About half way through the above video, KTLA's Eric Spillman talks to the L.A. Marathon's Peter Abraham about the transportation plan for people wishing to be at the end of the marathon.  Under KTLA's banner of "Parking Problems," Abraham rationally explains that you should probably bike (free bike valet!) or take transit to the end of the race.  That's when things go off the tracks if you will.

Spillman (panicked): But there will be enough parking, theoretically.

Abraham (bemused): Theoretically, there is...

A couple of moments later, Spillman and the anchors have the following discussion

Anchor Woman: ...I am a little concerned about one suggestion.  If you're going to run in the marathon, ride your bike there?  Isn't it enough that you're going to be running 26.2 miles?

Anchor Man (pumping his arms and looking ridiculous): YOU GOTTA GET WARMED UP!

Spillman: No, no, no, no, no.  Mostly it's about the spectators.  You can park a few blocks away, from the finish here; which is Ocean Ave. and Santa Monica Boulevard here in Santa Monica.  Then, you can get on your bike and ride here and avoid a lot of parking problems.

(Graphic: ITDP)

"There was a 35-year parking coma during which the federal government, cities, and environmentalists forgot why parking was important," said John Kaehny, who co-authored the report with Matthew Rufo and UPenn professor Rachel Weinberger. "This study shows people are starting to wake up and understand that parking is one of the most important influences on how cities work and what form of travel people choose to use."

The early 70s parking limits beat back the cycle of more car storage, wider roadways, and greater sprawl that decimates urban areas. The underlying idea was simple: Manage the supply of parking, and you can reduce the demand for driving. Yet in America this notion has gone largely unheeded, even in cities.

Instead, the authors note, parking policy is typically divorced from transportation policy and goals like reducing congestion or encouraging walking and biking. In most of our urban areas, planners determine parking volumes using suburban standards, drawing heavily on ill-suited recommendations in "Parking Generation," a manual published by the Institute for Transportation Engineers. The product is abundant, cheap parking -- much of which sits unused most of the time.

Fully 99 percent of car trips in America end in free parking, an incentive that crowds out all other modes of transportation. "Even when the price of parking is free," said Weinberger, "it’s far from free."

The resulting congestion impedes the effectiveness of transit. Traffic volumes and double-parking make bicycling less pleasant and more dangerous. Walkable environments give way to curb cuts, dead walls, and land-devouring parking facilities that spread destinations farther apart. The whole vicious cycle is heavily subsidized, with the cost of parking absorbed into the price of everything from housing to movie tickets.

"In a time of economic distress, we can’t afford to continue these policies,"  said ITDP's Michael Replogle. "Continuing to subsidize parking is very costly for all of us."

Surface parking in downtown Minneapolis. (Photo: ITDP/Zachary Korb)

In San Francisco and New York, programs to bring the price of curbside parking more in line with off-street parking are reducing the incentive to cruise endlessly for a cheap spot. In Portland, planners have reduced parking requirements for new development near transit lines, helping to improve walkability and increase ridership.

LAist and the Times both report that the Los Angeles City Council Budget and Finance Committee approved a plan to partially privatize city-owned parking garages, but not meters, for the next fifty years to help fill a massive budget hole in the short term.  The city is hoping to raise $189 million from the transaction which would basically be a 50-year outsourcing of the garages’ management and profits. Some of the management and profits would remain with the city, and some experts are pointing to other aspects of the plan which could lower the city's $189 million asking price and hamper efforts to bring major reform to our city's already wasteful parking strategies.

At the news website Market Urbanism, Stephen Smith, who is of no relation to the Fox News commetator with the same name, writes:

Whereas pure privatization would mean selling the buildings and underlying land to anyone for any use, this scheme is actually a 50-year outsourcing of the garages’ management (mostly, at least) and profits (again, mostly). The new “owners” could only use the structures to park cars, and using them to house people and businesses that would increase the walkability of the areas where the garages are located is out of the question.

True privatization would also bring in more money for the city, which is the stated goal of the privatization. The garages would be worth more if they were being sold with complete development rights, and the tax revenues from whatever’s built on them (not to mention possible increases in adjacent properties’ values) would probably exceed the “small negotiated share of future proceeds” that the city “could retain.”

The only possible benefit I can see to this plan is that parking rates will move upwards towards the true market price. But even that would be too much for the city to stomach, as the city would “retain authority over parking rates at the garages” – and who wants to guess which way they’ll be pressured to push prices?

One of the main complaints about the privatization plan in Chicago is that the investors are reaping windfall benefits from raising meter and garage rates to their actual market value, a move the city was loathe to make.  Under the city's plan, there is no potential for this backlash, because our City Council people who always seem to lack the will to charge people what they should for parking, if they did there would be no reason to sell of this revenue stream for such a long period of time that anyone reading this today will be retired, so it's even more unlikely that they will be interested in raising the rates to benefit someone else.

