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by Melinda Tuhus | Jan 21, 2010 4:25 pm

(21) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

A parking guru gave New Haven a glimpse of what we look like from the sky—and then suggested removing some of the cars from the picture.

Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking, offered his slides and his prescriptions Tuesday night, at a gathering at Yale’s Harkness Hall. He was joined by Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us).

The crowd was mostly non-Yalies, including Joseph Marie, the state’s transportation commissioner; Mike Piscitelli, the city’s director of transportation, traffic and parking; and Matthew Nemerson, chairman of the city’s parking authority.

Melinda Tuhus Photo Shoup (pictured) showed aerial shots of New Haven to the capacity crowd. In the photos, buildings appeared to float in a sea of surface parking lots.

“New Haven has an awful lot of parking,” Shoup said. “If more parking were the solution to urban problems, New Haven would be a very prosperous city.”

He said parking infrastructure in most American cities is a “planning disaster.” It raises the cost of housing, promotes sprawl, harms the environment, and impedes the reuse of older buildings on properties that can’t comply with newer parking requirements.

His proposed solution, implemented in a number of cities around the country: charge the “right price” for parking – not too little (or free) and not too much so as to discourage people from coming downtown.

That could be done either by varying the price according to time of day, or by charging for length of stay, Shoup said. He said optimally, most parking spots would be full but there’d be enough open spaces to make finding a spot relatively easy.

Second, he proposed returning parking meter revenue to the neighborhoods that generate it, to pay for improvements neighbors and merchants want to see.

Then cities should remove or reduce off-street parking requirements, shrinking the amount of pavement surrounding urban buildings and facilitating the creation of more human-scaled development, he recommended.

Shoup argued that city planners use supposedly scientific counts in calculating requirements for off-street parking spaces. “No one can say how many spaces are really needed,” he maintained.

City traffic czar Piscitelli said he knows.

After the talk, city traffic czar Piscitelli was asked by a reporter if he knows the utilization rate of parking spots in downtown New Haven. He was ready with his answer.

“Every year we do a point in time count – the parking garages and all the meters,” he said. “This year we ran at approximately 85 percent [capacity].”

That puts the city right in line with Shoup’s guidelines. “We have a couple of garages on the table [proposed for construction], but they won’t get built until the demand truly justifies it,” Piscitelli added.

Responding to the aerial photos of surface parking galore, he said, “Around the medical district, about half of that land area is surface parking. So one of the efforts with [the city’s plans for redevelopoing] Route 34 is to build structured parking so we can build more office and residential [buildings], and allow the medical area to grow.” (Click here to read about the Route 34 proposal.)

“Donald Shoup’s message is critical,” train and bicycling advocate Richard Stowe argued during a post-talk discussion. Parking – something that should be market-priced, is treated as part of the commons,” and, he said, that has to change.

Parking authority Chairman Nemerson (pictured) said parking “is going to become a very complex political and financial issue over the next few years. A lot of the freedom to do the right thing in cities is limited by the fact that we have tiny cities in Connecticut and private ownership of land in the suburbs. We have to be careful not to price ourselves out of markets [and keeping people from coming into the city]. Any city is always battling with suburbs and their ability to price parking below them,” as evidenced by the oceans of free parking at suburban malls.

“We have to figure out how to maximize the value of those parking assets,” Nemerson continued. “They are crucial revenue producing assets, including from people who don’t live in our city.” And because of cutbacks from the state, that source of revenue becomes even more important.

He was asked if the city would consider reducing the amount of parking in an effort to “green” transportation options by encouraging more transit and bicycle commuting. Emphatically not, he resopnded. “We’re not going to be eliminating any parking. We [already] make sure that land and houses and streetscapes get as much priority as any city in Connecticut.”

The event was sponsored by Yale Transportation Options and the Yale Journalism Initiative.

Comments

posted by: inspector on January 21, 2010 5:58pm

esplain the east rock street cleaning parking ticket b.s. to me .. whose gettin that dough, huh? is that being returned to the neighborhood? I don’t think so. Or, maybe they’re using it to pay people to make potholes rather than filling them up. certainly no being used to police the streets. Cars drive up Bishop street faster then they go on 91. Bike theifs are seen regularly riding down the street with several bikes in their hands. blah blah blah

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on January 21, 2010 8:31pm

inspector…what are you talking about?

The idea about giving parking ticket revenues and meter revenues to the neighborhoods where they tickets and meters and given out and located was a suggestion for what we should do in the near future, not a comment on what is currently happening.
The presentations were about the current trends in and the problems with circulating and storing massive amounts of automobiles. Many of the questions asked at the end were about possible solutions to these issues and ways of enacting them.

posted by: Chris O on January 21, 2010 9:08pm

We need a mega enclosed parking garage along/ over 34. Dive in drive out from 34. It is the heart of where New Haven can and will grow. Nexus of harbor/ med/ union station/ downtown. Put a sports complex on top of it. Get the traffic out of downtown circling looking for parking.

posted by: Steve on January 21, 2010 9:39pm

I hope that the study and pre pre pre planning for streetcars and increased bus use are part of any real effort to improve transit, environment, and central New Haven use.

