Shoup, here he is!
World-regarded as an expert on parking policy, UCLA Urban Planning Professor Dr. Donald Shoup is the author of The High Cost of Free Parking, a publication so popular among scholars and devotees that he attracts groupies known as Shoupistas at book signings!

According to Dr. Shoup, free parking is the root problem of many of the ills that face our biggest cities. He posits that reforming parking policy will lead to a better pedestrian environment, cleaner streets and air, safer downtown shopping districts, and - yes - even less headaches for drivers trying to find that ever elusive curb space.
In March 2007, Dr. Shoup paid a visit to NYC to enlighten city leaders with his research. Here's part of a taped chat with The Open Planning Project's Mark Gorton.
<br>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[intro music]</font> <br>
</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark Gorton:</i> [00:12]
I’m here today with Professor Donald Shoup, who is a Professor of
Urban Planning at UCLA and one of the world’s leading experts on parking.
And Professor Shoup, you’ve been brought to New York to help enlighten
us a little bit about parking. So let me ask you, I spent time
trying to think about parking policy. I read your book, The High
Cost of Free Parking, which I think is very aptly named because I think
the name conveys a lot. How do you tell, you know, people who
just have a few seconds to think about parking, what wisdom do you have
to offer them?</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Dr Donald Shoup:</i>
[00:45] Well I would say that getting the price of parking right will
do a world of good. I think that by the right price I mean the
lowest price you can charge that will lead to a few vacant spaces.
It will reduce cruising for parking. It will reduce air pollution.
It’ll make the pedestrian life better. It will reduce energy
and maybe even slow global warming. But more than any of that,
I think getting the price of curb parking right will immensely improve
the public realm of New York, how we use the sidewalks, how we enjoy
our neighbourhoods. And numbers of people would benefit, it’s
just about everybody in New York. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark Gorton:</i> [01:28]
What are New York’s policies today? And how are they flawed?
And what can we do to improve them?</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Dr Donald Shoup:</i>
[01:33] I don’t see why people have to pay market rents to live in
a neighbourhood but the car should live rent-free. I think in
New York you have expensive housing for people and free parking for
cars. You’ve got your priorities exactly the wrong way round.
If curb parking is free, and all the spaces are full and you want to
park, the only thing you can do is drive around the block, hunting for
parking. You drive around this block and then maybe have no luck,
you drive around the next block and you keep on going until you see
a space being vacated by another driver, then you pull in. So
you’ve got the free parking space but you’ve spent a lot of time
waiting to get it. That maybe a good bargain for you. The
problem with this policy is that you’re congesting traffic for everybody
else, that cars that are wanting to go some place and they’re mixed
in with people like you who aren’t going anywhere, you’ve already
arrived. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark Gorton:</i> [02:29]
Well so how many people are actually just driving around looking for
parking? </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Dr Donald Shoup:</i>
[02:33] Well a study was recently done in Soho and asking drivers who
were stopped at red lights whether they were hunting for parking, and
29% of them said they were hunting for a parking space. So if
you charge the right price for curb parking, by which I mean the price
would lead to about a 15% vacancy rate, nobody would be driving around
hunting for a parking space. So you could take off the road 29%
of the cars in Manhattan, if that’s an average. The reason I
would suggest that there are huge advantages for New York to change
it, to reform these policies is because great improvements have been
achieved elsewhere. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark Gorton:</i> [03:15]
Could you talk a little bit about Pasadena, I guess Old Town Pasadena,
and what they did there and why that was so successful?</font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Dr Donald Shoup:</i>
[03:24] The city wanted to put in parking metres and the merchants of
the property said, no way, it’ll chase away the few customers we have.
And the city actually bought the parking metres and stored them for
two years while they argued. And finally the city said, well if
we put in the parking metres, we’ll spend all the metre revenue in
Pasadena. And like that the merchants said, that’s different,
you didn’t tell us that. Let’s run the metres till midnight,
let’s run them on Sunday. And they put in the metres, they immediately
borrowed enough money to rebuild every sidewalk and all the alleys,
they put the wires underground, they put in store street lights.
