Tag Archives: CarrPark

Carrboro to Charge for 21% of Downtown Parking Spaces: 79% to Remain Free

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Downtown Carrboro has over 3,600 parking spaces. The Town owns roughly 700 public spaces, and this week the town released plans to begin charging for parking in those public spaces.

The remaining 79% of downtown parking spaces (around 2,900 spaces) are held by private businesses, such as Carr Mill Mall. Nothing about those private parking spaces is changing as part of this plan.

Why is Carrboro planning to charge for parking in public spaces? (Short Version)

Two separate parking studies (in 2017 and 2022) have found that there are many people parking in public lots downtown for 6 or more hours. Some of them then take the J or CW bus to campus and spend no money downtown. In other cases, downtown employees wind up parking in spaces close to their employer, and inadvertently make it harder for customers to reach their business. These long stays in parking spaces reduce traffic for downtown businesses by locking up parking spaces for most of the day.

We’re also a community that has adopted a Comprehensive Plan called Carrboro Connects that has Climate Action as one of its two pillars. Parking pricing is one of the proven incentives to encourage individuals to consider using public transportation, biking, walking, or carpooling to make a trip instead of driving alone, and this helps reduce carbon emissions in our community.

What are the details of the proposal?

The current plan presumes:

  • Charging for parking in all publicly owned spaces downtown except for designated handicapped parking spaces.
  • The first 30 minutes in any space would be free so that pop-in, pop-out visits which still turn over spaces quickly would cost nothing.
  • The standard hourly cost would be $1.50 per hour
  • The maximum parking time allowed would be two hours
  • Signs will be displayed at the entrance and within each designated paid parking lot or series of on-street parking spaces, indicating this is a Paid Parking Lot/Space (as applicable), maximum parking duration, paid parking rate, and payment instructions.
  • Discounts of fifty (50) percent will be provided to low-income Carrboro residents who meet certain criteria
  • Signs will be displayed at the entrance and within each designated paid parking lot or series of on-street parking spaces, indicating this is a Paid Parking Lot/Space (as applicable), maximum parking duration, paid parking rate, and payment instructions.
  • Discounts of fifty (50) percent will be provided to low-income Carrboro residents who meet certain criteria
  • Fines for violations will be $20 for the first violation and $50 for subsequent violations

Registration and/or payment for parking spaces shall be required immediately upon parking via one of the following methods:

  • Mobile App: download and utilize the designated mobile app for the Town of Carrboro paid parking system; or
  • Text Messaging: send a text message to the designated phone number with the unique identifier displayed on the parking space signage; or
  • Phone: call the designated phone number and follow the automated instructions to pay for parking using a credit or debit card.

Will people still be able to come to downtown Carrboro without paying to park?

YES!

  1. Changing the time of a trip to downtown. While not currently listed as part of the proposal, it’s likely that the parking charges will be active for PART BUT NOT ALL OF THE DAY. So if parking charges are in place from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and you come downtown at 6:01 PM, you can park in any public lot for free.
  2. Parking in one of the private lots downtown that will still be free. Remember, 79% of parking in downtown Carrboro will still be free! If you park in the lot for Carr Mill Mall, for Grey Squirrel/Amante Pizza/Cats Cradle, those spaces will still be free. But be aware that some businesses downtown, particularly Carr Mill, engage in aggressive towing if you park on their lot and go to another business.
  3. Make a short visit! If you need to use a public space to pick up take-out from Spotted Dog, just park for less than 30 minutes, and the visit is free!
  4. If Sundays are free (not clear yet, to be determined by Town Council), park downtown on Sunday!
  5. Choose another transportation mode! The Chapel Hill Transit J Route and CW Route provide all day service to downtown Carrboro, and there is peak hour service on the Chapel Hill Transit F Route and the GoTriangle 405 Route. Biking may also work for those who live within 2 to 3 miles of downtown.

Patrick, you’re a parking nerd. Is there anything you would change about this plan?

Largely, this plan is well-conceived, and the Town deserves credit for establishing an equitable parking charge component for low-income residents. This is what walking the talk on equity looks like.

But I propose two key adjustments to the plan.

