Misunderstanding of Shoupian Theory Leads to Uninformed Attacks

Memo to the City of Los Angeles: stop trying to ruin Donald Shoup for the rest of us.

Back in 2008 and early 2009, city officials claimed to be following the teachings of the UCLA professor and Parking Rock Star/Guru when it announced increases in parking meter fees from throughout the city.  This has led to a misunderstanding of Shoup's teachings throughout the Southland.  Instead of a complex urban theory where funds raised from increased revenues spur redevelopment and lead to a reduction in local vehicle miles traveled, L.A.'s officials recognized Shoup's theory as "charge more for parking."

This fallacy, that the City of Los Angeles is somehow following Shoup's guidelines for parking and urban planning was on display in an otherwise sparkling profile of Shoup in this Saturday's Los Angeles Times.

But Los Angeles isn't really following the concepts outlined in Shoup's 2005 tome "The High Cost of Free Parking," they're just raising rates.  At the 2010 StreetSummit, Shoup himself distanced himself from L.A.'s parking schemes and even argued that there are many places where metered  parking fees are too high.

In the picture at the top of the article, we can see Shoup's three top concepts for parking reform, let's see how the city is doing.

According to Shoup himself, the city isn't doing a very good job of this.  After watching a Shoup presentation last March, I wrote:

In other words, the city isn't meeting the grade.

Nope, the city uses meter money to plug a hole in the general fund.

There is almost no inertia to reduce parking requirements for development.  Just look at the enormous parking garages that seem to spring up next to every Transit Oriented Develop highlighted by Metro.

Unfortunately, this misunderstanding of Shoup's theory leads to emotional attacks that aren't reality based.  And when there's an opportunity for someone to make a research-free attack on someone arguing that drivers should pay their fare share of the public's cost for their transportation decisions, City Watch columnist Charles Tarlow will be there.

Back in the spring of 2008, Tarlow went on a one person crusade against Congestion Pricing on Los Angeles' freeways.  Tarlow didn't let the reality that where congestion pricing has been tried it has won the approval of all economic classes in the region stop him from arguing that charging drivers for congestion free trips is a scam to benefit the rich.

Today, Tarlow argues against Shoupian theory because its asking drivers to sometimes pay more to temporarily store their private property on public streets.  Tarlow doesn't interrupt his rant to talk about the public benefits of true Shoupian theory beyond the benefit for drivers of having more access to meters.  Instead, following the lead of the Times' and politicians such as then Transportation Committee Chair Wendy Greuel, he boils down the entire "Cost of Free Parking" to:

As with his rants against congestion pricing, Tarlow is wrapping his argument in class warfare and claiming the mantle of supporting the car-owning poor.  As with congestion pricing, actual poor people would benefit most from Shoupian theory in a couple of ways.

The most obvious way is that a city that charges an appropriate rate for on-street parking and reinvests that money in the community will most likely have a thriving transit system.   For example, Boulder, Colorado pays for its award winning rapid bus system with parking meter fees (amongst other things).   Working poor in Boulder have a lot more transportation options than they would if Boulder embraced the Tarlow theory that car ownership is something that should be encouraged at the expense of everything else for people of all economic incomes.

Secondly, by eliminating parking requirements for new development, the cost of parking can be removed from the cost of renting or owning improved housing.  In other words, people who can't afford a car or don't want to drive one won't be paying for a parking space they don't want.