The Times reports that the garages that will be leased include ones in Westwood, Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys, Hancock Park, the Westside and Studio City. Combined, the garages have 8,398 spaces.

Under fire for sensible legislation. Photo: AP

After the jump will be a series of links and quotes to help you find the outlets discussing the legislation and the best way to either comment or send a letter to the editor.  Note how many of the articles and opinions complain about the quest to "get rid of free parking."  Of course, nobody is proposing any such thing.

Long Beach Press-Telegram: Less Parking Isn't Better
How to Comment: You can comment at the end of the article, or send a letter to the editor to speakout@presstelegram.com

The bill says that excessive parking demands by local government sometimes stymie development projects, and employers worsen traffic congestion when they give employees free parking. Maybe so, but it's hard to imagine how shifting the rule-making to Sacramento will make anything better.

The bill already has been approved by the Democrat-dominated Senate. It is opposed by Republicans, who rightly take the position that parking decisions should be local decisions.

Long Beach Press-Teletram: Alan Lowenthal Says Bill Doesn't Ban Free Parking (The article itself isn't bad, but the comments section is crazed)
How to Comment: You can comment at the end of the article, or send a letter to the editor to speakout@presstelegram.com

State Sen. Alan Lowenthal said Monday that a bill he wrote to encourage cities, counties and businesses to reduce parking, traffic congestion and greenhouse gases has been taken out of context.

Talk radio hosts, bloggers and editorial pages took aim at the Long Beach Democrat, arguing that his Senate Bill 518 seeks to ban free parking in California.

Not true, the senator said.

Los Angeles Times: State Lawmakers Take Aim at Free Parking
How to Comment: You can comment at the end of the article, or send a letter to the editor at this link

Reporting from Sacramento - State lawmakers are taking aim at what some of them see as a menace to California's environment: free parking.

Los Angeles Times: Letters to the Editor (Will refresh tomorrow):
How to Comment: Send a letter to the editor at this link

Congratulations, state Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), you are the new poster child for our remarkably dysfunctional Legislature.

Why are you wasting your time and the taxpayers' money worrying about local parking lots instead of fixing the problems of the state government and the Legislature, which is your job?

LA Now: Free Parking?  Not if One California Lawmaker Gets His Way
How to Comment: You can comment at the end of the article, or send a letter to the editor at this link

stopthem wrote: Lowenthal!!! why don't you do something good for CA residence and stop worrying about your friends who want to make money of parking. People of Long Beach when its time to vote again, please put someone in office who actually cares for people not someone who is just there to serve their own interests. We are struggling financially and our legislators don't care, all they want is more rules, regulations and laws so they can tell us "you did wrong, now pay up" I really think it is about time that WE THE PEOPLE of California put a stop to these useless and tyranic legislators with all the ridiculous ideas and rules.

But in California, environmentalists say all that free parking comes at too high a cost- in greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists say if people drove less, there would be an environmental benefit.

With the support of green groups, the state senate passed a plan offering cities and counties financial incentives to slash the number of free parking spaces on the street and in government-owned lots, and to reduce the number of free spaces businesses are required to provide.

Town Hall: Californians Lose Their Parking Privileges
How to Comment: Right there at the end of the article

Just when you thought environmental extremists couldn’t go any further, they surprise you with yet another ploy in their never-ending quest to turn back modernity. With the public push-back on the cap-and-trade scheme and creating man-made droughts to save a 2-inch fish, environmentalists have become craftier in their efforts. Always the vanguard of the latest environmental regulation, California has a new idea for getting polluters out of their cars: get rid of free parking.

Last week, the California State Senate passed S.B. 518, by Long Beach Democrat Alan Lowenthal, that would limit the amount of free parking that new developments could offer by incentivizing smart growth strategies in local planning ordinances and requiring that developers itemize the cost of each parking space.  The legislation will be referred to the Assembly, where it will go through at least one committee before qualifying for a floor vote.  At the time of publication, the bill had not been assigned to an Assembly committee.

As we've come to expect, when a well-reasoned piece of legislation moves forward that dares challenge the Car Culture status quo, the reaction is hysteria.  The legislation passed the Senate Appropriations Committee by a nearly party-line 7-5 vote with a similar result, 21-12 in the Senate.  Suburban newspapers are already taking aim at the legislation in their editorial pages, and when the Los Angeles Times covered the bill's passage, the first two paragraphs of the article sounded extremely skeptical of the legislation's basic premise: that free parking is a problem for urban planners to overcome, not something that should be worked for.

Yesterday, the Times re-posted the story in its LA Now blog, emphasizing some of the crazier comments from the entitled Car Culture Warriors.  Lowenthal's legislation is one of the most progressive pieces of parking reform legislation in the country, and instead of celebrating this accomplishment, our entitled car-driving friends and neighbors lose their minds.  Here's a sampling of some of the comments the Times chose to highlight:

We need to vote these job killers out of office -- starting from the top! CA has the highest taxes on earth and they want (STEAL!!) more and more from the citizens.

and

This guy probably came out of a meeting specifically called to think of new ideas for non-tax, revenue generating schemes that can be put in place without voter feedback. As usual, the big picture is not taken into account.

and, my personal favorite,

Over the past 3 years living in downtown LA I've paid over $1,000 in tickets towing and meter fees. This state is starting to feel unconstitutional.

