Yesterday's edition of The News Tribune ran our response to columnist Peter Callaghan's recent call for elimination of all downtown parking requirements--essentially, put it in context.
Parking--as the downtown Parking Advisory Committee has learned over the past year--is a subject of complexity akin to the Rubik's Cube. No single "magic bullet" will bring the solution we all seek.
Hopefully, more stakeholders will read these two pieces, consider the relevant issues, and investigate the Lloyd Center Transportation Management Association in Portland and Seattle’s Urban Mobility Group, two great models for another piece of this puzzle.
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Portland, Seattle, Olympia, Bellingham and San Francisco have now removed their off - street parking requirement years ago for the following reasons:
ReplyDelete1) Results in an unnecessary barrier for people and businesses to locate downtown;
2) Reduces the density of downtown, the primary attraction a downtown has to offer;
3) Makes the downtown less attractive and usable by pedestrians by creating and retaining surface level parking lots and excessive number of small parking garages downtown;
4) Creates an unnecessary barrier for retail (including a grocery store) to move downtown;
5) Creates a significant barrier for the construction of low-income housing by increasing prices by up to 20 percent, and by discouraging developers from building smaller units;
6) Essentially mandates car use in downtown Tacoma reducing the ability for mass transit to be successful and causes unnecessary traffic congestion and pollution;
7) Causes architecturally poorer buildings to be built in downtown Tacoma;
An analysis was performed by planner Andre Stone who calculated that a 40 story building in downtown Tacoma would require a monstrous and impractical 14 story parking garage, a requirement not present in model west coast cities.
The lot between Spark Park and the Drakes building cannot be infilled with an appropriate building under the current regulations.
It is little wonder Tacoma cannot find investors to build large commercial buildings downtown. Our off-street parking policy nearly bars them from doing so.
For more information see:
Onsite Parking: The Scourge of Americas Commercial Districts
Here’s a great line from the article:
Onsite parking requirements, which have crept into many cities’ laws over the past 50 to 70 years, have sucked the potential out of commercial properties on main streets and in downtowns everywhere. Perhaps more than anything else, rules requiring onsite parking — to be distinguished from “on street” or “offsite” parking — have created the blighted conditions that characterize many older North American commercial districts and boulevards.
The modest proposal on the table now is to simply let businesses and their clients decide how much parking to build so that they can track the market as to the parking demand.
If Tacoma fails to act, our downtown will grow like Bellevue who has retained the off-street parking requirement in a sprawlish, disjointed downtown where people simply drive between parking garages and few pedestrians are on the street.
No argument that we should review this requirement--the point of our response is just to put that issue in context of all the other issues related to parking. It's just two complex to push one "magic bullet" without taking into account the potential (including unintended) consequences.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the 40-story parking tower is precisely the argument that Seattle used to establish the Urban Mobility Group and its role in managing parking demand--a strategy that we believe is equally beneficial and necessary.
No argument that we can devise a better model for our downtown than Bellevue...
Below are the three steps Professor Shoup recommends to implement a best methods parking system from the Institute of Transportation Studies:
ReplyDelete* The first is to remove requirements for off-street parking, which is often overbuilt and underutilized.
* The second is to charge enough for parking at the curb to create a 15 percent vacancy rate. That will encourage drivers to park in garages or not to drive at all. Those who choose to park at the curb will not have to cruise for a spot, but will find one readily, cutting down on congestion.
* Finally, the money collected from parking meters at the curb should be returned to the business or residential neighborhood for use in repairing sidewalks, planting trees, security or other street improvements."
Below are the three steps Professor Shoup recommends to implement a best methods parking system from the Institute of Transportation Studies:
ReplyDelete* The first is to remove requirements for off-street parking, which is often overbuilt and underutilized.
* The second is to charge enough for parking at the curb to create a 15 percent vacancy rate. That will encourage drivers to park in garages or not to drive at all. Those who choose to park at the curb will not have to cruise for a spot, but will find one readily, cutting down on congestion.
* Finally, the money collected from parking meters at the curb should be returned to the business or residential neighborhood for use in repairing sidewalks, planting trees, security or other street improvements."