Permit Parking

[mattaudio]

Yeah that's why I said "A hybrid approach of residential parking permits, and meters."

[RailBaronYarr]

Honest question, Matt, not snark: as a resident of the rather low-density Field neighborhood who only sees a parking crunch on TC Marathon day when people come cheer at the nearby major intersection, how does priced parking work for me? Especially for a generic week/end in July when I just spent five days using my garage and driveway for power tools instead of my car(s)? $0.01/day, because demand is virtually zero year-round?

It's a good question, and one that would also apply to pretty much every single suburban street (save for maybe 50th & France and a few other suburbs with old commercial downtown areas). In my mind, the only thing to do is us street reconstruction or mill/overlay as an opportunity to reduce on-street spaces or charge those who want them. Minneapolis has a tough time with its budget already, and I'm sure the amount of street square footage plays a part in that. Have the city say the next go-round that they'll be cutting half the street parking (75%? I dunno) and putting the curb 9' further out on each side, replacing it with grass median. Capital, plowing, maintenance, etc costs go down as does stormwater management costs. No assessment is charged to residents/businesses for this. If these residents want that amount of street parking, the city can put in parking bump outs and charge owners who want them for the capital costs and charge for an annual permit to park there. Non-residents can also park there if they pay an equivalent hourly rate. Residents get a strong chance the space will nearly always be available but understand in advance that others will be allowed due to pricing, and make the decision if the costs are worth it.

Or, charge $0.01/day and call it good. Just spitballin.

[FISHMANPET]

If you follow the Shoup method, you want a price that maintains about 85% usage. If even at zero, utilization is below 85%, then no need to charge. Then, like Alex says, you can reduce the supply easily.

[twincitizen]

I know Matt & Alex love spitballin about ideal scenarios and whatnot, but can we maybe get back to David's original question about the specific situation here and now in the Uptown area in 2014? I'm not saying this as a mod, but more so as someone interested in what real life (and realistic) solutions could be implemented in the near term (like this council term). I like "The Shoupistas" Facebook page too, but perhaps that is best for a separate topic. Lets focus on changes our neighborhoods can make today. The individual block by block adoption of permits is clearly not sustainable.

I do think that parking meters should be creeping at least 1/2 block into the neighborhoods in every direction from Hennepin, Lake, and Lyndale. Before that even, how about we start with the revolutionary idea of using meters on Hennepin and Lyndale between Franklin and 29th in the first place...unbelievable that some of these areas aren't metered today. Also, Eat Street has no metered parking whatsoever. Short of more controversial reforms you guys are talking about, we could simply add more meters to areas that are parking stressed and re-direct some of that money back to the same areas for streetscape improvements.

[mattaudio]

Yes, that's a good option. For residential blocks such as in the Wedge, I imagine we could use Shoupian principles to come up with a good solution. I can imagine it this way: Say you want to ensure an 85% utilization ratio per block. Maybe 60% of that can be residential permits. This could be maybe 25 cars per block, I don't know. But then you create a market for residential permits and charge a monthly rate that ensures parking availability. Then work to come up with dynamic pricing with a pay station on each block, using the park-style receipt in dash method. Seems like it would be great for everyone involved.

[twincitizen]

I'm convinced that there is a sizable percentage of very lightly-used vehicles just clogging up the streets in these dense neighborhoods. Most belong to folks that bike & bus to work most of the time, but haven't yet been pushed to get rid of the car for good. Car2Go/HourCar helps immensely, but is still a pretty new option. Also, we have homeowners with garages full of crap so they park on the street.

I think that we are somewhat near a breaking point where some people will give up car ownership. This is why the one-side parking ban in the winter didn't bother me at all*...I thought they should have started it weeks sooner. Some folks just need a little more frustration with the parking struggle to finally give up their car, a couple or housemates eliminate one car, or move to a building with off-street parking. How do we tip enough people past the breaking point? And how do we make sure that the streets don't fill right back up after moving the car-ownership needle a few more percentage points?

*It truly didn't affect me, because I have off-street parking. I live in Whittier, and wouldn't rent a place that didn't have parking. And no, that isn't privileged at all - my apartments have all been near the bottom of the local market ($650-750). It's basically choosing to live in a 1970s bldg vs. a 1920s bldg. The former usually have plenty of parking, the latter do not.

[mattaudio]

^Set a price to achieve a particular outcome.