Photo:rsfrd/Flickr

However, just as the city is being ringed with cities that are shaming it's bike planning; other areas of Southern California are embracing a more progressive way of looking at parking.  For example, in Ventura County, a new parking policy that went into place in November emphasizes that developments that encourage walking or taking transit doesn't have to provide the same level of parking as one that does not. 

There are several other changes to their development code worth noting.  In addition to the parking requirement reform, the new code also requires parking lot to be behind buildings instead of in the front, better landscaping and a plan for pedestrian access.  It's a far cry from having a maximum number of car parking spaces per development, which is the Holy Grail of parking reform, but it's a heck of a start. 

If you're interested in reading the specifics of the plan, you can read the actual code here, Section 8108, or a slightly less dry companion piece, Parking and Loading Design Guidelines.  Or for a more succinct summary, check out Where the Sidewalk Starts, a Ventura County Planning Blog, that breaks down all the changes in plain English.

I don't write too often about the film industry or celebrity business here because the lives of L.A.'s celebrities seems to be in a different universe than the one most Angelenos live in.  When there's something exciting or different going on, such as the "Rebel Without a Car" production of "At What Price," we certainly take notice.  But a story forwarded me today is so dripping with Car Culture outrage, it was just too good to ignore.

Sharon Waxman, a columnist at The Industry rag, The Wrap, spends her most recent column spewing outrage at the power-agency Creative Artist Agency (CAA's) decision not to validate for vehicle parking. 

This was a shocking breach of Hollywood etiquette just months after the talent agency moved out of Mike Ovitz's I.M. Pei-designed lair in central Beverly Hills.

And it was particularly painful because some of us had already noticed that parking was a sickening $34 for a couple of hours. That rates as the highest parking fees uncovered by Waxword in a completely unofficial Hollywood survey.

Now I'm told that the agency has saved something like $800,000 a year by cutting out validation. Paradoxically, I'm also told that the agency had a fabulous year, and that all the senior people are getting their bonuses.

In short, CAA decided to save over three-quarter of a million dollars by requiring that people who do business with them to either pay for a parking fee or FIND ANOTHER WAY TO GET TO THEIR HEADQUARTERS.  I get that traveling to Avenue of the Stars isn't the most pleasant trip, I've done it myself by bicycle, but Waxman doesn't even consider other options besides driving and paying the fee.  The outrage continues.

Doesn't seem right to me. As a result of this un-hospitality, visitors to CAA   - really, I'm not kidding - have taken to parking at the Century City mall about a half-mile away, and walking to the hulking glass monolith. At least at the mall you get two hours for free. I'd like to see Natalie Portman and Nic Cage taking that hike. No, seriously.

You know what's really awesome about this?  The Metro 16/316 runs down Santa Monica Boulevard and drops people off a couple of blocks from CAA's offices.  I know that CAA didn't make the decision for the good of the environment and because they're Shoupians at heart; but this sense of entitlement oozing from Waxman's writing, that it's CAA's job to pay for her transportation choices, is just overpowering.

Oh, and seriously? I would be willing to bet that Portman and Cage don't cruise for parking.

Only two cities of more than a million people are known to have a bicycling mode-share over 30 percent: Amsterdam and Copenhagen. As Rutgers urban expert John Pucher has documented, cycling's vibrantly high percentage of urban trips throughout Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany was not the product of amorphous cultural factors. Rather, it came about through public policies that not only made cycling safe and convenient but also made driving costly and cumbersome.

Free parking for electric cars would go against the grain of longstanding policies, like the decision to pedestrianize the Strøget, shown here in 1935, when private cars were still allowed. Photo: Copenhagenet.

The government of Denmark this week unveiled a package of incentives to jump-start the sale and use of electric cars. As the New York Times reported on Wednesday, each new electric car comes not just with a per-purchase subsidy of $40,000, but with this stunning perk: free parking in downtown Copenhagen.

Free parking, as UCLA Professor Don Shoup has taught us, comes with a high cost: greater car use. The more valuable and pricey the parking space, the greater the inducement to drive when it is given away. In the case of downtown Copenhagen, where parking probably goes for the U.S. equivalent of $25 a day, the inducement will be powerful indeed.

Consider a resident of metropolitan Copenhagen headed downtown from, say, 10 miles away. Even with petrol taxed to a price of $8 a gallon, the fuel cost of the 20-mile round-trip in a 32 mpg car is just five bucks. That's pocket change next to the $25 parking cost. But make parking free, and the $30 car trip can now be made for $5. Econometric models using price-elasticity suggest that the number of trips will roughly triple as a result -- at least until the resulting traffic chokes off some of the increase.

