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We’ve got cars that are able to park themselves and we’ve got research into retrofitting garages to help the cars park themselves, but when will we see a parking operator open an autonomous-only garage?

Some potential benefits of autonomous vehicles (close follow distances & seemingly choreographed intersections) are really realized in scenarios where they don’t have to mix in with human-driven vehicles. Similarly, the benefits of autonomously parked vehicles (no need for clearance & self-valet-style-stacking) can’t be realized in a mixed environment.

Special AV Sections

There aren’t enough self-parking cars today to support an AV only garage, but what about autonomous parking sections? A savvy parking operator in an affluent city could set space for cars to park themselves close together and allow valet-style drop-off at the entrance.  The first operators to do this will stake positions in the car parking market of the future.

A Marketing Opportunity For Electric Autonomous Vehicles

Tesla operates a nationwide supercharging network for its customers. As a promotional incentive, the company has offered free lifetime access to this charging network for early-adopters of Tesla tech.  What if Tesla, or another luxury car manufacturer, purchased parking assets in cities with high ownership density and offered free parking in those garages for Teslas? 

A garage (or portion of a garage) limited to a single manufacturer would allow the cars to communicate with one another via wireless protocols. Cars parked in the Tesla-only parking level could not only park close together, but could double or triple stack themselves, moving out of the way when a car’s owner was ready to leave. 

These garages could also allow for EV charging technology to be tested. Systems which allow cars to charge in place (wirelessly?) or via (possibly mobile) robotic charging stations will be in great demand in the future.

Why would I propose this?

This might seem like a strange proposal from a parking reformer, but I am eager to see whether my theories about parking supply will play out in reality.  If AV technology can increase the efficiency of existing parking garages, that will have big impacts on the parking industry. A successful example of this technology would be another warning sign for cities and developers considering spending millions on new parking garages. 

I have a confession to make. I’ve never participated in PARK(ing) Day™️. If you’re not familiar, PARK(ing) Day™️ is an annual event on the third Friday in September where people are encouraged to transform public curbside parking spaces into public spaces. The concept originated in 2005 when a group of folks in San Francisco turned turned a parking spot into a park, for 2 hours.

I like (even love) the idea of PARK(ing) Day™️, but there sure are a lot of rules to follow for a tactical urbanism event! For one, the name is trademarked (and that’s fine) and you really are only supposed to observe the holiday on the third Friday in September. Also, in Portland, where I live, PARK(ing) Day™️ is an official event. The city requires applications and approves about 18 installations for that day and there’s a list of about a dozen requirements for what happens in the space and what spaces are allowed to be repurposed.

Place-making is fabulous and I am very happy that my city embraces it, but I’m a parking reformer and I think once a year isn’t enough. I also prefer something a little more transgressive. So I was amused and inspired when I saw these tweets last week from Victor Pontis who decided to “set up a desk and work out at a parking spot for a couple hours to show that parking real estate can be used for better purposes.”

I’m going to set up a desk and work out at a parking spot for a couple hours to show that parking real estate can be used for better purposes.

Wish me luck.

— Victor Pontis (@VictorPontis) April 25, 2019

Victor isn’t a Shoupista (yet), he wasn’t aware of PARK(ing) Day™️ and he hadn’t read The High Cost of Free Parking, but he tapped into something and his cheeky brand WePark (twitter @WeParkWeParty) has some buzz. This has brought out a few detractors who don’t think Victor gave enough credit to reBar, the founders of PARK(ing) Day™️, but Victor is alright with me and I just hope he takes a crash course in Better Parking 101 and uses some of his spotlight to advance awareness of bad parking policy and the reforms that can fix it. 

I’ll also suggest that people organizing WePark events do so in a way that moves things forward. Of course HAVE FUN, but here’s some ideas:

• Locate the event near a consenting independent business, like a coffee shop. Try to support a local business that is owned by a non-white person. If you can, start a tab for people at your WeWork.
• Put out a donation jar and ask the people who show up to throw in some money (sliding scale) to be given, that day, to a local homeless charity.
• Be intentionally inclusive. Invite people to sit with you, as long as they aren’t disruptive or dangerous, all should be welcome.
• Help people make a connection with the policy. Have a little literature on hand about the high cost of parking, or exclusionary zoning. Use this as an educational opportunity.

So next week I’m going to get together with some Portland Shoupistas and find a couple good spaces and work outside. Lucky for me, my current job is talking about parking, so look for me behind a desk with a sign that says “We have too much parking and it’s too cheap. Change my mind.”

Austin planner Meghan Skornia tipped me off to an article she wrote (which was inspired by a magnificent screencap from a PDX city council hearing a few years back) about residential parking permits (RPP). 

Austin has a permit program, approved by council in 1996. The program is similar to most RPP: cheap, exclusionary, and protectionist. Permits cost $15 (4 cents a day!) plus sales tax a year. Residents of multi-family buildings with more than 6 units are excluded, if the building was permitted after 1959 when minimum parking requirements came to be in Austin. The purpose of the program is entirely to protect the convenience of residents to park. It does not appear, unlike Portland, that limited time stay parking is permitted for the public in permit zones. 

Meghan is very critical of this program, for good reasons, but I think the problem is that very few permit programs are actually trying to manage parking for the general good.

Do permits privatize public space?

I don’t think it’s a given that RPP privatize space so long as: the permits cost a market rate, they are available to anyone with a legitimate interest in parking in the area, some amount of time-stay parking is allowed. Do most permit programs operate this way? NO! But they should.

Do permits raise the cost of development?

I think this is the weakest critique in the article. Even Austin’s permits are only implemented if parking on the street is congested. Parking permits should (and I know they usually don’t) go hand-in-hand with eliminating parking requirements. Structured parking is expensive, permanent, and takes up space that could be used for housing. It’s much preferable to manage the on-street supply with a market-based approach than to require on-site parking.

If a permit is available to all people who live in the zone & is priced appropriately, then some parking may be built, but it would still likely be very much less than with minimums.

Are permit programs unfair to low-income residents?

I do think we need to be sensitive about impacts on low income people, but those concerns must be held in context of the impact of new structured parking on housing costs and supply. Also, given that time is money, allowing people to choose what their time is worth is fair. 

Of course no parking minimums and no permits is also fine, but if the parking is actually congested, then the city should be implementing a permit/metering zone to make sure that people can access the area if they need to drive.

If the city is doing it right, they will limit the permits sold to some percentage of the actual supply, if permits are warranted, this will lead to higher prices for permits. How that money is spent is the key. Portland has a great program called the Transportation Wallet. 

I advocate for direct redistribution to low income residents. This might be in the form of transit passes or other subsidies (like the transportation wallet), but I would say it should actually be a cash rebate sent to SNAP recipients or some other such identifier. What I don’t like to see is discounts for permits, a subsidy only for car owning low income people. 

What’s the future of permits?

I think technology can be used wisely to allow for pretty dynamic “virtual permitting,” particularly in areas impacted by commercial parking. In these zones, visitors (be they customers or airBnB guests) could purchase neighborhood parking at market rates w/o meters. This raises more revenue for transit subsidies!

 In the end, it’s like  @DonaldShoup  says: “All may park, all must pay.”

If there’s more demand than supply for parking we should use markets to manage it. I’m a socialist for healthcare, education & housing. I’m a capitalist for parking.