Republished from Newton City Coucilor Jake Auchincloss’ latest newsletter.
We tend to think of traffic like a liquid: it requires a certain amount of volume to flow smoothly. Congestion, in this view, is the result of constrained volume. Widening roads should reduce congestion, because automobiles will flow through a wider aperture.
This does not work. Widening roads does not improve congestion. Expanding capacity encourages more people to drive. Economists and urban planners call this induced demand .
The better analogy, then, is to think of traffic like a gas: it expands to fill whatever volume it is in. Congestion, in this view, is not the result of constrained volume but of expanded supply. Automobile capacity, whether in the form of lanes or parking spots, is a good subject to supply and demand. Expand the supply of automobile capacity and you get a higher quantity of demand.
Adding lanes & parking induces more traffic
Wider roads? More drivers. More parking? More drivers. Three important corollaries:
- Reducing vehicle lanes of travel does not have to mean more traffic. Indeed, preventing lane-switching removes a principal source of back-ups. For this reason, I am receptive to Washington Street proposals that would reduce automobile lanes from four to three to accommodate less congestive travel modes.
- Adding parking spots does mean more traffic. Consider the propose Northland development on Needham Street, which envisions 800+ housing units and 400K+ sf of office and retail. They want 1,900 parking spots. I have said repeatedly I will not vote for that. 1,900 parking spots would induce significant traffic onto Needham Street. Northland’s transportation demand management program must radically shift away from parking and driving.
- If expanding the quantity of lanes and parking does not reduce traffic, then price is the only other lever. Allowing the price of driving and parking to adjust according to supply and demand will ‘clear the market’ of traffic.
When prices of driving and parking can adjust, traffic clears
Governor Charlie Baker has, so far, rejected congestion pricing for driving in Massachusetts. Here in Newton, though, City Councilor Andreae Downs and I are working to pilot ‘differential pricing’ for parking. The city could raise parking rates in areas where there is more demand than supply, like retail storefronts in Newton Centre, and lower them in underused zones. Shoppers who prize convenience may park closer to commerce; employees and commuters who seek long-term parking at lower rates may park farther away. When applied elsewhere, parking has become easier to find and there is less traffic from circling for spots. (You can google Donald Shoup + parking for a full review of policies.)
Finally, a caveat. I wrote above that traffic operates like a gas, not a liquid. As with all analogies, this one has its limits. Traffic’s liquid-like flow is, indeed, an important consideration. Syncing traffic lights, for example, can reduce congestion. Bottlenecks like exit 17 would benefit from higher throughput. The point is not to disregard traffic engineering—which we all experience and opine on—but to emphasize traffic economics, which is disregarded but more consequential.
I have an office in Newton Center. I used to park by Crystal lake and walk. Now all that is restricted, or limited to 3 hours. You’ve limited and forced me to move inwards. All the councilors are completely out of touch with the people who WORK in the village centers. What “further away” parking is there now in Newton Centre? You guys ( and Girls) are clueless about the workers. Forget about the shoppers. They can take the occasional ticket. But it’s the workers at all these wonderful new retail places you all envision that have no place to park, and limited public transit from where I live. Get a clue and talk to the workers and business owners.
Oh and there was supposed to be a “shared parking ” program where business with spare parking could rent me a space. I’ve heard nothing.
Parking is not my issue, so maybe I’m missing something. I don’t understand why people without a disability can’t walk a few blocks to a village center and leave more spots for people who need them (like local employees and people with disabilities). Isn’t that making the villages more walkable? Why do the parking spots have to be close to every business? For people who value parking convenience, why not go to places where the parking is convenient (malls, grocery stores that have other amenities close by, etc).
One possible solution is to review the concept of handicap parking to include those for whom walking a distance presents a real problem.
They don’t,and in the past I was able to park a short walk from Newton Centre. But like I said, all the streets I used to park on with a short walk to Newton Centre are now 3 hours limit- you have to move your car – or resident only. That means I have to walk another 1/2 hour round trip to move my car to another street or get a ticket. I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and so now I park in the lots. By restricting the parking on the residential street I am pushed to park in the lot, because it is less convenient for me to walk 15 minutes each way to move my car after 3 hours than it is to move my car to a new space after 3 hours. People seem to forget that people do work there – thats why you go there. There’s dentists, doctors, lawyers, real estate brokers in my building. It’s not just retail workers. But they To need a place to park. Only a small number of workers can take the green line to work.
