The real cost of 'free' parking?

I was just downtown and holy moly! There are a lot of people roaming about. I hope the merchants (the ones that are open on Monday, that is) are reaping the benefits.

So I noticed the NRA parking lots and the booths and the attendants. And although I don't think either lot was full, there were plenty of people driving around looking for 'free' parking.

But is it really free?

The following is from the 2005 book "The High Cost of Free Parking" by Donald C. Shoup, a professor at UCLA:

The cost of parking is hidden in higher prices for everything else. In addition to the monetary cost, which is enormous, free parking imposes many other hidden costs on cities, the economy, and the environment.

Residents pay for parking through higher prices for housing. Businesses pay for parking through higher rents for their premises. Shoppers pay for parking through higher prices for everything they buy. We don’t pay for parking in our role as motorists, but in all our other roles—as consumers, investors, workers, residents, and taxpayers—we pay a high price. Even people who don’t own a car have to pay for “free” parking.

Free parking also encourages people to drive rather than, say, ride a bike or walk.

Newburyport has 'free' parking for varying amounts of time around its downtown. There are no parking meters; those were removed in the mid-60's by former Mayor Byron Matthews, who wanted to encourage people to come to Newburyport over a shopping mall.

What does a shopping center have that the city didn't? Free parking! Matthews pointed out in an interview a few months ago.

It was not a bad idea at the time, and most likely it worked to some extent (free parking is one reason my friends and I would come up here to shop over some other place outside Boston).

But 40 years later, the national average value of a "free" parking space was $1,000 annually, according to the author of this review of Shoup's book on emagazine.com.

I guess that means that our city is subsidizing our "free" parking to the tune of about $300,000 annually. (According to figures provided to me last summer by our mayor, and not counting the NRA lots on the river, there are about 327 free parking spaces in the city, and assuming we are below the average.)

How about this plan, also talked about in the review: put in parking meters (the charge has to equate to the cost of any paid parking, including a garage) and use the money generated to improve a specific area.

In the case cited, it was Old Pasadena, where the money generated from the parking meters goes directly into the neighborhood. Not to mention San Diego.

San Diego returned 45 percent of its $2.2 million 2002 meter revenues to neighborhoods, and the money was used to clean and light streets, repair sidewalks, remove graffiti, plant trees and provide security.

$200,000-$300,000 won't solve all our budget problems, but it might go a long way towards maintaining our sidewalks, or maintaining our parks, actually keeping the city's trees healthy by hiring a tree warden - all those things we are having difficulty funding, or flat out can't afford.

Driving around looking for a "free" parking spot wastes time and fuel, causes traffic problems (not so much in our small city, perhaps), and pollutes the air (ditto). People will idle for several minutes waiting for someone to leave a 'free' parking spot while there are empty spots in the NRA lots.

And now with the NRA charging, I'm told, city employees are parking in the Green St. lot, which adds to the problem of less and less 'free' parking and more and more driving around.

I checked with the clerk's office today, and a parking ticket for going over time is $10. I asked if you would get more than one if you parked in a spot with a 2-hr. limit for 8 hrs. and was told, "You'd probably get just the one."

That's a bargain, huh? Not as cheap as parking in the NRA lots, which are now $5 for the day.

So here's what Shoup is advocating (I was sent only the first chapter of his book):

These three reforms—charge fair-market prices for curb parking, return the resulting revenue to the neighborhoods that generate it, and remove the zoning requirements for off-street parking—can align our individual incentives with our collective interests and produce enormous benefits at almost no cost. All these benefits will result from subsidizing people and places, not parking and cars.

So, if you had to put money in a meter, say a quarter per quarter hour, would you re-consider the time to slurp down that extra latte at Caffe di Sienna, lingering over dinner at Agave, or would you take the $10 hit?

Or do you see this plan as another form of taxation?