Adjustment A: Allow up to Four Hours of Parking With Higher Costs Per Hour

Currently, the planned ordinance has a fee structure that appears to be:

Current Carrboro Parking Charge Plan
0 to 30 MinutesFREE
31 to 60 Minutes$1.50 total
61 to 120 Minutes$3.00 total
More than 120 Minutes Violation & Fine – $20

I propose the following as an alternative:

Alternative Carrboro Parking Charge Plan
0 to 30 MinutesFREE
31 to 60 Minutes$1.50 total
61 to 120 Minutes$3.00 total
121 to 180 Minutes$6.00 total
181 to 240 Minutes$14.00 total
More than 240 Minutes Violation & Fine – $20

In the Alternative table, hour 1 and hour 2 both cost $1.50 for each hour. So if you stay under two hours, you pay $3.00. But if you stay longer, your impact to downtown businesses by not turning over the space increases, and so your cost for hour 3 is $3.00 just for that hour. And if you stay for hour 4, that one hour costs another $8.00, bringing the total cost for 181 to 240 minutes of parking to $14.00.

This gives people more flexibility in how they spend time downtown without triggering a $20 ticket quickly, but uses pricing to discourage park and ride to campus and employee parking in public spaces.

Adjustment B: Use The Alternate Pricing for Lots in the Core of Downtown, But Discount the Price of Less Convenient “Tier 2” Lots

Several lots that are little further away from the core of downtown may be able to be priced at a lower rate to reflect that they are a longer walk and less convenient from most downtown activities. This “Tier 2” of lots could include:

  • Town Hall Lots
  • Laurel Ave Lots
  • Community Worx Lot
  • Weaver St Lot
  • Fitch Warehouse Lot

In Tier 2 lots, parking would cost 2/3rds of what it costs in CORE lots. ($1.00 per hour for the first two hours, and the same discount in hours 3 and 4 in the Alternative Charge Plan above)

The map below shows the proposed CORE lots in green dots and the proposed TIER 2 lots in yellow.

I think there are some other questions about the Tier 2 lots that include – do we even need to charge in them on Saturdays? Other than the Farmers Market hours, those lots are very lightly used on weekends except during special events. Do we charge for Town Hall lots like they are Core lots during the Farmers’ Market, then not charge afterwards?

There’s always a balance between tuning parking policy as closely as possible to demand at various times of day, and having a system that is easy to understand. So maybe the CORE lots charge Monday through Saturday and the Tier 2 lots charge Monday through Friday. Fortunately we have a Town Council to help us work through these questions!

Is there anything else we need to be thinking about?

Yes. Employee access to downtown, in which parking is one of several strategies to reduce the chance that employees are negatively affected financially by the changes. Here are a few things worth thinking about:

  • Raleigh has subsidized e-bike purchases for residents. Can we do the same for downtown employees earning less than $20 per hour?
  • GoTriangle is returning fares to the 405 in July 2024. Can the town use some of the parking revenue to partially subsidize monthly GoTriangle passes for downtown employees?
  • South Green is currently not fully leased out. There is some parking capacity that the Town may be able to lease for town employees who could park there and then either walk up to downtown or take the J bus from the side of the roundabout.
  • It’s also worth considering if employee permits could be made available for downtown properties that have under 50 employees. Larger employers will have greater ability to solve for their employees, so focusing our efforts here could help. At the same time, it’s a balance – we want to make sure that as we issue permits for workers, it does not overwhelm capacity and fill lots. Maybe some of the Tier 2 lots could be prioritized for downtown workers?

Anyway – there’s some thinking to do here.

Why is Carrboro planning to charge for parking in public spaces? (Long, Detailed Version)

1. A downtown business district thrives on ACCESS – people being able to get to the business district to spend money. Some people walk downtown, others bike, others take the bus, and others drive and park.

2. When people who spend little or no money per hour spent downtown occupy access resources (bike racks, seats on buses, parking spaces) in ways that make it HARDER for shoppers who sustain the district financially to access downtown and spend money, it hurts local businesses and downtown vitality.

3. There are two populations of people whose spending per hour parked downtown is very low or zero: downtown employees, and stealth park-and-riders to UNC, who could be students or employees.

4. The largest employer in downtown, Carr Mill, has significant parking capacity to accommodate most or even all of its employees. Carr Mill practices extreme vigilance in preventing its employees from parking in the primary Carr Mill lots adjacent to WSM, Venable, CVS, Harris Teeter, etc. (Seriously, ask the WSM cashiers. Carr Mill has towed WSM employees with 15-20 years of service!)