Thanks Jake. It is refreshing to see elected officials thinking through problems and solutions. This enables more productive conversations about policy.
Here’s some advice that doesn’t require a study or revision to the existing pricing structure… Charge for parking until 10pm in Newton Centre. Maximum demand is at night. Every spot is filled. But the City doesn’t charge for metered parking after 6pm. I’d suggest addressing obvious problems like that before tinkering with “differential pricing.”
Today, Needham Street is already congested and is pretty much at maximum car traffic capacity. Adding 800+ more housing units at Needham Street makes no sense to me, unless Needham Street (and the surrounding roads) can handle more traffic volume.
I wish the city would learn lessons from Zervas school. The school was built with a parking lot that is too small. There is not enough on site parking for faculty parking (and the parent drop off area is a zoo). Faculty was forced to park on side streets near Zervas, which residents did not like. Eventually, residents on those streets lobbied Newton to restrict parking on those side streets.
This social engineering attempt to limit car usage was a failure. When you congest more cars in a small area, my observation is that people learn to drive more aggressively – not a great combo in a school drop off area like Zervas.
I am looking forward to hearing a plan from the Newton City Council on how to alleviate the excess traffic on Needham Street. Is the plan to improve the in-town transit system (such as offering more bus lines)?
@Karen: I agree that Northland needs to have an effective traffic management plan for Needham Street but I disagree whenever folks characterize Needham Street as always congested (or a “nightmare” as it’s often called.)
My office is next to Marshalls and most hours of the day (and night) vehicles speed past my window. In fact, walking across the street to go to Starbucks or the Bagel Place can be harrowing because cars and trucks are barreling down the street.
From my vantage, Needham Street typically only consistently backs up during afternoon drive, which tells me most of the vehicles causing the tie ups are using it to get somewhere else, not to shop or dine there.
Just sayin’
@Rick Frank – What is wrong with parking your car in a parking lot?
To anyone else who might know the answer – why do residential streets need 3 hours parking limits?
@Lucia – In our case it was due to commuters. Our dead end street was effectively turned into a one way because we had 7+ cars lined up from the mouth of the street daily from commuters going to the Auburndale CR. It’s a really sharp right turn to get on the street – basically a blind turn, so with all the commuters parked you were basically doing a blind turn into a one a way street except without the one way restrictions that would make it safe.
I think most of the other parking districts in the city were created for similar reasons.
@Lucia
Nothing. I was responding to Jake’s suggestion “Shoppers who prize convenience may park closer to commerce; employees and commuters who seek long-term parking at lower rates may park farther away.”
In Newton Center there is no “farther away”. There was on street parking on the streets near Crystal lake. Probably because of complaints by residents, all that area was made either resident only or 3 hour limit. So, that forced me to move to the parking lot, because as someone who works in Newton Centre walking 15 minutes to move my car to a different street isn’t worth it. Right now there are quite a few 12 hour meters in Newton Center. But they’re taken by 9 am at the latest, and if you leave you’ll lose the spot. If the in street parking was available. I wouldn’t be taking up a space in the lot.
One zoning solution is to estimate the number of WORKERS that would be in a new development e.g. Washington place. Require the developer to have enough parking for the WORKERS. Let the customers figure out where to park.
Thanks, Councilor Auchincloss, for the transportation economics lesson.
Since we live in a car culture in the US, your thoughts are highly relevant. However, should we not look at changing people’s mindsets so they are using cars less in the our city? For workers and shoppers who live outside of Newton , let’s provide “off-site parking and low-cost, logistically smart jitney buses”. For residents of Newton, the city should incentivize all us to drive less, shop more local, and use alternative transportation (ride-sharing, bike-sharing, shuttle buses and walking).
To jump-start this new mindset, the City Councilors should examine their own transportation behavior to understand the constraints and opportunities.
At Zervas, like so many of our schools, the problem is simple: too many cars. Jake’s article makes it clear why creating more capacity is exactly the wrong solution. As for social engineering, as long as we call school arrival time “drop off” we would be wrong to expect any significant change in behavior.
As for staff parking, there is a real cost, both monetary and environmental, to claiming more space on city property for parking. That paved impermeable space at Zervas, much of it taken by eminent domain, is dedicated to parking 24×7 yet used at most 8×5. It ought to be possible to manage parking on side streets so residents and staff can share. After all, streets are public property too. The same is true for space around Newton Centre. There were plenty of proposals in the parking study that have yet to be implemented which would manage parking with technology and replace fixed time parking restrictions. Then there were areas not even covered by the study, for example parking on Cypress Street, not far from the village center, remains completely unregulated and is taken up by commuters.