Granted, the parking subsidy applies only to electric cars, so for a while the surge might remain a trickle. But once put in place, subsidies are hard to withdraw. Eventually, the increase in use of electric cars for commuting and other trips into the heart of Copenhagen will take mode share from cycling, walking and transit -- not just directly due to the subsidy for driving, but indirectly because those "green modes" will have become less efficient, less safe, and less valued by society.

But perhaps the most jarring aspect of the new policy is the way the national government is cloaking it in green.

As the Times reported:

"We want to be a test and laboratory country for electric cars, hybrid cars and other new technology," said Lars Barfoed, the Danish minister of transport. "And as host of the climate change conference, that’s made us feel responsible and want to show the world we can do something."

"Doing something" apparently refers to supplying the battery-charging stations with kilowatts generated by wind turbines, which now account for a world-beating 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. While effective use of wind power is a big carbon plus, subsidizing electric car use could easily end as a net negative if it pushes the travel mix to more car use and undermines Copenhagen's urban vitality.

Denmark and Copenhagen are hardly alone in being blinded by alternate-fuel vehicles' green halo. The 2007 Bloomberg congestion pricing plan specified a two-thirds discount for "clean-fuel" trucks, despite the dwindling air quality advantage as cleaner diesel fuels and engines are phased in anyway, and in seeming denial of the additional traffic congestion (as well as reduced toll revenues to support transit).

The veteran energy and transportation specialist Lee Schipper wrote recently in a related context:

Creating a zero-carbon car for China tomorrow won't solve the much bigger problems of urban congestion, traffic fatalities and the paving over of once-beautiful cities to make room for more cars. The discussions should back up. Energy is only a means to an end. What are the ends, urban access and mobility, or cars for a small minority?

Wise words for Danes and Americans alike.

City parking meters are a gold mine, and in Chicago, Morgan Stanley is rolling in parking riches. Secret company documents leaked to reporters show the company will rake in a 70 percent profit margin this year from its $1.15 billion, 75-year lease of Chicago's parking meters. This profit is on top of the millions Morgan paid to buy new, high-tech meters. The good times will keep on rolling for investors: In 2010, after another meter price hike, Morgan expects to make monthly profits of $4.8 million, roughly 55 percent higher than in 2009.

Graphic: New York Times/Chicago News Cooperative.

Streetsblog has been following the Chicago parking privatization closely because it is the poster child for all that can go wrong with Public Private Partnerships, or PPPs. The basic idea behind a PPP is that the government leases public transportation infrastructure -- say a bridge, highway, airport, or parking meters -- that can generate user fees. In exchange for the fees, a private investor pays the government a large upfront fee or assumes the cost of improving the infrastructure. PPPs are popular in Europe, especially at airports.

Sustainable transportation advocates should care about PPPs for a number of reasons. First, politicians and bureaucrats are captivated by the fantasy that PPPs are the ultimate free lunch, generating billions in transportation investment at no cost to the taxpayer. President Obama's euphemism for PPPs is "creative financing." Here in New York, state officials have repeatedly presented a PPP as the way to raise billions for the astronomical cost of replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge. This is dangerous thinking. PPPs do inflict a cost, and it's a big one. Huge amounts of revenue that could be directed to public transit, or crucial road and bridge repair, is instead going to Wall Street.

The second concern is that PPPs allow public officials to skew the public planning and review process and put private profit before public benefit. A private investor has tremendous leverage over what gets built if they are the government's main financing option. The investor's goal is to make money, not to produce the greatest public benefit over many decades.

Despite the latest revelation, Chicago is only beginning to recognize the inherent problems with privatizations. According to the Times, Alderman Scott Waguespack introduced a measure that would require an "independent third-party valuation" of major asset lease proposals before any future privatization deal is completed. The legislation would require "a comparison of public retention and private leasing over the life cycle of the agreement." This could serve as an important safeguard, but so far, the measure only has 12 co-sponsors among the council's 49 other members.

When it comes to building new developments in the Bay Area, especially in San Francisco, the battle over limiting the construction of new parking spaces is pitched. Parking reform advocacy organizations like Livable City, which maintains a listserv populated by car-free and livable-city advocates keeping a keen watch on planning commission parking exemptions, have long encouraged city leaders to tighten the parking-to-unit ratios in dense neighborhoods flush with transit and bicycling options.

Photo: Matthew Roth

And who should they hang for granting variances permitting higher than 2:1 ratios, as happened last week when a two-unit home at 2626 Larkin Street in Russian Hill received permission from the San Francisco Planning Commission to build five parking spaces, one with a parking stacker for additional cars?

When these questions are asked of city planners and developers, like they were during the struggle to limit parking at 299 Valencia Street, advocates and political leaders are led to believe that it is impossible to finance new developments, particularly condos and non-rental properties, without the maximum parking ratio possible. Less parking, goes the developer refrain, banks will refuse to loan and the units will be impossible to re-sell.