[FISHMANPET]

I bought a new car last year and was taking forever to donate my old car, it was finally a snow emergency that made me pissed enough about moving it that forced me to just drive it to a donation center and take a cab back to civilization.

[mattaudio]

There are still two cars on my block with rotting parking tickets from the snow emergencies on the windshield.

[twincitizen]

You haven't reported them for not moving for over 72 hours? Those vehicles are abandoned. Report them to 311.

[FISHMANPET]

Yeah, spend less time trawling SeeClickFix for people reporting Car2Gos as abandoned vehicles and report actual reported vehicles :p

[Chef]

One issue with having metered parking on all the residential streets in the city is that there are large numbers of working poor and lower middle class people who need cars to get to their jobs. By charging them for on street parking you will price them out of car ownership which in turn will reduce their mobility to work. It will probably entrench poverty. I suppose reducing car ownership is good goal overall but it shouldn't be done on the backs of the poor. A lot of lower wage jobs are in the service industries and are at odd hours in the suburbs so they aren't well served by transit (and probably never will be).

Even in the Wedge there are significant numbers of poor people, according to the 2010 census.

[mattaudio]

Then there's this...

[FISHMANPET]

Am I reading that right? That's a bat vehicle for the police? Don't steal that car!

[clf]

I agree with Chef. I live on Franklin and most of this buildings have very little parking if at all. I see so many people park on the little street that turns from Aldrich to Bryant that are just going to the area bars and restaurants. I don't drive but I know neighbors get very frustrated that they can't park if they get home between 7-8pm. I think in that little loop permit parking would work. Also, just this morning as I was waiting for the 17, a man parked on 24th and Bryant and got on the bus with me. It looked like this guy was parking in the neighborhood and taking the bus downtown to avoid paying downtown parking prices. Not the first time I have seen this either.

[RailBaronYarr]

I didn't mean to de-rail away from pertinent discussions on high parking demand areas that could be addressed today, just got carried away with an idea. Though I will note that the fringe neighborhoods of Mpls & StP see street reconstruction every year, and every time the city just blindly re-does them mostly as-is, it's a missed opportunity for change.

I'll say that I'm pretty much on board with the strategies for parking-stressed areas discussed above.

[exiled_antipodean]

In Australasia, Germany and Ireland several cities manage residential and non-residential demand for kerb spaces by using coupon parking overlaid with residential parking permits.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_and_ ... on_parking

Coupons avoid the capital cost (and ugliness) of meters or pay and display machines. Some signs are needed saying "coupon parking area", but you'd need signs for permit parking.

I have been talking with my CM, Cam Gordon, to see if we can't get this idea introduced to Minneapolis. He's supportive, but to get this done, we'd need more council members. If other people want to take up the thought and mention it to their council members we could create a little momentum for progressive change.

I have some one pagers about the issue that I could share with people to adapt for community meetings. I've talked about this at some of PPERRIA meetings and people were curiously positive about the idea.

A related issue is that we totally undercharge for residential permits in this city. $35/year. In NZ I would have paid $400/year, and that was one of the many factors that tipped the balance (in a comparably dense setting) towards not owning a car.

Is there a private message feature on this board? If there is, use it to get in touch. Or I think some of you know who I am on twitter.

[MNdible]

Aside from David's original post, this thread mostly reads like some solutions in search of a problem.

[exiled_antipodean]

^ Areas which need residential permit parking and better pricing of street parking for visitors would be U-adjacent neighborhoods, Uptown, and inner Northeast.

But that's a pretty big chunk of the city, and good policy that doesn't privatize the public right of way for residents only is important.

Agreed that outside those areas there's not really a big problem.

[Minneboy]

The other thing permit parking would do is drive customers away from businesses. Parking on Lake or Lagoon is pretty much impossible and everything south of Lake is already permit parking. Sure, you can tell people to park in the Calhoun Square or Mozaic ramps but some people will simply refuse to do that and take their dollars elsewhere. Maybe that's ok, I don't know. It is somewhat appealing to have people pay for their parking. Again, I'd be totally fine with metered parking in the Wedge but that'll never fly.

With that thinking David, then downtown would be a bust as well, with people not wanting to come downtown due to having to pay for parking and we know that's not the case. There are places and things that people want to do and will pay for parking with the hope that it forces more parking ramps vs parking lots because there sure aren't many in Uptown and there are places people want to visit and things to do in Uptown that people do pay for parking. Now personally I'd prefer that the parking ramps are incorporated into a structure vs stand alone ones.