An expert on urban planning and transportation spoke Friday at Portland State about reducing the cost of street parking and using the revenue from parking meters in the local neighborhoods.
As part of the Winter 2007 Transportation Seminar Series, Dr. Donald Shoup said that free parking comes at a high cost, and that the city of Portland is not approaching its parking situation, which he called poor, adequately.
“I want to suggest ideas that could make Portland better than it is,” he said.
Shoup recommended two changes: charge the lowest price for street parking that leaves one to two vacant spots per block, and return the revenue from parking meters to the neighborhood. Shoup said that any city could make these changes.
Some innovations that can replace the traditional parking meter, Shoup said, will make implementing his plan feasible. Electronic meters and occupancy sensors can wirelessly communicate to City Hall what meters are not being paid and what areas need a change in meter rates.
By pricing curb parking correctly, the city could see some important benefits such as decreased traffic congestion, less air pollution and more support of sustainable transportation, according to Shoup. “Portland is not in tough shape and can change,” he said.
Portland, a city that has been noted for innovative urban planning, is behind when it comes to planning for parking, he said.
Shoup said that cars are parked 95 percent of the time and 95 percent of people that drive to work park for free once they get there. “I think too much of America is devoted to asphalt,” he said.
But who is paying for this free parking? “Everyone but the motorist,” said Shoup. Even people who do not own vehicles are paying-he said that every transaction, such as buying a theater ticket, includes a parking cost.
“I think we’ve created a great planning disaster,” Shoup said. In 2002, the total subsidies for off-street parking were about equal to the total property tax revenue collected in the United States, at about 15 cents per mile driven.
Shoup said that the Lloyd District has as many sprawling parking lots as other more car-dominated cities.
It is urban planning that created off-street parking requirements, which is what he is opposing. “I think we’ve made two basic mistakes,” he said, “by keeping curb parking free or cheap and requiring lots of off-street parking.”
Shoup said that many surveys find that parking lots are rarely more than half full.
“I think the situation we’ve arrived at is largely due to urban planning,” he said, adding that urban planning can also remedy the situation. He said that in order for Portland to address the parking problem, the city needs to charge the correct price for curb parking.
Dr. Shoup’s presentation was sponsored by OTREC, the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium. He has been a professor of urban planning at UCLA for over 30 years and received a doctorate in economics from Yale.
In 2005, Shoup published a book, The High Cost of Free Parking.
The Winter 2007 Transportation Seminar Series will continue Friday, Feb. 9, with Gregg Lande of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality speaking on Air Quality: Toxics and Transportation. The event will be held at noon in room 204 of the Urban Center.