Not all developers buy that argument, however, and some have buildings that disprove it.

"If you are doing a project next to BART or many buses, you really don't need to have a lot of cars," said Oz Erickson, Chairman of the Emerald Fund, Inc, a developer who has built more than 2,000 units in San Francisco. Emerald's newest development, a rental building at 333 Harrison Street in Rincon Hill, will be built with a .5:1 parking-to-unit ratio, even though the developer could appeal for a variance to build more parking.

Above all else, Erickson argued, a city should provide as much flexibility in developments as possible. "You really should be in a position where zoning laws do not require you to put in parking," he said.

Patrick Kennedy's Gaia Building in Berkeley has 91 units and only 35 parking spaces. Photo: jeremydw

Referring to cyclists and others who don't own cars: "I think it's important to provide them with an opportunity to live a car-free life if they choose to."

Clarence Eckerson Jr., the mad genius behind Streetfilms, believes that the next frontier of activist journalism isn't going to be written blogs but video blogs.  Sometimes, when I look at the performance of your average Streetfilm  compared to the hits one of my best researched and most popular stories, it's hard to argue with him.

Picking up the mantle of citizen journalist is USC Junior Matt Schraeder who's story on how the city will ticket cars parked on streets due for cleanings is pretty much a must-see piece of journalism.  While you're not going to confuse the above piece with a Streetfilm, Schraeder does take the needed steps to take the film beyond your run-of-the-mill time elapse video to a worthy, well-rounded news story.   He manages to interview officials in the LADOT and Parking Enforcement.  Just add some music, get rid of the sympathy for drivers who park illegally and we're in business!

While you won't catch me crying crocodile tears for the drivers in Schraeder's piece, it's not like they know the streets isn't going to be cleaned when they make their parking decisions, there is a major issue with this ticketing practice.  The City of Los Angeles is in desperate need of parking reform, which should include more rate increases and longer metered hours.  The more the city decides to use the new funds to fill a hole in the general fund and the more it hands out tickets that are more likely to enrage than educate; the harder and more politically unfeasible it is going to be for politicians to make the right decision when it comes to parking pricing and reform.

It's been six months, to the day, since we last checked in on the Mayor's desire to privatize the city's parking meters and publicly owned parking garages.  Under the Mayor's draft plan, the city would get an as of yet undisclosed amount of money to turn over the money generated by its parking assets.

While half a year hasn't been enough time for J.P. Morgan Chase to finish the study which would tell the city how much to expect for the sale of its meters.  While we wait for the investment firm to encourage the city to its cash cow for a handful of magic beans, there have been some changes in the privatization front from around the United States.

First, in Chicago, where meters were privatized under a deal with Morgan Stanley, it looks as though the city was more than fleeced.  Writing for Streetsblog back in June, John Kaehny writes that while the city received $1.3 billion for a seventy five year lease, it will cost those parking nearly $975 million in income that could have gone towards nearly anything.  While Chicago pols made a short-term political calculation, the city handed over a staggering 146% rate of return for the investors.  In other words, let the seller beware when taking advice from investment firms when it comes to pricing their meters.

Of course, there are also smart growth and urban planning reasons not to hand over street parking to investors.  Most importantly, it effectively kills efforts of communities to remove street parking and better opening the street to all users.  Chicago communities are already complaining that they've lost control of their streets that are now in the hands of private investors.

Of course, the Mayor's office isn't pushing privatization because it's good urban policy.  It's pushing it because it's looking for a quick fiscal fix during the recession and decreasing tax receipts.  Bad news on that front too.

USA Today reports that the money to purchase public infrastructure is drying up as the recession continues. 

A rush by state and local governments to sell roads, bridges and airports to private operators in return for eye-popping upfront sums has all but collapsed in the recession.

That could leave taxpayers on the hook for more of the $200 billion a year needed to maintain the nation's transportation system, according to federal estimates.

An era of privately operated infrastructure seemed near when Chicago leased its 7-mile Skyway for $1.8 billion in 2003 and Indiana leased a 157-mile toll road for $3.8 billion in 2006, deals that had other governments rushing to cash in, too.

USA Today's story takes their story in the opposite direction as Kaehny's, but that's because they are only examining highway projects.  Highway investors are losing their shirts, because people are driving less, but metered parking, which still undercuts parking in private lots, isn't seeing the same decreases.

All of this points to a need for the city to advance very slowly.  We know from a Livable Streets standpoint that privatization is a bad idea because it limits the public's ability to control their own streets.  What we don't know is fiscally how to evaluate whether or not the deals are good ideas in either the short or long term.  Let's hope the city treads carefully and that there are plenty of chances for the public to weigh in before the city sells our cash cow for good.

Photo by Amber Rhea via Flickr.

