WHEN IT COMES to parking rates—the largest generator of local cash for transportation projects—Portland has been giving itself the short end of the stick.
Park curbside to grab a sandwich at SW 5th and Oak, and the tab at a city parking meter is $1.60 an hour. Park a few feet away, in a private lot run by City Center Parking, and it costs $5 an hour. By keeping its meter rates below market value, Portland is not only passing up a huge stream of revenue for its cash-starved transportation bureau—it’s also failing to live up to its own goal of encouraging people to drive less.
This year, Seattle and San Francisco rolled out new “variable parking” plans that set parking rates according to models based on supply and demand. Not Portland. However, the city experimented with the idea around Jeld-Wen Field during Timbers games this season.
The city overall has 8,437 metered parking spots, bringing in roughly $19 million annually by charging $1 an hour for Lloyd Center spots and $1.60 an hour on the Westside. Meanwhile, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is hurting for cash, in part because its funding system is based largely on the state gas tax. As the city promotes non-car transportation options, people are driving less and gas tax revenue is falling short of expectations [“Overcommitted!,” News, Dec 15].
“We fund people here to go out and actively undermine our financial system. Over the longer haul, something has to give,” says PBOT Director Tom Miller, adding that he’d welcome it if city council reworked Portland’s parking system, both to raise revenue and also to promote the city’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
“We are not anywhere close to market value on the cost of these stalls,” Miller says. “Parking is a resource we manage on behalf of the public, and I think the public expects PBOT to manage its resources for maximum return.”
Portland’s experiment around Jeld-Wen this year had big returns. At 449 meters during 20 Timber’s home games last season, city council agreed to double the hourly price of parking and also extend evening meter times for three hours. Portland’s SmartMeters already had the technology to set different parking rates at specific times. The change nearly tripled city revenue from the parking spots: from $2,205 on an average non-game Friday to $6,398 on the Timbers’ May 6 match against Philadelphia.
But despite that success, market-based parking isn’t on city council’s agenda right now.
Mayor Sam Adams, Miller’s boss, says that although he’s looking at “various things” to raise revenue, variable parking is not on the front burner. A variable-parking plan floated by Portland State University this year also has stalled.
Last winter, San Francisco scored a $24 million federal grant to create SFpark, a market-based parking system. New meters detect empty spaces and raise or lower prices by as much as 50 cents an hour—which consumers can track citywide on smart-phone apps.
Seattle’s parking changes aren’t quite that fancy. But starting in 2011 the city upped rates in its four busiest neighborhoods and cut prices in 11 sleepier areas. Both plans were aimed toward freeing up parking, not generating revenue, and both of those cities say the market-based system has been revenue neutral so far, since they slashed rates while raising others.
San Francisco and Seattle’s systems were inspired by the research of progressive parking guru Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking. Shoup says variable parking shouldn’t necessarily be used to generate more city revenue, but that it’s smarter than asking politicians to be on the hook for every parking rate discussion.
“Does Portland want to look more like San Francisco or Seattle? Or does it want to look like Phoenix?” asks Shoup. “It makes much more sense to adopt a rule for parking prices, rather than every time, on every block, anyone wants to change the price of parking, it has to go before city council.”
Seems like a fantastic way to fix the giant hole in Tri-Met’s budget.
Never go downtown or anywhere where I have to pay to park. Nothing in those areas are worth going to enough to pay for and deal with parking.
Econline, in case you missed it, there’s a giant hole in PBOT’s budget, too. And PBOT already spends money covering TriMet on other things (like paving, because TriMet purposely overinflates tires on buses, which gets them better mileage, but then wears the pavement down faster).
@luckybulldog13pdx: Part of the idea is that you trade money for hassle. Ideally, the price would be set high enough that there is, on average, at least one open spot on each block, so dealing with parking is basically just parking where you want to go.
Of course, you could always take the bus.
An overlooked and hidden source of parking revenues is 1) elimination, 2) limiting hours of use or 3) charging parking fees for vehicles that use curbside loading zones within districts where high turnover (retail streets) is desirable. Business can often schedule off-hour deliveries or park around the corner. Clearly there is a need for some loading in downtown Portland and it should be accommodated. However, if PBOT is turning over every rock to find additional revenue, perhaps converting a few loading zones should be explored.
Do it, triple the rates! Also, enforce no talking on cells/texting to the tune of $142 per infraction = $$$$ bling!
Advocating higher parking meter fees? WTF ?
I should think you’d call the system in place ‘progressive’, as there is a choice between the bitch of finding cheaper parking or paying a flat rate rip-off at a garage.
Way to encourage sticking it to the little guys in your quest for a car-free downtown.