@Jane, dynamic pricing should free up parking close to businesses for those who have the desire or need to park nearby.
This study, from 2013 recommends the creation of a 400 space lot to replace the cypress street lot. What happened to that idea?
http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/68391
Adam – Are you saying that if you have a need to park closer, then you should have to pay more? I’m with you when it comes to the people who want the convenience of parking closer.
Why not have a sticker system for employee’s cars so they can park in a limited time parking zone?
A sticker was mentioned as a solution in the report I linked in my last post. Also, there’s an error in the study. The study lists the fraction of 12 hour spaces to 3 hour spaces in the Pelham street lots as > 1 ( i.e. 49/28 or something like that). That is clearly reversed. The number of 12 hour spaces is most definitely LESS than the number of 3 hour spaces. The entire study proceeds from that data, which I believe is incorrect. Although I haven’t counted them (and, it’s hard to count them now since with the new signs in the lot they aren’t marked – you can’t tell which are 12 hour) I have parked in those lots for 20 years and there’s no way that there are more 12 hour spaces than 3 hour spaces. Nope.
Jane, during peak times in some situations, yes, a modest increase and/or shorter time limit on those spaces will help make parking available that might not be otherwise. Good for business, good for those who need the parking. Designated employee parking in low-demand parking areas, either designated spaces or spread out e.g. # of employees per block, is another tool in the toolbox. Right now, employees might be taking those high-demand spaces in front of the stores that others need.
Rick, I think the answer is in that same report, p. 25:
. I think this and subsequent studies show that there’s plenty of parking in Newton Centre even at peak periods. The trick is to better manage what we have.
Check out the 2017 Nelson\Nygaard strategy document
@Adam
All the people that I know that work in Newton Center park in the lots, not on the streets with meters. I think the First Baptist Church rented a space to the person who used to run the UPS store, but not sure anymore about that. With the parking app, one can no longer “get away with” feeding the meters. I have to move my car after 3 hours to a new meter. When it was quarters, I think they used to cut us some slack and not ticket us in the same space…..but now the App is “smart” and knows what space I’m in and forces me to move my car to a new space….The same is true on the street parking. You technically have to move your car to a new STREET after 3 hours. Have I thought about moving to a new office with better parking? Yep, every year. And I’m inching ever so closer…..if it gets any worse, people will not locate their businesses there. Employees can’t deal with it. Too much hassle. Knowing what I know now I wouldn’t move my office to here. And I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone either, unless they had to be here for foot traffic (i.e. retail)
“. I think this and subsequent studies show that there’s plenty of parking in Newton Centre even at peak periods. The trick is to better manage what we have.”
False. I’ve had an office here for 20 years. I can give you my own “study”. It’s not true. Especially, as I said, they got rid of the on street parking within a 10 minute walk to the Center…..
Jake provided a good explanation of why taking away a lane on a congested road lessens the congestion. I like the gas to liquid analogy.
I don’t agree though with the parking “solution” which has been discussed here several times before. I have read Shoup’s parking papers and his new book but still disagree that charging more for close in spaces does anything but discriminate against those of us who need to park closer. I understand the huge negative effects of cruising while looking for a space but charging more won’t necessarily free up more spaces.
It’s one of those “solutions,” like widening roads to lessen congestion, that looks good in theory but works differently in practice.
Listen to the people who are doing the parking – here you have Rick Frank telling his experiences which should be considered valuable information but those of you who are already convinced don’t take what he says into consideration – you show him where you are convinced he is wrong.
Bob Jampol recently posted his take on Either/Or solutions to issues where one side is convinced they are correct beyond a doubt and pushes their take on others while another side does the same. It’s important to actively listen to one another and find a compromise.
Marti, your comments seem to be falling into the either/or pattern as well. Where is your evidence that market-based pricing does not work? These are the laws of economics, so I don’t think they should be dismissed out of hand. Most of the experiments we are discussing have yet to happen. We can have different opinions or guesses on the outcome. That doesn’t make anyone intolerant.
Not sure how to implement a market based solution in Newton Centre but since I pay $100+ in tickets every year I’d pay for a sticker to park on the street if it’s < 1/6 mile from the triangle lot and < $100
I really wish people would listen to Rick Frank.