The state law requiring cash out parking had several problems. Chief among them is that only the state could enforce the ban. Making matters worse, an October of 2008 report by the City of Los Angeles revealed that the City couldn't tell you how many employees a company has and how spaces at a particular lot are valued.  At the time, the city decided to require employers to inform the city how many employees it had when applying for business licenses.  The City hoped they would have a full inventory of employers size by the end of 2011.

To address one of the other enforcement issues, the Governor signed legislation by State Senator Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) that allows municipalities and air quality boards to enforce the cash-out mandate instead of just state agencies.   When she chaired the transportation committee, enforcing the cash-out requirement was a favorite issue of now-Comptroller Wendy Greuel. Armed with new enforcement powers as of January 1 of this year, it will be interesting to see if Chairman Rosendahl is as interested in making this a priority for the City as his predecessor.

Unfortunately, the Governor vetoed AB 1186, introduced by Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield (D-SFV) which would have required building owners to put a value on parking spaces when renewing a lease with a current renter or opening a new lease. That way, employers would know how much money should be awarded the car-free commuter. For example, a $100,000 lease under the old law would say $100,000 with $90,000 for office space and $10,000 for parking. Why did the Governor veto the legislation? Apparently, he was worried it was too much work.

With respect to this bill, although well-intended, I am concerned about placing an additional burden on commercial property owners at this time. It is my hope that better enforcement will shed more light on the challenges and effectiveness of this program

With respect to Governor Schwarzenegger, as long as he continue to speak in platitudes about improving air quality, but isn't willing to address the details that turn his good intentions into reality; many of his environmental goals are nothing more than rhetorical Greenhouse Gas. 

While it's good news to give more agencies power to enforce a law that rewards and encourages a car-reduced lifestyle, in this case the Governor is passing the buck on enforcing a law that state agencies haven't touched and not allowing them all the tools they need to enforce it right.  How does he expect employers to provide this benefit, and municipalities to make them do so, if nobody has an idea how much the "free" parking for car-dependent employees is?

While taking my cat to the pet store earlier today, I noticed that at some point in the past month the automobile parking signs on Beverly Boulevard had changed.  It used to be that cars could park for two hours at metered spaces, the meters expired at 6:00 P.M. and there were no Sunday parking hours.  Given that I've never parked at the new metered areas, that extend from La Brea all the way to LA Cienega; I decided to check with some local businesses to see what changes they noticed since the signs have went up.

The answer, at least along my part of Beverly, is "not much."  Urban Pet, the local pet store, didn't even notice the change.  However, they have their own parking lot and U-Racks for bikes so they're probably not the best data point. 

So, I checked with the staff at Terroni's, and Italian restaurant.  They hadn't noticed either.  Although in their case it wasn't a parking lot but a valet service and a rental agreement with the local post office that shielded them.  I popped my head into a couple of boutiques, none of whom said parking changes had effected business.

However, I know this lack of outrage is hardly typical of what goes on what meter rates go up and hours are extended.  So, I'm giving you homework this weekend.  If meter prices or hours have changed in your neck of the woods, go out and check with at least one local business to find out how the changes are effecting their bottom line and leave me a comment below.

At last week's meeting of the City Council Transportation Committee, LADOT's Alan Willis presented on the status that the DOT has made with the owners of the Greek Theatre, Hollywood Bowl, Coliseum, Sports Arena, former Olympic Auditorium and Dodger Stadium in getting these traffic attractors to pay for their own traffic officers. In response to the budget crisis, the city has cut the budget to pay for special event traffic and parking officers for their events from $6 million to $2 million.

While the reasons for this cut have less to do with transportation policy and more to do with budgetary reasons; it's good and overdue to see the city ending what is basically a subsidy for drivers. After all, now that these agencies are going to pay their own way on traffic control, they'll probably pass the real transportation costs of the event on to the people that drive to the venue. 

Naturally, the response from the media is that Carmageddon may be upon us.

The Times ran the understated headline "Los Angeles budget crisis' main event: gridlock" for an article that actually took pains to explain that the change would lead to a very small decrease in the number of traffic officers on the street.  KPCC called the effort to force private corporations to pay for their own traffic control a "bailout," before a detailed article on the loans and other moves made by the Council to support the LADOT.

As a matter of fact, only the Sports Arena is going to opt out of paying for city traffic control officers so fans of sports, theater and music won't see much of a change on the street, but may eventually see a change in the parking costs as agencies seek the easiest way to recoup the costs of the parking control officers.

Signaled out for special praise both at the Council meeting by Willis and in the Times article was the Los Angeles Dodgers who quickly struck a deal with the city that removed only one person from one intersection leaving three traffic control officers at that place.  Howard Suskin, speaking on behalf of the Dodgers, explains.

"We believe that working cooperatively with the department of transportation that we have a deployment plan that will have no interruptions," said Howard Sunkin, senior vice president of the McCourt Group, which owns the Dodgers. "The level of service at those intersections for our fans and our neighborhoods will continue."

