Dr. Shoup: Parking Guru!

by Clarence Eckerson Jr. on March 14, 2007 | 12,874 Plays

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.

Show Transcript

[intro music] Mark Gorton: [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? Dr Donald Shoup: [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. Mark Gorton: [01:28] What are New York’s policies today? And how are they flawed? And what can we do to improve them? Dr Donald Shoup: [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. Mark Gorton: [02:29] Well so how many people are actually just driving around looking for parking? Dr Donald Shoup: [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. Mark Gorton: [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? Dr Donald Shoup: [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. Mark Gorton: [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. Dr Donald Shoup: [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. Mark Gorton: [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. Dr Donald Shoup: [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. [music] http://transcriptdivas.ca/transcription-canada/

Clarence Eckerson Jr. has been making fantastical transportation media in NYC since the late 1990s. He's never had a driver's license and never will.

61 Comments

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Posted in Cars & Parking. Tagged as Donald Shoup, Mark Gorton, New York City, Parking, Transportation Policy.

Lars

I wanna be a Shoup-ista!
viewer

I think the streetsfilm team chose great topics and i enjoy your films. however, i think you don't need to cut to a picture of a parking spot after every sentence.

in this film - during the discussion of Pasadena - you show images of a random muni meter. is this in Pasadena? does it matter? if you want to cut to images - show before/after images of Pasadena.
http://www.livablestreets.com/people/trorb/ Clarence

Viewer (#2):

Those meters are MuniMeters from NYC in the 34th to 42nd street area. Since we had edits to cover up we had to cut to something and since we had no access to Pasadena images (that were free) and a deadline to meet we put those in there. As you probably realize, we are working with a very small budget and short turnaround times.

Thanks for the feedback and kudos!
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David Wise

This is an excellent piece of work and very informative. I've passed it around widely around my transportation department and local business community. Work like this is so valuable at really creating awareness - great job!
ecm

Nice work again, folks. You're always interviewing people with interesting points of view.

I'm a bit confused, though. So, 25% of traffic (in the SoHo example) is cars looking for parking. If it cost people money to park, they wouldn't want to drive because they wouldn't want to pay to park....so then they wouldn't drive and then there would be more places for other people to park, and therefore 25% less traffic? Plus we'd have monies to pay for pedestrian improvements? Is this right?

I wonder if people would really drive less and just grudgingly pony up the money to park. At least, I guess we'd have money to pay for much-need ped improvements, and maybe those ped improvements would then encourage people to walk/bike/etc.
http://www.livablestreets.com/people/trorb/ Clarence

UPDATE:

Dr. Shoup was able to send us a few Pasadena slides from his presentation. We put 'em in so you can get a small taste of what the experience is like.

Toodle-loo!
Scofflaw

What a pompous posterior this guy is. L.A,is based on the car and we don't need some clown trying to figure out how to fleece us while making the situation worse. If you want a good laugh, Google 'Guru' can't convince the critics at meeting'. He got laughed out of a town meeting in San Diego. Or check out 'A Pile of Shoup' on the http://westwoodparking.blogspot.com/...
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bluehoo

"I’m a bit confused .. If it cost people money to park, they wouldn’t want to drive because they wouldn’t want to pay to park….so then they wouldn’t drive and then there would be more places for other people to park, and therefore 25% less traffic?"

I believe the theory is not so much that a significant amount people would not drive because of the increased cost, but that there would be less congestion because they don't have to spend extra time hunting for an open space, because the price is set high enough that an open space is always available.
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http://transitinutah.blogspot.com/ John D

I am using this on my blog, provided plenty to think about for any major city.
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http://www.ferrypointpark.org Dotti

What about the huge wasted space taken by illegally parked Tractor Trailers and Box Trucks throughout
the Boroughs????
What about the pollution produced by their motors and generators running all night.
There is no booting or towing because there is no impound area large enough for all these illegal vehicles.
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http://www.unige.ch/ses/geo/oum Patrick Boillat

I just discovered your website and I think it is a great platform. I work in transportation planning in Geneva Switzerland and I'm convinced it is essential to promote livable streets and a vibrant city life for urban communities. People like Donald Shoup, or like the brilliant Jane Jacobs was, are fantastic promoters of these ideas.
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Al opf Mountain View

Dr. Shoup, What are your thoughts and have you checked out the use of Automatic Car parking Systems? Cost Vs. use? Thanks , Al
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http://www.agriaffaires.us Tony

Free parking is cheap way to keep the oil and car companies in business. How about free gas? Yeah right, like that'll ever happen.

To fix a problem we cannot proceed by throwing money at the issue nor withdrawing money from the issue. Another solution must be provided such as alternate energy. He speaks of cleaning the air and liberating city streets from the oppression of vehicle. While that may divert an issue for a moment that does certainly not 'fix' anything. Get cleaner cars and then you've fixed something.
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Mark

Shoup would place the ENTIRE burden on the poorer people. Rich and affluent people don't have to do ANYTHING at all to help.

This is just a plan to get the irritating poorer people out of the way of the reach people.

Shoup is just a routine elitist jerk who dares to be even more elitists than those who preceded him. There is nothing new in his ideas other than to take them to ever more extremes.
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Fred

Nevermind that the film talks about "free parking" while showing a car pulling into a meter, or the professor claims "they almost always turn right at every intersection", while showing a car turning left.

This is nothing but a tax grab - enticing the local merchants and neighborhood residents and non-drivers to approve a new revenue stream.
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Anonymous

Poor people don't drive, Mark. They walk or take mass transit, and then they are forced to pay, through store prices, for parking spaces for the wealthier customers. How do you justify that in your world?
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Lise

The question of safety is important for everyone. Once you park your car you become a pedestrian and with so many cars going around in circles looking for parking, your risk of being hit by one increases greatly (health risks are not just air quality related!).

With this in mind, it's in everyone's interest to reduce private car use as much as possible. I am afraid that the much needed municipal revenue stream that public street parking represents will keep municipalities from being tougher on car use in general.
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Ruud van Winden

Great interview and completely right. As people commented below, in some locations governments abuse parking fee's to fix holes in the city's budget. If applied as Dr Shoup explains, parking will be a resource, like any other in the world that should be paid for according to demand.
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