Transit advocates know what it is to be obsessed by what some would say is small part of reality, but UCLA professor Donald Shoup outdoes us in his focus on a single subcategory of transit—parking. He has just published THE HIGH COST OF FREE PARKING (Planners Press, 2005), a 700 page volume,
which tells not only all you want to know about parking, but also what sorts of questions you should ask. You may recognize Shoup’s name from the Public and Legislative Affairs column in the September Transit Advocate. A Santa Monica activist, Ellen Brennan, is quoted calling some of Shoup’s work “mere theories.” But what theories! Supported by empirical research, wide-ranging background knowledge, many tables of data, not to mention lovely equations, linear and non-linear, replete with partial derivatives, Shoup has much to teach us.

When I tell friends that I am reading a book about parking, they assume that it gives strategies for providing more parking. Instead, Shoup invites us to view an overflowing parking lot as evidence that parking fees are too low, not that there are insufficient spaces. For about 99% of all automobile
trips, the driver does not pay for parking. The obvious answer to “Who pays?” is “We all do,” in higher prices for goods and housing, in urban sprawl, in environmental degradation, in time, in quality of life. Shoup explains each of these in detail. If drivers paid the real cost of their parking spaces, it is likely that they would change their travel habits.

Shoup shows us how parking may provide the road to answers of some of life’s most urgent questions. Why is housing so expensive? Required numbers of parking
spaces drive up the cost to builders and hence to the rest of us. Why are streets dangerous? The prevalence of parking lots drives pedestrians away, so that those few who remain are vulnerable. Why are there locations where restaurant after restaurant opens and soon fails? Parking codes usually require additional parking spaces if the type of business is changed. How does parking contribute to air pollution, since cars do not spew emissions when engines are not running? Engines ARE running while drivers are looking for a place to park. In Westwood, for example, an average of 68% of cars are cruising, seeking parking. Once you get in the spirit of it, you will not be surprised to learn that the amount of money spent on subsidized parking is about equal to the defense budget. (About 345 billion dollars.) Shoup does not, however, tell us what percent of the defense budget is spent on parking, whether for cars, Hummers, or bombs.

You will learn amazing facts connected with parking. In urban areas, 16% of automobile accidents are connected with parking. In at least 16 of the world’s major languages the word for “parking” is either identical to, or cognate with, the English “parking.” The Greeks say “parking.” The Italians say “parcheggio.” To cover the cost of building and maintaining it, a parking space at UCLA should cost $127 per month. The country with the second highest automobile ownership per capita, New Zealand, is at the same level that the U. S. was in 1983. The minimum parking requirement for a concert hall in downtown Los Angeles exceeds the maximum allowable in downtown San Francisco. (Where would you rather hang out on a Friday night?) An abundance of transit trivia, all pointing in the same direction.

Shoup is determined to make us aware of how much we actually pay for parking. Since businesses build costs for parking into their prices, even those who do not drive pay for parking. I am, however, sceptical about whether prices would go down if parking codes allowed fewer spaces. Beyond forcing us to face the simple fact that free parking is extremely expensive, Shoup does offer some solutions. Among them is a proposal for metered curbside parking with rates determined by the market so as to leave roughly 15% of spaces free at any time. Thus there would always be space available for someone to take care of a short errand. The goal is to “manage a scarce public resource, not to finance the use of it.” In order to make this scheme palatable to residents, he proposes the establishment of
parking improvement districts, where the revenues will be returned to the neighborhoods for the purpose of street and side walk maintenance and improvement. Advanced technologies give us many ways to pay the fees without having to carry a pocketful of quarters or to interrupt our activities periodically to feed the meter. The model for this proposal is Old Pasadena, where such a system is in force. Old Pasadena has become a desirable destination.

Shoup writes gracefully and wittily while approaching his subject from many different angles. Who would guess that a 3 1/2 pound, 700 page tome on parking could be so gripping! I feel a little silly swooning over a book on parking, but I did enjoy it mightily and certainly have begun to look at parking differently. Recently asked to pay $120 for a parking permit, I smiled and said. “Of course. That’s how it should be.”