5. At the same time, Carr Mill practices ZERO vigilance in encouraging its employees to use the lot that is free to them. People being people, having a choice between a free short walk to work and a free longer walk to work, choose the shorter walk from the Armadillo lot, etc. This behavior reduces the availability of an access resource (public parking spaces where you don’t get towed) to shoppers who sustain the business district.

6. While Carr Mill is the biggest issue here due to the number of employees onsite and their mismanagement of their own parking facilities, other downtown employees do the same. I’ve seen Century Center employees park across the street and walk in with brown bag lunches. That’s a town employee taking up a parking space for 8 hours, eating at their desk, and removing 8 hours of parking access in one of the best located lots in town.

7. UNC students and employees who have a choice of paying to park at Chapel Hill Transit lots on the edge of the two towns and taking longer bus rides to campus choose to drive to downtown Carrboro, pay nothing to park, and take a shorter J bus ride to campus, also removing parking spaces from the shoppers who sustain the business district.

8. While making rational choices for themselves, downtown employees and UNC students/staff are imposing costs on downtown businesses by reducing ACCESS for their customers.

9. Charging for public lots over a certain number of minutes will shift Carr Mill employees who work longer shifts to the Carr Mill lot, especially at the Yaggy/Armadillo Grill lot. Would you walk one block further to save $8 to $20 per day? Most anyone would.

10. What about UNC students? Park and ride to campus on the CM bus is still a pretty quick trip, but it’s $2/day or $20/month from the University Lake/Jones Ferry park and ride. But $2/day is much cheaper than $1.50/hour. So yes, people will make that switch. Addressing this stealth park-and-ride to campus behavior is important. I see calls from individuals opposed to parking pricing say that we should just do more to work with downtown businesses. First, the Town has tried, for over a decade, to do this, and not much has changed. But more importantly, as long as public parking is free, downtown Carrboro will remain the cheapest and best park and ride to the UNC Campus.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, on climate – we’re about to enter several days under a deadly HEAT DOME all across the east coast, and we have a forecast for the most active hurricane season ever. I was going to write something here but Elyse Keefe already made the perfect comment on this topic the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chat Facebook group, so read what she has to say:

Take the Town Survey and Share Your Thoughts

In closing, the Town has a survey page where you can provide input here:

https://www.carrboronc.gov/3008/Paid-Public-Parking-Ordinance

Share your views, particularly on things like hours and days of the week when the charge should be in place, and if you think it’s better to have one price everywhere for simplicity, or if having two or more tiers to give people who are willing to walk further lower parking costs is more valuable.

Email Question From a Reader: Parking Pricing and Equity

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In response to my last post on why Performance Parking Pricing is better than greater enforcement of 2-hour parking limits, I received an outstanding response from a reader via email.  Here are some key excerpts:

Hey Patrick.  I have been closely following the discussions about parking in Carrboro.  I subscribe to your CityBeautiful21 blog and I have watched all the recent archived video of Board of Aldermen meetings where parking was discussed.
I’m concerned that you have not addressed the impact [of parking pricing] on less wealthy citizens of Carrboro.   Since our bus system is not yet full service, particularly during nights and weekends, even folks who live in southern Carrboro often must drive to downtown…Your assumption that text enabled cell phones or smart phones would be available to most potential parkers is part of this issue.

You may have a solution to this problem but I have not heard a solution discussed. One idea that comes to mind would be a parking decal made available (one per in-town residence) to allow free parking, at least for some duration.  This has the advantage of favoring Carrboro residents since they already pay for development of parking facilities through their property taxes.

If such a decal would undercut the revenue stream needed to support a system like ParkMe, perhaps it could be reserved for citizens in financial need. Well thanks for listening.  I have great hopes that Carrboro will proactively address parking.  I understand that this is a key ingredient to making “small town urban” work well.

First, it’s wonderful to get such thoughtful feedback on a post. There are several good points the reader raises here; let’s take them one by one.

Parking Pricing Affects People of Different Incomes in Different Ways

This may seem patently obvious, but it’s worth being clear about it. Lower-income individuals are more impacted by parking pricing than higher-income individuals, especially if they lack alternative ways to access destinations that have priced parking. Therefore, if we are concerned about treating all citizens equally, then it is reasonable and healthy to ask if adding parking pricing to downtown Carrboro can be done in an equitable manner.

