Bummer. My quixotic endeavor to lure free marketeers into rational parking policy has hit another bump in the road.
Here’s Michel Ennis over at Washington Policy Center’s blog:
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn’s war on cars proposes to significantly increase the price of public parking. He claims that higher prices will free up supply. And Seattle Councilman Tim Burgess has a similar plan, just applied in a more sophisticated way.
They both argue that increasing price will create a balance between supply and demand. They claim the current price is too low, which makes demand higher than supply. This is why drivers can never find street parking and leads to greater traffic congestion on surface streets. So their solution is to raise price.
Price will bring balance to supply and demand but it will be accompanied with negative externalities.
And:
The supply/demand/price equation is out of balance not because of price, but because of supply. The city has been eliminating parking spaces for two decades…
Whoa. Let’s take a moment to absorb this.
Is this really the cry for socialism that it sounds like?
Yes. Here’s why. Under current law and practice, on-street parking is pretty much a textbook case of socialism. It works like this: the government raises revenue, builds streets, and then mandates portions of the public property be set aside exclusively for storing private vehicles. In most cases, the government gives away the storage for free. But in a few cases, such as downtown, the government meters the spaces, albeit far below market rates. The result is completely predictable: we get Soviet bread lines.
No, drivers in Seattle aren’t huddling in long gray lines in the winter chill. But they’re doing the automotive equivalent: circling the block again, hunting for government-subsidized bargains, and creating all kinds of congestion problems.
Why not let the market just sort things out?
There are, after all, any number of fine locally owned and operated parking businesses that would be delighted to provide for your parking needs. Downtown, and in other business districts, you can locate these places by looking for signs with the word “parking” in large letters, usually accompanied with prices that reflect precisely what the local market will bear. Normally, you can find a spot at one of these places; and not to worry, they are located wherever parking is scarce. They even spring up quasi-spontaneously when there’s a sudden increase in demand for parking, such as before baseball games or state fairs. That’s the magic of the market.
Unfortunately, subsidized on-street government-provided parking really harms these businesses. It’s unfair. For my money, the government should no more undercut these retailers of parking than it should start selling subsidized shoes or handbags or Argentinean steaks or martinis or hotel rooms. I mean, why on earth would we treat car storage any differently?
The fetish for cheap public parking is weird not only on ideological grounds, but also because the government has not, in fact, been eliminating parking spaces. Or more precisely, the government has been eliminating some public spaces, but by regulatory mandate it is actually increasing private parking. In fact, virtually all new buildings—whether residential, commercial, industrial, retail, etc.—are forced to supply parking, often in excess of the number of people actually expected to use the building. In fact, the government is so determined to flood the market with unpriced parking that even drinking establishments are required to provide a parking space for each 250 square feet of barroom. Talk about negative externalities!
The rational free market approach, of course, would be to eliminate parking minimums on private property. If developers want to provide parking, great. If they don’t, so be it. But the government shouldn’t be intruding with regulatory mandates that drive up the costs of development and housing, unless there’s some overriding public good to serve. And I’m just not convinced that cheap car storage qualifies.
At the end of the day, I don’t think you can be intellectually consistent as a free market type and also call for maintaining—and even increasing!—the supply of a government subsidized good that private businesses can supply more efficiently. That said, I generally enjoy reading Michael’s more analytical pieces, so I wonder if this particular issue just escaped his better judgment.
I mean look, when I’m a driver I like free parking as much as the next guy. In the same way that I’d like a free whiskey and soda at my next happy hour. And I’d like a free pair of new skis. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and somebody will comp me. But I don’t expect the government to take care of these things for me.
Des
Eric,Along with the free-market think tanks, the Canadian chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) also doesn’t seem to share your raised eyebrows at the idea of requiring bars to provide parking.Here’s my correspondence with the CEO of MADD Canada, who didn’t seem to think minimum parking requirements for bars were any big deal:———- Forwarded message ———- From: [removed]Date: 2010/10/12Subject: RE: Municipally required parking for bars, pubs, etc…To: Me [removed]You raise some good points that going forward need to be taken into consideration when approving a licensed establishment. What you plan does not consider is the use of a sober driver who will need parking at the establishment. If all works out well that the establishment of alternative transportation and designated drivers, parking spaces for licensed establishments should go down. In my opinion it is too early until we knowthe future patterns and trends of drinking drivers and the long term deterrence impact of the recent legislative changes.[removed]Chief Executive OfficerMADD Canada2010 Winston Park Drive, Suite 500Oakville, ON L6H 5R7tel: 1-800-665-6233fax: 905-829-8860Report Impaired Drivers, Call 911.—–Original Message—–From: Me [removed]Sent: October-08-10 9:15 PMTo: [removed]Subject: Municipally required parking for bars, pubs, etc…Hi,I’m sure that this is a busy time for you, with the new regulations coming into effect in BC. I wanted to congratulate you on that push, and bring another often-neglected issue to your attention, one which I feel could be changed for the better.I’m not sure if you’re aware or not, but virtually every municipality in Canada, through its zoning and/or land use bylaws, actually requires bars, pubs, and alcohol-serving establishments to provide parking for their customers. In many municipalities, bars and pubs have to provide a parking space for every other seat in the house. As an urban planner, I deal with these types of regulations on an almost daily basis.Most of this parking is free of charge; free parking, is of course, a great encouragement to drive. So we effectively have a situation where local government is forcing bar and pub operators to provide an incentive for their patrons to drive. While in many cases, the business models behind bars or pubs would necessitate this parking regardless of the bylaw, it seems a shame that the government is tilting them in that direction.I’ve heard several reports on the radio and read a few pieces online in the past few days that suggest that bar and pub patrons are really starting to reconsider their transportation; TransLink (Vancouver’s regional transportation agency) is adding more night buses, and I heard of a shuttle initiative for wineries and restaurants in the Okanagan. At the same time, cities and towns still require bars and pubs to offer parking; this seems a little counter-intuitive.If this issue piques your interest, or you feel as though this might be something that MADD would like to explore further, please let me know and I can provide you with more detailed numbers and research on this. While I disagree with municipalities’ minimum parking requirements on a few levels (they’re an incredibly poor way of solving a very complex economic problem, and tuck the price of parking into everything but the parking), I think that you’ll agree that these bylaws are particularly pernicious when applied to liquor-servingestablishments; I would love to see MADD’s effectiveness applied to this issue.I look forward to hearing from you,-Des
Jon Stahl
You’re giving the “free-marketeers” too much credit for intellectual integrity; they’re not in favor of markets (there is no such thing as a “free market” because markets are collections of rules + social norms), they’re in favor of whatever their corporate puppetmasters want, which is (not coincidentally) usually the opposite of what makes for sound public policy.
Georgie Bright Kunkel
Cities were developed by mostly men in power so that industrycould have a center for manufacturing and a pool of labor at hand.Women were excluded from many jobs that were considered “m en’s jobs” and the “stay at home mom” became a reality.With agribusiness producing genetically engineered foodsand strawberries tough enough to be marketed miles away withoutbeing bruised our diets have deteriorated bigtime. We need to decentralize the cities which are becoming impossible to live in because it is costing too much to live there andagriculture is not carried on closeby.We are attached to the corporation by internet and are becomingless self motivated and self sufficient. We are ripe for a dictator. The right-wing Sarah Palin phenomenon has taken over.It is time to take back our society and be self motivated again.
Felipe
OK Jon Stahl thanks for showing us your “integrity” pretending know how every free market advocate in the world thinks.