And now it’s one of the most popular tourist destinations in Southern
California. There are over 40,000 people visit there on a weekend
to walk around and marvel at the place. And it’s all because
of the money that comes out of those metres, that steam cleans the sidewalks
twice a month, that pays for added police protection, that removes graffiti
every night. That I think returning the metre revenue to the metered
neighbourhoods is the political key to unlocking the public wealth of
the city. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark Gorton:</i> [04:35]
You know part of what we’re, you know, the Livable Streets movement
is advocating in New York is, you know, making a lot of improvements
to the street, to improve the life of neighbourhoods and this is one
very local source of money that could be a great way to do that. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Dr Donald Shoup:</i>
[04:51] I would say that if in Manhattan you try it out as a pilot programme
in any business district, and said any business district that wants
it, that they have to ask for it. And say… but the city has
to offer it before they can ask for it. We will adjust the prices
of parking, day and night, weekend and weekday, to achieve about an
85% occupancy rate, and spend the revenue on improving your business
district, you would see very quickly what that policy would do.
And I suspect other neighbourhoods would say, I want that. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Mark Gorton:</i> [05:26]
The people talk about vacancy targets, which means you set the price
so that there are always 15 or 20% of the spaces available. </font></p>
<p> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Dr Donald Shoup:</i>
[05:33] The city ought to set the lowest price that it can charge and
still have one or two vacant spaces on every block. I know that
some people say that’s not going to be fair. But think of it
this way, when you underprice the curb parking so there are no spaces
vacant, you have cars driving around, looking for parking, they’re
congesting traffic, they’re polluting the air, they’re interfering
with pedestrians, cos they almost always turn right at every intersection,
they’re wasting fuel, so, but it comes to issues of equity or morality.
I think I have the moral high ground when I say that it is fair to charge
the lowest price of to yield a few vacant spaces and spend all the
revenue on fixing up the pedestrian realm where most people spend most
of their travel time. </font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
http://transcriptdivas.ca/transcription-canada/
Pingback: Streetsblog » StreetFilm: Interview with Parking Guru Donald Shoup()
Pingback: StreetFilms » UWS Streets Renaissance: Double Parking()
Pingback: Streetsblog » Upper West Siders: It’s Your Neighborhood. What Would You Fix?()
Pingback: Streetsblog » Push for Congestion Pricing Spurs Parking Reform()
Pingback: StreetFilms » Illustrating Parking Reform with Dr. Shoup()
Pingback: Streetsblog » Donald Shoup Plays With Parking Fees and Matchbox Cars()
Pingback: The High Cost of Free Parking « Xing Columbus()
Pingback: Why I, creek freak, like bike! « L.A. Creek Freak()
Pingback: Market Based Pricing in Santa Monica()
Pingback: Nighttime paid parking on Broadway? Increased fines? Just the start of fixing Capitol Hill parking | Seattle Internet()
Pingback: Dr. Donald Shoup: The High Cost of Free Parking | San Jose Metblogs()
Pingback: Streetsblog San Francisco » This Week in Livable Streets Events()
Pingback: Creating “Green” Streets « Uptown Partnership()
Pingback: Parking Guru on Getting the Price Right | Civic Intersection()
Pingback: “The end of the parking meter” | World Streets()
Pingback: The economic case for on-street bike parking | Grist()
Pingback: The economic case for on-street bike parking — My Blog()
Pingback: La bici leva dell’economia urbana. | Nuova Mobilità()
Pingback: The economic case for on-street bike parking | Buying Green - Buying-Green()
Pingback: Hitler Hated Bike Lanes, and the Economic Case for On-Street Bike Parking « Smart City Memphis()
Pingback: Could parking policy benefit from more regional oversight? « Transbay Blog()
Pingback: Bike Parking Ordinance Comment Letter – Support Bike Parking and Affordable Housing « Green L.A. Transportation Working Group()
Pingback: Londoners consummate love affair with free parking late at night « Citythink's Blog()
Pingback: The economic case for on-street bike parking | Bike Delaware()
Pingback: The SMART Area, Part 2: All Those Cars « The Greater Marin()
Pingback: The Gap in SFPark’s Captivating Data Set | Streetsblog San Francisco()
Pingback: 14 domande sul parcheggio. | Nuova Mobilità()
Pingback: Metered Parking: Downtown To Be Treated The Same As The Rest Of St. Louis Starting July 1st | UrbanReviewSTL()
Pingback: Shoup: SFpark Yields Promising Results, Lessons for Demand-Based Pricing | Streetsblog San Francisco()
Pingback: The economic (and common sense) case for on-street bike parking | Bike Delaware()
Pingback: Council looking to raise PPA permit fees from negligible to trifling | Sic Transit Philadelphia()
Pingback: Philly Residential Parking Permits Should Be At Least $100 - Keystone Politics()