Addressing Equity: Are There Ways to Avoid Paying to Park, or to Pay Less to Park?

First, if parking pricing affects lower-income individuals more than higher-income ones, is there a way for a lower-income individual to avoid paying to park while still coming downtown?

Under Performance Parking Pricing, the answer is a big YES.  Remember the primary principle of Performance Parking Pricing: charge the LOWEST PRICE POSSIBLE that keeps at least 15% of the parking spaces in a group empty and available, INCLUDING ZERO dollars per unit of time.

For those who wish to avoid parking costs downtown, the first strategy is to drive downtown at a time when demand for lots leaves them more than 15% empty even when unpriced, because at those times, low-demand lots should be FREE.  Below is a lot in Chapel Hill that is priced from 8 am to 6 pm on Saturdays, and this is at about 11 am on a Saturday morning.  If this lot were in a Performance Parking Pricing system, it would be a prime candidate to lower the hourly rate, perhaps to zero, on Saturdays around lunchtime.

Underused Chapel Hill Parking Lot

Underused Chapel Hill Parking Lot

But time-shifting of a trip is not the only way to avoid or lower parking costs downtown.  Under a Performance Parking Pricing system, it is likely (and appropriate) that parking prices should vary by lot.  The lot across the street from the Station and Armadillo Grill will surely be fuller most evenings than the West Weaver St and Town Hall lots. Accordingly, if either of these lots have more than a 15% vacancy rate, they should be unpriced, and someone who wishes to avoid a parking charge simply walks a few extra blocks to their destination.

Addressing Equity: Improving Non-Auto Access to Downtown Carrboro

The reader gets at an additional part of the solution to equity concerns when he states:

“Since our bus system is not yet full service, particularly during nights and weekends, even folks who live in southern Carrboro often must drive to downtown…”

He is getting at another issue that we will need to address to improve access to downtown- the fact that bus service to and from downtown Carrboro at night and on the weekends is limited compared to its weekday, rush hour levels of service.  There are a few things we can do to improve this situation that could be the subject of several subsequent blog posts, so I will leave those details to another day.  However, Performance Parking Pricing can bring revenue to the table to help pay for extending transit services later and adding route frequency, or to help invest in safer bike routes into the downtown core.

Our local transit service today is very good for a US system in a medium-sized community.  However, if we want to take it to the next level of success, getting a wider service span across the day to 10:00 or 11:00 pm on most routes would help a lot.  Fortunately, Chapel Hill Transit is already working on this, with the following improvements recommended in the budget for the coming year:

  • Extended weekday evening trips on the CM, CW, D and J bus routes
  • Later trips for the F route
  • Earlier hours for the Saturday JN route
  • Additional Saturday hours for the CM and CW routes

 

Another Advantage for Performance Pricing Parking: More Equitable Than Flat-Rate Parking

What is interesting about the equity question and parking is that having flat-rate parking, such as $1/hour regardless of demand for spaces, takes away the two opportunities for equity above that involve time-shifting or choosing a lower-priced lot. This is another reason to figure out how to start charging for parking in Carrboro under a Performance Parking Pricing format rather than a flat-rate, maximum-hour limited format.

Technology and Equity: Can We Make Performance Pricing Parking Work Without Tripping Over the Digital Divide?

Parking Zone Signage in Asheville

Parking Zone Signage in Asheville

Another issue raised by the reader is whether or not a system that relies heavily on phone technology to pay for parking is exclusionary of lower-income individuals who are less likely to own smartphones.  This is a good question. Fortunately, many of the systems sold by vendors who produce parking technology have recognized this issue, and have worked to create systems that combine pay-by-smartphone apps with pay-by-text solutions, as well as on-street kiosks offering pay-by-credit card and pay-by-cash choices as well.

The sign at the right from Asheville even has a phone number you can call and speak to someone to facilitate payment in case you do not have a smartphone.

Over the long term, the trend towards all phones being smartphones is also likely to eliminate gaps in access and narrow the digital divide. I just checked with my wireless provider’s website and found that smartphones by Apple, Nokia, Samsung, and Blackberry were all available for less than $1.00 with a two-year contract. The chart below on smartphone market penetration by age and income also seems to support that we are headed this way.

