expansion is only approved after agreeing to build structured parking. To me, this is a pretty clear example of how our transportation choices hurt small scale growth and small business the most, and I'm ashamed that for all the talk put out by city hall about being multi-modal this kind of thing still happens.

Unlocked: http://finance-commerce.com/2015/11/a-t ... ketplaces/

I used to live in the apartment building that was across the street. I can tell you that the streets around the area were a total mess at certain times of day. I had a designated spot in the underground garage for my personal automobile, so it wasn't the end of the world for me. What bothered me more was all of the drivers making illegal turns in the area. Just awful.

Also, weaving through on a bike sometimes worked great, but it was not good for what is otherwise a reasonable crosstown bike route.

That said, I have mixed feelings about this. The market was very inwardly focused and felt uninviting to outsiders. Like any mall would if it didn't have big signs and seas of parking so you knew what it was. I don't think the current building has any parking at all. I don't blame the small business owners inside. I blame the building owner.

[mattaudio]

Does this facility charge for off-street parking? Seems like a plan that uses pricing for off-street parking for this mall, on-street parking for visitors, and a permit buyout for local residents would solve much of this parking problem. And the traffic problem, too, since we know that parking problems create much of what we see to be traffic problems.

[MNdible]

I know you guys hate zoning, but:

“I just think we need to start saying the more appropriate space for this would be in areas designated for more high-intensity commercial uses,” said City Council Member Lisa Bender, who serves as the council’s representative on the planning commission.

[RailBaronYarr]

Isn't this also an argument that our areas designated for commercial uses don't always line up with what commercial land/building owners can realistically do? Omar Sabri likely doesn't own property along Franklin or Bloomington Aves, and even if he did, would redeveloping it bring the benefits of agglomerating the likely businesses that would populate the 8,000 sqft expansion with the current ones? Probably not.

I guess I tried to softly make the point earlier, but jeez, this *is* a city where people walk and bike and take transit. There are buffered bike lanes on Park & Portland (both less than a 1/2 mile away), bike lanes on 24th, one of the busiest bus routes in the region a skinny block west of here, cross-town buffered bike lanes on 26th/28th, and the 2 just 1/4 mile away on Franklin. We see resistance to more residential and/or commercial development *along* arterials (which typically are zoned commercial or mixed-use) because traffic is at capacity and more turning movements could degrade LOS on these critical regional streets. Here we have streets off the beaten path that don't impact regional traffic flow, only the first or last 1/4 mile of local residents' journeys. And again, I'm betting a very solid portion of the people shopping at this mall live within a very easy walk or bike. And certainly, other residents complaining about traffic concerns are at least somewhat likely to have alternatives to driving for some of the trips they currently take by car.

This is in contrast to the complaints in suburban locales (like the Ridgewood Mall parking lot bank/apartment re-development) where effectively no one can conveniently and/or safely bike or walk to anything, and adding people really does = a potential traffic nightmare with few mitigation options. That's why we all like cities on this board, right? I'm not trying to say that traffic won't (initially) get worse or that there are zero traffic/parking issues today, just that the benefits seem to outweigh the costs here.

[RailBaronYarr]

Does this facility charge for off-street parking? Seems like a plan that uses pricing for off-street parking for this mall, on-street parking for visitors, and a permit buyout for local residents would solve much of this parking problem. And the traffic problem, too, since we know that parking problems create much of what we see to be traffic problems.

Some good information starting on pg 19 of the staff report. http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups ... 147187.pdf

[MNdible]

Well, obviously, if I'm a developer, I'd love to buy land on the cheap because it's not zoned for a use, and then upzone to the use. That's basically free money the city's giving out there.

I haven't hung out around the 24th Street version of this, but I do know that the situation around Karmel Square is a true mess (partially because of a somewhat broken grid of pretty narrow streets in the area, partially because the customers make some really bad driving decisions), and that if I lived next door to it I'd be livid. It's tough to find a good comparison for these uses, but they generate a truly astonishing amount of traffic.