There are other reasons someone may want to park in a parking lot close to the businesses. I know Jane doesn’t understand why someone who is not disabled is unwilling to walk a few blocks, so I’ll offer one explanation. It gets dark here early for many months, and a lot of women don’t want to walk on dark side streets by themselves. I was stalked for years, despite contacting the police. Apparently there is no law preventing someone from always being there, walking on the same street. And, this was not an old boyfriend or a domestic situation, this person was a complete stranger. I was eventually attacked. I will only park in a well-lit parking lot, close to the store I am going to. And yes, we should listen to Rick Frank, I have heard the same thing from other business owners and employees in Newton Center.
Newton Runner – I completely agree with your comment and also would never park in a dark area at night. My comments referred to daytime parking when most retail shops are open. Stores that are open at night typically have a parking lot nearby with many available spots after dark (supermarkets, CVS, Walgreens).
Councilors – please take note of this comment as you deliberate on the zoning of cannabis shops in manufacturing areas that become isolated after 6pm. This is an issue for many women.
Adam, I am not saying what you perceive. I am not saying market based pricing won’t work – I am saying I don’t think it will necessarily free up more parking places in front of businesses and that it will keep those who can’t walk far but don’t qualify for a disabled sticker from shopping in those stores at all. I’m saying you should listen to business owners who park every day – such as Rick Frank – whose comments you just dismiss – not just rely on studies and theories. Economics solves some problems better than others as does supply and demand. It depends on the other variables present. Just like logic seenms to say to widen streets to lessen congestion but it doesn’t work that way because a variable has been left out – drivers see wider roads and decide to change their route as well as drive faster.
Newton has an older population than many cities. Has that been inserted as a variable?
You seem to be so caught up in your RIGHT solution that you cannot hear what I said. I expressed an opinion and asked that you and others firmly convinced you have the only solution pay attention to the evidence before you and other solutions. Open minds listen and learn rather than dictate beliefs.
Marti, please tone it down and avoid the ad hominem. I’m not presenting a solution — pricing is one tool of many and how the price is set is hardly obvious — and I’m not dismissing Rick’s comments. I hear Rick loud and clear. The current situation stinks, especially for business owners. I merely pointed out that several consultants have offered conflicting information on whether Newton Centre parking is truly at capacity vs. what is perceived, i.e. where people want to park.
So far, the city has only taken the low-hanging fruit of replacing meters with newer tech and posting some wayfinding signs. There are plenty more tools in the toolbox, such as permit parking, cooperating with owners of private lots, etc. It’s all in the reports.
Thanks, Jane. Agree on the daytime, I am fine with walking. But in this area of the world, if I need to pick up a prescription or do some shopping or run some errands after work, it is dark by 4-4:30 a few months of the year and I am going to park close, in a well-lit lot. If I want to patronize local Newton Centre shops that are open til 6, I don’t want to park 2 blocks away on a side street. Our side streets don’t seem to have a lot of lighting via streetlights anymore. Thanks for understanding.
Yes, the street light “cone” of light is much less. The LEDs are brighter and I presume use less power but they are more narrowly focused. I carry a flashlight now to walk the dog. There’s a noticeable dark zone between the lights on our street. I was wondering myself if there would be a concern about walking at night by others. I’m not concerned myself except for coyotes, when I have my small dog with me. No incident yet, but we saw one on our street last year next to cheesecake brook. So I’m in the lookout especially this time of year given the shorter daylight.
Adam, Really? You choose to avoid discussion of the substance of my opinions by claiming I have a tone and have used ad hominem attacks rather than address the substance of the discussion. Men using these excuses have shut down (and up) women, in particular, for generations.
Of course neither are true of my comments. I have addressed the substance of this thread by stating my opinions concerning “market pricing” for parking.
Responding to tone: criticizes the tone of the writing without addressing the substance of the argument.
Ad hominem: attacks the characteristics or authority of the writer without addressing the substance of the argument.
Many commenters have asked that Rick Frank be listened because your comments after his attempt to prove him wrong rather than discuss what he is saying.
Please point me to where you “ merely pointed out that several consultants have offered conflicting information.”
Greg,
I think Needham Street feels congested and is difficult to drive on because of all the ins and outs with cars going every which way – jumping in front of cars to get out of places, impatient drivers trying to get around those waiting to turn, etc. if the curb cuts were lessened it might feel differently.
I don’t drive on Needham unless I have to because the drivers there are unpredictable.
@Marti: Mass DOT’s plans for Needham Street/Highland Ave calls for eliminating many curb cuts.
Thanks Greg.