Smartphone Use by Age Group and Income

Smartphone Use by Age Group and Income

 

Looking at this chart, it seems like age is a much more powerful predictor of smartphone usage than income.

Is There a Role for Decals Regarding Parking In Downtown Lots?  I Don’t Think So

Finally, the reader asks if having decals for town citizens, either for all citizens or limited by income, that would allow some form of limited free parking– would be an alternative we should consider.  My initial assessment is that the other ways of addressing the equity questions I discuss above are more efficient at providing choice and opportunity in allowing low-income individuals to minimize parking costs, and also minimize the management burden and costs of the town.

The experience in other (UCSD) communities (U of FL) that are in or adjacent to college towns also suggest that with many households moving in and out each year, the distribution of decals to residents creates the opportunity for a black market in parking decals to emerge where local residents who can obtain a permit may actually “rent” it to higher-income individuals or to students who would park downtown for longer periods of time than desired, perhaps to commute to campus.

Given the concerns the Aldermen have voiced regarding park and riders coming to downtown after the pricing of Chapel Hill Transit lots begins in August, this decal approach would seem to be in conflict with strategies designed to manage any spillover effects from Carrboro Plaza / Jones Ferry Rd to downtown.

Bottom Line: Equity Is Possible Under Performance Parking Pricing; The Reader Is Right About Improving Alternatives and Making Sure Payment is Accessible

It was a joy to get such thoughtful feedback on a post.  It encouraged me to think in greater depth about the issue, and to look at it through a prism that many of us hold dear in Carrboro.

I think it is clear that Performance Parking Pricing could be implemented in Carrboro without having serious equity impacts because of the choices it provides in terms of motorists having access to different lots at different times at different prices, that for the near term, will almost certainly be FREE at least part of the time. If some of the revenue from a Performance Parking System could be dedicated to support transit and bike access to downtown from lower-income neighborhoods, then the equity proposition of this program looks even better.

The reader is absolutely correct that we need more alternatives to get to downtown at more hours so that those who have strong financial incentives to avoid parking costs have choices available to them, and that while smartphone technology is great, we need to ensure that there are other ways to pay for parking that don’t require you to own an expensive, latest-model phone. I commend him for putting this topic on the table!

In closing, while I certainly encourage anyone to join the discussion in the comments, I know that others may wish to submit comments by email.  To make that easier, and to avoid spam for me and you, I’ve set up a contact form as part of the site, now available here.

The Future of Parking Is Here, It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed

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I’ve never read William Gibson’s novels, and I am generally unfamiliar with his ideas.  But I like this quote of his:

The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.

This is true to some degree with any matter of human existence that interfaces with technology, and transportation, including parking– is no different.

Our family spent Easter weekend in Asheville, NC. DW grew up there and whenever we visit, we usually spend some time (or lots of time) enjoying all that Asheville’s downtown has to offer. The transformation of downtown into what is perhaps North Carolina’s most vibrant urban environment since the mid-90s is quite remarkable, and we enjoy seeing the changes there when we visit.

Given the amount of time I have spent writing on this blog about parking recently, I was pleasantly surprised to see that at least some elements of the Future of Parking have arrived in Asheville.

Most notably, Asheville has implemented pay-by-phone parking across many (but curiously not all) spaces in downtown.  Here’s how it works:

1. After you find a parking space, you get out of your car and make a choice between putting quarters, nickels and dimes into a conventional parking meter adjacent to your space, or paying for use of the space with your smartphone.  Signage on the street near public parking spaces lets you know what zone you are in.

 

Parking Zone Signage in Asheville

Parking Zone Signage in Asheville

2. Once you know your zone, you can fire up an app on a smartphone, text, or call an operator via phone to pay.  The remainder of the steps below are showing the smartphone procedure.  You look at the space number on the parking meter (in this case, 3) to enter into the software.

Asheville Parking Meter

Asheville Parking Meter, Space 3

3. From here the phone app takes over.  I had downloaded the Passport Parking app and registered my phone and credit card number.  Once you sign in using a pin you designate, you specify the zone (which part of the city) you are renting a space in.