Also, it would have been fair to note recent parking ticket fees have gone up yet again, and are far too expensive.
I’m just pissed that I pay the same rate on my scooter as someone with a giant truck taking up ten times the space.
@luckybulldog-
The City should behave like any landlord: charge whatever the market will bear. The right of way, after all, is PUBLIC property. Why charge sub-market rates to people parking their private cars?
The City should charge variable rates, high enough to ensure that there’s typically one space available on any block face. The “ripoff” rates that off-street parking providers offer aren’t set by anything other than the market, and if anything, the on-street spaces (which are more convenient) should probably cost MORE than private, off-street parking spaces.
If the on-street prices were to get too high, people would park in the off-street lots, or they would ride a bike or a bus, or walk downtown. For example, you could park at a cheaper place across the river, and get some exercise walking downtown. Or you could simply stay out of downtown. Your choice.
What the hell, let’s charge for ALL on-street parking, right? To include in front of your house. I mean they are all public roads, right? Maybe we should charge bike-parking fees too, for those shnazzy public-bought bike-racks to lock yer bike up to.
The city isn’t a landlord, nor should they behave in such a way. If you guys had your way the downtown parking scene would be made up of all the rich folks that can afford to park their BMW on the street while the poor folk are left to only public transportation to the city center. Bullshit I say.
We shouldn’t look at parking meter fees as a main source of revenue for the PBOT simply because of the bone-headed choices PBOT has made in the past that are costing a fortune.
I wouldn’t object to a modest increase on public spots, but the truth is at some point, that extra cost would simply be a big disincentive to go out for fun downtown. Some people are not going to ride trimet or their bike to go out to lunch or dinner a few times a month. So that $100-$300 of entertainment spending that might go to a restaurant or bar or retail from people who don’t live within walking distance is going to go elsewhere, most likely to neighborhoods that have more affordable places to park. You may pay a premium for a sporting event, but not so likely for your average night out.
I’d be more inclined to support extension of metered parking into business districts outside downtown like NW 23rd and SE Hawthorne
Frankieb is right this time, at a certain point it just becomes another poverty tax. Not saying the rates couldn’t be hiked a little bit, but to compare them to some of the private lots is unfair, because not only can you typically leave your car there a lot longer, but they’re not really governed by the “free market” so much as by idiots who come down on Friday and Saturday nights.
As the city promotes non-car transportation options
JK: Unfortunately they are promoting an option that is costs MORE than driving, is slower and uses more energy (and hence emits more CO2) than driving a small car – Trimet!
proof at portlandfacts.com/top10bus.html
Thanks
JK
Nice article Sarah. It’d be interesting to know what the candidates for mayor think about this issue.
At this point, given the city’s budget situation, Portland is going to have either raise revenue somehow or stop paving streets (which will cost more in the long run). Charging folks who can afford to drive a bit more makes sense, especially considering that around 30% of traffic in downtown Portland is coming in from the suburbs and those folks wouldn’t be helping raise revenue much otherwise.
What about the fareless square? Talk about subsidy. And the streetcars, that are money losers.
Market based parking is not and should be about punitive actions towards a mode of travel or revenue generation. Unfortunately, some people are advocating that.
The purpose of market based parking is to make it easier to find parking, stop the circling of cars in neighborhoods finding parking, and to allow more open spots for businesses which need cars for retail activity.
Edit:
Should not be about***
@7 parking is less expensive than tri-met and they are talking about a 40 cent per ride increase for the bus. Progressive is transit that is running more often not less, and isn’t seeing double digit percentage increases year after year. People who are below the poverty line don’t drive their cars to their jobs downtown, they walk, ride bikes, or take the bus/max. The idea that subsidizing driving to downtown is somehow helping the poor make ends meet is one that has been disproved time after time.
@17 You are splitting hairs. How do you free up parking spaces without discouraging people to park there? Encouraging people who work downtown to use transit to free up parking spaces for customers is perfectly reasonable. Though the folks at my work certainly don’t get it, often taking up the spaces right in front of our store.
However, don’t forget that all of us taxpayers are subsidizing parking to the tune of $230 a month for the car-commuter tax benefit. I imagine that all of the large companies with underground parking are getting this subsidy (I mean providing this benefit)
The city makes a tidy sum (though probably not as much as the parking enforcement contractor) from parking tickets. If you raise the parking fees too much, people will be discouraged from parking curbside, which will decrease revenue from fines. So there is a balance to be struck from revenue, fines and turnover.
People who work downtown don’t park cars in these spaces and run out to plug the meter every hour.
This idea that we are ‘subsidizing’ parking is foolish.