I like the idea of a replacement sports arena (our Coliseum was an asset that we tore down with out true study- however funny looking people thought). Maybe a smaller 5-6000 seat arena over a large parking structure as the previous person wrote.

posted by: Patricia Kane on January 21, 2010 9:42pm

As one of the area residents actively involved with the neighborhood’s own plans for the Route 34 area, I was appalled to see Mike Piscitelli
say:

So one of the efforts with [the city�s plans for redevelopoing] Route 34 is to build structured parking so we can build more office and residential [buildings], and allow the medical area to grow.�

That vision was overwhelmingly rejected previously, but appears to live on in City officials’ minds.

Even though the City is top heavy with non-tax paying property owners (and you know who you are), the City would further burden the Dwight, Hill and West River areas with additional pollution, buildings that empty at 5 PM and MORE parking lots!

Is anyone listening????????

The urban planners who delivered this home grown version of Fort Trumbull, the devastated area in New London, the neighborhood destroyed for a now abandoned development plan - just like Route 34 to no where, owe these neighborhoods the return of a human scale community with area scale buildings, parks like Wooster Square and streets that can be walked, biked and create the opportunity for daily interaction.

Right now the area is a wasteland that serves traffic twice a day but adds nothing to the neighborhood.

Planning has to stop being a top-down process. I live here. Which of the City officials involved in perpetuating this devastation can say that?

posted by: '10 on January 21, 2010 9:42pm

This article is a big tease without the aerial picture that keeps getting mentioned. Not available???

posted by: Morris Cove Mom on January 21, 2010 10:11pm

We need better bus service and routes. We have very weird times for the F and G buses to the Cove. If they were more regular, and with more consistent stops, my husband and I could get rid of a car! But now, we can’t, as the schedule of the buses won’t allow him to get to work anywhere near the right time. (And he works on the green!)

posted by: Tanner on January 22, 2010 12:23am

When a parking lot rises “Bitsey” Clark stomps her foot. Lets face it Yale
proffessors and staff want to park their cars at their office. And to many
people cite crime and safety is why they do not use the cement garages littering downtown. If people think downtown is unsafe how will the city planners think that yalies are going to venture over to Fair Haven?

posted by: Gabriela on January 22, 2010 12:25am

” said parking infrastructure in most American cities is a �planning disaster.� It raises the cost of housing, promotes sprawl, harms the environment, and impedes the reuse of older buildings on properties that can�t comply with newer parking requirements.”

This is exactly why GAVA & GASSD & our area Alders are fighting so hard to see a new zone code put in place that essentially is retro-fit to what exists - which is what “new urbanism” calls for. It’s very exciting.

“Second, he proposed returning parking meter revenue to the neighborhoods that generate it, to pay for improvements neighbors and merchants want to see.”
This has been used as a succesful toll in San Fran. to make sure that the merchants/business prop owners felt the positive impact of the change… however this is NOT an easy political thing to do in our neighborhoods…

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on January 22, 2010 1:41am

Chris O,
You are correct in that the first step is to get cars out of downtown, and the best way to accomplish this is to get people out of their cars and onto their feet, a bike, or a bus. This city should not have to worry about storing cars, it should worry about providing places of employment for its residents, providing good neighborhoods with good schools and adequate recreational space and shopping. Parking should be the very last thing on the list of stuff this city needs to do.

Patricia,
I completely agree. It perplexes me as to how the city justifies its current route 34 plan of continuing a car-oriented strip development. When we keep building unhealthy environments, its no wonder why medical related businesses are in such high demand-we create environments that make people sick and live unhealthy lives!

Morris Cove Mom,
That is really frustrating; I’ve had bad luck with the city bus system over the past month. Perhaps carpooling, biking, or driving to a more reliable transit stop is a solution. I think the Grand Avenue bus runs more regularly-you could park in Fair Haven Heights and take the bus from there. And if you can get a lot of neighbors to do that same, that would free up traffic to allow the buses to run more efficiently, which may convince more people to use it which would, over time, increase service.

These are the aerial shots shown and some others that I added, they are basically just places around that city that are mostly surface parking lots.
http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs122.snc3/16955_1218349493972_1085910074_30541228_1004969_n.jpg

http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs122.snc3/16955_1218349533973_1085910074_30541229_5603914_n.jpg

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs142.snc3/16955_1218349573974_1085910074_30541230_2361733_n.jpg

http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs142.snc3/16955_1218349613975_1085910074_30541231_1748550_n.jpg

posted by: robn on January 22, 2010 2:02am

I don’t buy it.