Choosing Your Parking Zone

Choosing Your Parking Zone

4. Next you specify the parking space itself: (I also parked once in space 17, and space 18. I forgot to get a screenshot for space 3, but you get the idea)

Choose Parking Space Screen

Choose Parking Space Screen

5. Finally, you receive a screen where you can select how many hours and minutes you want, which then gives you a summary and your total anticipated parking charge:

Confirm Payment Screen

Confirm Payment Screen

 

You’ll notice that you’re paying $0.25 extra to pay for parking via phone, on top of a base price of $1.25 for 75 minutes, or a quarter for every 15 minutes. Is this surcharge worth it?  Imagine you’re at a restaurant, having a good time with friends, and you realize it’s 3 minutes until the meter runs out, and the restaurant is 5 minutes away on foot.  And it’s raining. Would you rather sprint back to the car to feed the meter $0.50, or reach into your pocket, tap your phone a few times, and extend your parking by 30 minutes for $0.75?

It’s this ability to change your plans on the fly and still avoid a ticket or a backtracking walk across downtown that makes the service worth the extra quarter.

6. Finally, the app even gives you the option to be reminded when you’re getting down to a certain number of minutes so that you know when to start walking back to your car, or to make the extension payment and keep on doing what you were doing.

Parking Countdown

Parking Countdown

Notice the option to Extend your parking is at the bottom left, and Validation (I did not get to try this in Asheville) is at the right.

The system emails or texts you a receipt if you like, so if you’re on business and need to turn such things in, it’s easy to do so.  All in all, I found it very convenient, and the system did what it was supposed to do.

Opportunities for Improvement

Asheville could make this system a little better with a few simple improvements.

  • First, the meter poles are labeled, but many of the meter poles manage parking for two spaces.  There’s some confusion on the two-space poles which space number you should enter into the system. It’s less confusing for the user if every space on the street is individually marked.
  • Market pricing of spaces.  It was clear driving around that some spaces were in much greater demand, yet the price was uniform as far as I could tell across most zones.  Raising prices on busier blocks and lowering them on less-busy blocks would lead to better utilization on the further-away blocks and also make more spaces available on the best blocks.
  • Finally, I’m not sure what the significance of the Zone numbers were.  I expected zones to change by block, but it seemed like two-thirds of downtown was in Zone 48, and the rest of the zones seemed haphazard.  I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to be telling me. Perhaps using more zones would have made things clearer; perhaps not.

The Bottom Line

As I mentioned above, the future of parking is already arriving piecemeal in North Carolina, though it has not yet reached Carrboro. Asheville is using pay-by-smartphone technology effectively, but has not improved its hardware (meters and labels) or policy (pricing/rates) to keep up with its advanced software.  Hopefully those improvements will come soon.

The type of advanced parking system I think we ultimately will need in Carrboro involves several improvements over the status quo, and the type of software implementation shown here, already working well in Asheville, is one element of that advanced parking system.

Chapel Hill News Asks Wrong Questions on Carrboro Parking

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Roberson St Lot by Flickr User Rubyji

Roberson St Lot by Flickr User Rubyji

In Sunday’s (3/24/2013) Chapel Hill News, the second left-hand editorial expressed concern over parking management for Shelton Station and the recent purchase of the Roberson Street lot by the town. The paper suggests that by buying parking in one part of downtown while considering ways to reduce the demand for parking at Shelton Station in another part of downtown, the Aldermen are acting at cross purposes by pursuing both initiatives.

Is Carrboro Talking Out of Both Sides of Its Mouth on Parking?

This editorial lacks context in a few places, and it is worth unpacking them one at a time.

Carrboro’s thoughtful development has made it one of the Triangle’s most livable and entertaining towns.

But the town can’t have it both ways.

Let’s start here.  The town is not having anything “both ways.” As the piece goes on, it seems to portray the issue as if asking Shelton Station’s developers to reduce the amount of proposed parking to be NEWLY BUILT onsite is somehow a REDUCTION in parking downtown while the Town purchasing parking that ALREADY EXISTS and is being used today is an EXPANSION of parking. To clear things up, Shelton Station will definitely add some amount of parking to downtown; how much has yet to be determined.  The purchase of the Roberson St lot does not add a single parking space to downtown.  It moves the control of the property’s destiny from the private sector to the public sector.

Is Shelton Station Significantly Out of Step with Town Parking Requirements, and Is That a Problem?  Or an Opportunity?