It's too bad that commitment to their fans doesn't extend to transit users.  You may remember that the Dodgers refused to lift a finger to continue last season's free Dodger Shuttle bus service and even sneered at the city's efforts at a public event.

Some ideas just refuse to die.  Less than a year after the City of Los Angeles moved to end it's free-meter parking for hybrids program, a new proposal to allow only the highest tech and cleanest cars to park for free has resurfaced.  The Council resolution asking LADOT to study the program was introduced by Council President Eric Garcetti and sponsored by Downtown Council Woman Eric Garcetti and "Tom LaBonge for Bill Rosendahl."  Despite the presence of LaBonge and Rosendahl as sponsors of the legislation, they led Transportation Committee in expressing concerns with the newest free-parking for expensive, high-tech, cars scheme.

Garcetti's resolution would apply to many less vehicles than the program that was scrapped earlier this year.  Instead of all hybrids that qualified for the state's HOV exemption sticker, only the cleanest cars would qualify.  Only electric and zero-emission vehicles would qualify, cars which get a white sticker, pictured above, from the state.  While the state no longer hands out the more ubiquitous yellow stickers to fuel-efficient hybrids, it is still handing out the white stickers to those that can afford it.

One of the main objections that Council Transportation Committee Chair Bill Rosendahl had with the old free-parking plan when he single-handidly stood up to unanimous opposition on the Council and eventually succeeded in ending that program; was that the program was not encouraging people to buy hybrids but rewarding them for doing so.  Because there were no more yellow stickers being handed out, the program wasn't providing an incentive for people to buy hybrid cars.  This argument resonated with the Council and the program was halted.

While that argument won't have the same strength this time, there are still plenty of reasons to not give away parking to zero emission vehicles as an incentive for people to buy them.  While there are plenty of economic reasons and transportation reasons to not give away parking.

First, the economic ones.  While the city doesn't yet know how much revenue they would lose if the program went forward, we do know that there would be some loss.  Conversely, we have no idea if the program would lead to one more zero-emission vehicle being purchased.  As the State Senate and Assembly begin debate on whether to renew the "Access Ok" program due to expire in 2011, Caltrans has admitted there is no way to track whether or not even one vehicle has been purchased as a result of their giveaway.  When asked, Amir Sedadi, representing LADOT, couldn't give a firm answer as to how many cars had been purchased as a result of the city's parking giveaway.

This argument had the most traction with the Councilmen present.  Councilman LaBonge, who is trying to reduce the parking meter hours for business areas in his district, expressed concern that this program would require higher rates for other drivers.  When reminded, Councilman Rosendahl remembered his quote to the Daily News last January that:

...there's plenty of other great benefits to having a clean-fuel car.  With the city budget in the shape it's in, we can't afford to leave any 'gold in the gutter.'

From a transportation angle, such a proposal would also add Vehicle Miles Traveled (V.M.T.) to metered areas.  As Donald Shoup has taught, and Santa Monica has learned, when you give away parking you reduce the chance that people will pay for it elsewhere.  In other words, cars will cruise for spaces adding an average of a mile to each trip taken to a metered area by a white-stickered car.

Joe Linton raised a different concern at the hearing, quoting an old riddle.  "When does a Prius and a hummer have the same carbon footprint?  When they're parked."  Linton's point was that a parking space has a carbon footpring and environmental cost by itself and giving them away in the name of clean air is a bit of an oxymoronic idea.

I should note that the LADOT was officially "in favor of such a program" but Sedadi didn't seem very enthusiastic about the program.  Several times he dodged a question from Councilman LaBonge about "what he would do," instead insisting he was happy to do whatever the Council wanted.

In the end, the LADOT was tasked with reporting back to the council about the costs and benefits of the plan at an unspecified date in the future.  The Transportation Committee seemed happy to wait to see if the state re-programs their "Access Ok" program before moving forward.  But waiting for the state might not be the best way to go.  Even if they do re-up the program, the lobbyists pushing for its extension are lobbyists for the auto-industry not environmental groups according to a report from the Sacramento Bee.

Traffic trying to get to Dodger Stadium. Photo:=Manny=/Flickr

Here comes one positive side benefit of the L.A. budget crisis: Gridlock. Our tight budget means the city can no longer afford to pick up the tab to make driving easier — by providing free traffic officers for events at the Dodger Stadium, Hollywood Bowl, and other major venues.

So now, most of these venues plan to pick up the tab — but also to reduce the number of traffic officers working — which according to the L.A. Times, “could lead to congestion.”