Mr.Shoup isn’t necessarily advocating reduction of driving, rather a different vision of parking.

In a roundabout way, he is promoting structured parking, which is supported by a glacial economic process; the cost of structured parking has to be amortized over many years. Truth is that its a lot easier to redevelop a surface lot than it is to tear down a financed structure.

In a very direct way, he is promoting market forces as a regulator of behavior, or rather, as a generator of good behavior… the invisible hand of the market is a false idol and the collapsed souffl� that used to be our economy is blatant proof.

posted by: Bill on January 22, 2010 8:07am

I avoid going into New Haven from Hamden, because parking is a problem and I would have to pay for parking. Recently I have experimented with taking the train to Stamford but have found that parking at Union station is quite expensive so I have returned to driving.

posted by: JCB on January 22, 2010 11:47am

Where’s Norton Street these days? I’m missing my morning chuckle.

posted by: The Count on January 22, 2010 2:36pm

Interesting: DeStefano would like to see another parking garage on the other side of Union Station for people to park their cars while they take the train. Am I missing something here?

posted by: abg on January 22, 2010 4:07pm

It’s important to understand that Shoup’s is a demand-side approach - it tells you how you should price whatever number of parking places you already have to achieve a desired equilibrium. But it has nothing to say about supply—that is, it doesn’t tell you how many parking places you should have. If a city already has low parking fees and its utilization rate is below 85%, it shouldn’t lower its parking rates to raise the utilization rate, it should simply eliminate spaces. Also it’s important to add that while metered parking in San Francisco is an “exorbitant” $3.50/hr, it’s mitigated somewhat by a generous system of validated parking, which helps buttress support for performance-based pricing among local businesses. The validated parking is also based partly on the number of people in your car, which helps to encourage carpooling.

posted by: Moses Boone on January 22, 2010 5:21pm

New Haven, New Heaven or New Hell?
New Haven already has a plethora of problems from having 2 major highways from running through it as well as the oil depot and electrical power station coupled with PSEG’s peak power station planed. If someone wants to attract people to a city or region then make it clean, make it attractive and safe. In the 50’s the acceptable recipe was to build highways and malls; and then bigger malls and larger highways to the bigger malls. The last I heard they were losing money. So why continue to use a formula which is not in tune with the times or the sentiments of the urban citizenry? Either we change the program or the individuals supposedly in charge of working for their employer, it’s citizens!

posted by: garages on January 23, 2010 12:18pm

patricia kane, I think he was saying build one or two large parking structures so you could then take away other parking lots and replace them with residential/mixed use. Residential and mixed use (offices/labs/restaurants/etc) would bring the return of human scale community you mention. If you replace a flat paved parking lot with a 5 story garage you can then replace several other flat paved lots with residential/mixed use/maybe even a park or garden. Not sure if this is what they have in mind or not but I think building a couple large garages up is good if it means a smaller footprint of parking areas. Not that I’m a fan of parking garages, but I’d rather have a five story garage on one acre, and 4 acres of well planned mixed use, rather than 5 acres of parking lots.

posted by: robn on January 23, 2010 7:08pm

Mr. Stroup’s suggestion isn’t to reduce a problem, but to tweak the economics of the problem and also to stack the problem vertically instead of horizontally.

posted by: I love chee-zits on January 25, 2010 12:09pm

As Albert Einstein, “The thinking that got us into this situation is not the thinking to get us out of this situation.”

posted by: WalkBikeCT on January 26, 2010 2:46pm

“It�s important to understand that Shoup�s is a demand-side approach - it tells you how you should price whatever number of parking places you already have to achieve a desired equilibrium. But it has nothing to say about supply�that is, it doesn�t tell you how many parking places you should have”

Exactly, abg. Mr. Shoup has given us an excellent answer on how to price the parking we have. He has not taken the next step and determined what the ideal amount of parking should be for a community, or even if there is such a thing as the ideal amount of parking. I’m hoping he delves into this issue in his next book, assuming there is a next book.

posted by: Moses on January 26, 2010 3:50pm

In Europe, architectural treasures were dissolving before their eyes due to acid rain and it still is. Local governments have begun to resort to measures which would reduce the petroleum based transportation methods via higher tolls, supporting renewable energy for public transportation and encouraging walking and bicycling. We can not encourage walking and bicycling without increasing all round personal safety and security.
I would endorse a larger centralized parking facility if it were limited to alternative fuel vehicles with recharging capabilities( electric, hydrogen, air,). Otherwise leave your carbon cars in your neighborhood. Where ever that might be.

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