At the suggestion of a kind reader, my presentation to the Zoning and Planning committee last week.
Some context… Free parking for office buidings is bad. It creates a hidden subsidy that encourages more driving. Remove free parking from the tenant’s rent and the cost of driving is more directly paid by the driver, which helps guide more socially responsible decisions.
The case against free parking is even stronger near transit as there’s an alternative to driving. And, free parking creates a benefit that flows only to drivers, not those who are able to and make the more responsible choice: to take transit.
The case against free office parking is even stronger at Riverside, where the development decisions are based on the MBTA’s need for revenue. For that, I commend your attention to the video.
A few questions answered:
- Yes, I know I have a voice for blogging. (In my head, I have a rich baritone, not the adenoidal croak you hear.)
- Yes, I know I talked too fast. I was on the clock. Marcia Johnson was running a tight meeting!
… sort of like Charlie Chaplin’s first “talkie”
I’m sure this parking approach will go a long way toward attracitng office park employers. Not.
Dan – The proposal can reduce office park employers cost’s. They are no longer required to pay for both the office space and parking space. Currently there is no ability for office park employers to reduce the expense of leased parking – it is a hidden expense rolled into the over all leasing cost. With explicit parking fees, the employer can decide, do they want to cover the parking for the employee? Do they want to provide incentives for employees to use the T or carpool, etc.
It is similar to utility prices – having water meters in each house/building in Newton instead of one big bill for all of Newton’s water use divided between all residents and businesses. Office park employers could reduce their costs by paying only for the parking spaces they use. Currently they pay for what the building owner estimates they use.
@Lucia – The plan may have merits in other ways but I can’t see any way it could reduce costs to the park employers/tenants.
Without this plan, the developer has the use of those parking spots to hand out as “free” amenities to its tenants. With this plan the developer does not have those parking spots, so neither the developer or its tenants saved any money by not getting “free” parking. Now if a given tenant decides it wants to lease some number of “free” spots for its employees, it will pay a substantial additional fee not to the landlord but to the MBTA.
The plan takes something valuable (parking) and moves it from the developer to the MBTA. As I said, there are various virtues that plan might offer, but saving money for the tenants wouldn’t be one of them.
At some point doesn’t the developer have to pay for the parking spots? Somewhere someone must be paying for the parking spaces’s construction and maintenance. Is the MBTA currently giving developer’s parking spots for free? (If this is the case, that means MBTA users and taxpayers are paying for the developer’s ‘free’ parking).
Not sure how it works, but I do believe there is no such thing as a free lunch (or in this case parking spot).
Dan, here’s the kind of CEO I’d like to see at Riverside, one who doesn’t make the kinds of assumptions about their employees you allude to:
http://www.npr.org/2010/11/23/131539669/switching-gears-more-commuters-bike-to-work
It’s funny that the guy in question is named Fahey too.
Nathan, I’m not opposed to efforts to reduce dependence on autos, but I’m also aware that there’s still a huge slice of the population that aren’t like that “other’ Fahey. My point is simply that if potential tenants in the new Riverside office park become concerned about where all those “Luddites” who aren’t into 21st century transportation are going ot be able to park their cars, their first inclination will be to look to one more favorably disposed to cars.
Thursday around 10AM, I visited the MBTA lot, and the parking garage at the adjacent Riverside Center, and found many empty parking spaces. This should have been a time period when we’d expect maximum commuter parking. You can view pictures at the Newton Streets and Sidewalks Blog (http://newtonstreets.blogspot.com/).
The garage at Riverside Center was wide open and appeared to be a free-for-all. Today I’m going to drive in and see if I get a ticket or notification not to park. I’ll report back here.
Today around 10-11AM I counted over one thousand empty parking spaces at Riverside.
You counted? Nathan, you’ve earned the Village 14 Crowd Sorcerer of the Week badge.
Greg, I have to admit, parking at Riverside has become a bit of a pre-occupation for me. I just don’t see a serious conversation happening, and I think it is a really key piece of the traffic equation.
…except for the serious conversation here, that is. Whether one agrees with Sean or not on the specifics, what he’s trying to do is to think comprehensively about the issue.
MBTA says Riverside got 925 spaces — you counting other lots too?
http://www.mbta.com/schedules_and_maps/subway/lines/stations/?stopId=15598
When I say Riverside I am speaking about the whole thing – the MBTA lot, the Indigo, and Riverside Center. The way we should be thinking about this site.
I spell out the numbers on Newton Streets and Sidewalks. Thanks for the 925 total space number – with the 490 empty spots I counted on a peak weekday hour, this yields an occupancy of 53%.
So there’s some plan to force Indigo to give up part of their plot to enhance certain objectives? I should have paid more attention to the powerpoint… This seems very important.
Oops. I see it… Indigo is part of the development plan. Got it
Today between 10:40AM and 11:20AM (Red Sox started at 11AM), there were 993 empty parking spaces among the Riverside Center (851 empty), MBTA lot (16 empty) and Indigo (127 empty, still under 50% occupancy).
A large backup of cars trying to get in to the nearly full MBTA lot was waved away by police, with nearly a thousand adjacent, empty parking spaces remaining unused.
That’s $5700 in lost parking revenue (at the under-market parking rate fixed by the MBTA at $5.75)
During the same time, Lower Falls and the Lasell Neighborhood were crawling with cars searching for free parking, and in Lower Falls almost all available street parking was filled east of the Hamilton Center. Metered parking there would have brought in thousands of dollars of revenue to the city.