The change doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll have more congestion. Perhaps more people will simply take public transportation to these events, as L.A.’s Principal Transportation Engineer Alan Willis is apparently encouraging people to do — though it’s unclear from the L.A. Times article what concrete steps, if any, Willis plans to take to actually get people on buses and rail. But even if we do get more congestion, this is good news for both the environment and alternative transit advocates, according to David Owen, a staff writer at The New Yorker whose latest Wall Street Journal article expounds on “How Traffic Jams Help the Environment.” (via Idea)

“Traffic jams can actually be environmentally beneficial if they turn subways, buses, car pools, bicycles and walking into more-attractive options,” Owen points out. That may be a rather obvious observation, but Owen’s arguments that both ramp metering and congestion pricing aren’t necessarily good for the environment will be surprising at first for many alternative transit advocates:

Advocates of congestion-fighting strategies usually argue that traffic jams waste gasoline. That’s true, but the energy waste and carbon output attributable to idling cars is smaller than that attributable to the overall transportation network. There’s nothing green about fighting congestion if, by distributing traffic more efficiently, it results in an overall increase in traffic volume and extra miles driven by vehicles avoiding the fee areas.

That said, Owen isn’t against congestion pricing — He’s simply pointing out that such programs must be part of a “truly effective traffic program” that “would impose high fees for all automobile access and public parking while also gradually eliminating automobile lanes (thereby reducing total car traffic volume without eliminating the environmentally beneficial burden of driver frustration and inefficiency) and increasing the capacity and efficiency of public transit.”

Owen’s entire article’s a great read — which also gave me an idea: Perhaps simply raising the parking prices in these L.A. venues alone will get rid of the potential congestion problem altogether while encouraging more people to take alternative modes of transportation.

Parking pricing, in fact, is what the City of Santa Monica’s targeting now to tackle its own gridlock issues. Reduce this “ill-advised subsidy for public parking,” reports the L.A. Times, and more people might walk, bike, or take public transit to enjoy a day or night out on the Third Street Promenade: “If it works, the city would benefit from smoother traffic flow, reduced pollution as fewer people cruise for spaces and a better return on land developed for public parking.”

Those plans are still in the works; the city staff first needs to recommend a plan (”perhaps by late this year,” according to the L.A. Times) that the City Council can take up. But reading about how L.A. drivers can expect not only more gridlock but also higher parking prices really made my day today!

Of course, in addition to making driving and parking less pleasant and more costly, we need to make it easier for people to get to all of these venues without getting in a car. I love the convenience of taking the bus to the Hollywood Bowl, but I hear getting to the Dodger Stadium via public transit isn’t as easy…

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (Photo: Gawker)

Mayor Gavin Newsom has been quietly pressuring MTA Chief Nat Ford to delay or prevent proposals to extend parking meter hours on weeknights and Sundays, despite a looming mid-year MTA budget deficit and studies that show it's good policy, Streetsblog has learned. ...

"The Mayor thinks it's the wrong time to make these moves," said Nathan Ballard, Newsom's communications director. "Right now, with the economy where it is, the burden on ordinary people for city services is already stretched to the max, and so he hasn't seen anything that convinces him otherwise. He's open to arguments, but he's still where he was."

The "we can't change policy in a bad economy" argument is familiar to Capitol Hill transportation watchers, who saw the Obama administration use the recession to rule out a gas tax hike or per-mile vehicle fee earlier this year.

But in Newsom's case, as Matt and Bryan point out, San Francisco is lagging behind its fellow major cities when it comes to charging for parking. In Los Angeles, where voters will soon be looking at Newsom's credentials, meters remain on until 2 a.m. New York City keeps meters on until midnight, and Washington D.C.'s stay on until 10 p.m.

Photo: Nahh/Flickr

To help justify their plan, they tried to push the idea that they were following a Smart Growth model based on the teachings of UCLA Economics Professor and Parking Guru Donald Shoup.  Shoup has explained how street parking is undervalued throughout America and by capturing those revenues and putting it back into the communities from which it comes cities can begin to remake themselves.

The City of Los Angeles seems to have forgotten that last part, and now is facing a political backlash because the meter hike they pushed through is being rightly viewed as increased fees with all the negative things that come with them and no benefit seen in the community. 

While increasing meter rates isn't a bad idea by itself; the political reality is that people don't like to pay more money without seeing something in return.  In this case, Los Angeles blew a chance to build a political alliance for increasing meter fees and politicians burned by this experience are going to be less likely to take a stand in the future.  That's not Don Shoup's vision.

In short, by not using the parking fees to improve transportation or reinvesting in the community, the city neglected to develop a group of people that push for meter increases because of what can be done with those dollars, so when newspapers write stories on the increases it's not at all surprising that a reporter can't find a person willing to explain why raising rates isn't a bad idea.  Take today's Daily News:

Business owners, shoppers and restaurant and theater patrons throughout the San Fernando Valley are up in arms about the increased parking meter rates that have been introduced over the past year - and demanding something be done about it.

Councilman Dennis Zine agrees and has asked officials to re-evaluate the rate hike, which was intended to raise an extra $18 million for cash-strapped city coffers. He believes the rate increase may have been counterproductive.

Even as activists around the city prepare to make a point that as a society we're wasting open space in the name of cheap parking during Park(ing) Day in just 10 days, the city bungled raising meter rates so badly that it created a backlash against any future meter raises, even those that might be usable for Livable Streets means.