Anecdotally, it seems like a lot of Somalis are moving out to the suburbs now, so there's likely to be more driving to these locations rather than less, at least until the Sabri brothers start developing new locations out in Shakopee.

[RailBaronYarr]

Just to clarify, in this particular case the expansion is on already-owned land, zoned exactly the same as the rest of the mall, right? It's just a 2 story addition on the SE corner which currently has 6 surface parking stalls. So, no up-zoning required, right? It's currently I1, clearly a former industrial use, so I guess in my mind some traffic is better than local pollution and factory worker traffic, right?

And yes, anecdotally, you're right. And that's a shame if Eagan or Shakopee or wherever is the desired housing location is so mismatched from frequent shopping destinations. Though I am curious to see the reaction from angry urbanists if the group of people demanding to drive in on freeways and on local streets to shop is no longer only white frat bros coming to Uptown to party.

Bringing this back to parking, at the very least the city should meter the block surrounding it. The TDMP study notes:

As noted in the Village Market TDMP Update, vehicles were observed circulating the Village Market on adjacent streets in search of available spaces. Vehicles were also observed idling in the street waiting for spaces to open. With the low utilization of the pay parking lot, these issues are still present. Although spaces were available in the pay parking lot, the majority of patrons were still willing to search for free on-street parking nearby.

You could make the case that un-priced street parking has always been a contributor to poor driving decisions (here and at Karmel Square). No, the oft-quoted Shoup stat of parking searching doesn't apply to most streets in most places. In this particular case, it is probably close to reality. People don't like to pay to park (hence the under-utilized pay lot that used to be free and over-capacity). They're willing to circle or wait for a free street space. The type of behavior that looks like bad driving to people walking/biking/driving through. Lower the lot rate (as suggested in the study), meter the streets, watch traffic issues drop.

[EOst]

Just to clarify, in this particular case the expansion is on already-owned land, zoned exactly the same as the rest of the mall, right? It's just a 2 story addition on the SE corner which currently has 6 surface parking stalls. So, no up-zoning required, right? It's currently I1, clearly a former industrial use, so I guess in my mind some traffic is better than local pollution and factory worker traffic, right?

Somehow it didn't register to me that this addition was on the parking lot on 24th. Seems to me that would only improve traffic flow through the area (since that lot is the main source of conflicts).

[mister.shoes]

Mother Jones on parking: http://motherjones.com/environment/2016 ... iving-cars

[Anondson]

Couldn't think of a better thread...

Could it be possible for a city to pass a regulation that a landlord can't pass on the cost of a vehicle parking space if the car-free renter won't use it? I thought about when reading this.

http://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/08/19/c ... 1o.twitter

Call it "apartment unbundling".

[FISHMANPET]

I think you'd have a hard time defining what exactly the true cost of a parking space is. If you let the landlord decide, it will somehow magically be exactly what they're charging tenants currently (including the price of free).

[RailBaronYarr]

For structured parking, it wouldn't be that hard, right? When the building is still being financed, you've got amortized construction costs + annual operating. Once the building is paid off, you've got a period of time until you need to rehab the parking structure or major components, so you could argue it's just the annual operating costs. But yeah, for surface parking it's pretty cheap and the major costs are opportunity costs.

I agree this puts the city in a tough spot forcing developers and property owners to make it publicly-known what their financing and construction costs are. Besides, there are tons of things apartments offer (central heating or air, pools, gyms, nicer exteriors, whatever) that some people use less than others (even never!) and we don't force apartments to itemize those costs out. Best bet is to de-regulate parking (like Minneapolis has mostly done) and let parking-lite developments force other landlords' hands by charging cheaper rents.

[Nathan]

In the wsj!

Article about lowering parking restrictions to create cheaper housing.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/more-develo ... ign=buffer