The editorial goes on:

As proposed, Shelton Station would have 170 parking spaces – fewer than the town requires.

This is partially true- the town has base-level requirements for various uses, and within certain parts of town, mostly close to downtown, developers can take reductions in parking based on the assumptions that some uses will share parking.  The developers have arrived at the 170 spaces listed above by accurately applying the shared parking reduction formulas of the town to the base parking requirements.

However, this only matters if the parking requirements make any sense, and in the United States, generally, they don’t. What’s wrong with parking requirements, particularly those from the Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE), which the Town of Carrboro uses? Fortunately, Donald Shoup, the pre-eminent expert on parking in the US, and perhaps the world, has done the heavy lifting for us.

From Shoup’s landmark paper, “The Trouble With Minimum Parking Requirements”:

Where do minimum parking requirements come from? No one knows. The “bible” of land use planning, F. Stuart Chapin’s Urban Land Use Planning, does not mention parking requirements in any of its four editions.1 The leading textbooks on urban transportation planning also do not mention parking requirements. This silence suggests that planning academics have not seriously considered or even noticed the topic. This academic neglect has not prevented practicing planners from setting parking requirements for every conceivable land use. Fig. 1 shows a small selection of the myriad land uses for which planners have set specific parking requirements.

Without training or research, urban planners know exactly how many parking spaces to require for bingo parlors, junkyards, pet cemeteries, rifle ranges, slaughterhouses, and every other land use. Richard Willson (1996) surveyed planning directors in 144 cities to learn how they set parking requirements. The two most frequently cited methods were “survey nearby cities” and “consult Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) handbooks”. Both strategies cause serious problems.

Shoup goes on to point out that the “survey other cities” approach often leads to the repetition of mistakes of other communities.  Carrboro is particularly susceptible to making this type of mistake because very few towns Carrboro’s size possess a level of transit service or cycling usage anything like ours.

Carrboro does, however, use on the handbooks of the Institute of Transportation Engineers in its analysis of how much parking certain uses require in town.  All of the italicized quote below is Shoup’s commentary except for the section in blue, which is a direct quote from the ITE Parking Generation manual:

To base parking requirements on more objective data, planners consult Parking Generation, published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. For each land use, this publication reports the “parking generation rate”, defined as the peak parking occupancy observed in surveys by transportation engineers.

A vast majority of the data… is derived from suburban developments with little or no significant transit ridership… The ideal site for obtaining reliable parking generation data would… contain ample, convenient parking facilities for the exclusive use of the traffic generated by the site… The objective of the survey is to count the number of vehicles parked at the time of peak parking demand (Institute of Transportation Engineers, 1987a, vii±xv, bold added by Shoup).

The ITE summarizes the survey results and reports the average peak parking occupancy observed at each land use as the parking generation rate for that land use. Half of the 101 reported parking generation rates are based on four or fewer surveys of parking occupancy, and 22% of the parking generation rates are based on a single survey. Because parking is free for 99% of all automobile trips in the United States, parking must be free at most of the ITE survey sites. Parking generation rates therefore typically measure the peak demand for parking observed in a few surveys conducted at suburban sites that o€versample free parking and lack public transit. Urban planners who use these parking generation rates to set minimum parking requirements are making a big mistake.

So what does a page out of the ITE Parking Generation handbook look like? Anybody familiar with statistics and regression analysis who has not seen ITE parking math before is in for a treat. Check out this scatterplot- click to enlarge:

ITE Parking Manual

This is a recommended equation for calculating parking for a fast food restaurant in the ITE Parking Generation Manual, based on the thousands of square feet of leasable space in a restaurant.  It has a R-squared value of 0.038. Put another way, the ITE gives urban planners a chart and equation to forecast the peak demand for parking at a certain type of restaurant in which they admit that over 96% of the variables that explain variation in peak parking demand are not captured by the chart or the equation. I’m ignoring the fact that they have 18 observations and that my grad school faculty said never to conduct regression analysis with less than 30 data points.

The bottom line is that with these equations and 3-decimal point numbers, the ITE manuals look like highly scientific documents, when in fact they are at best alchemy conjured to replicate conditions for single-use buildings that contain all their parking on one site, in places where that is a wise strategy because land is not terribly valuable.  They contain a value judgment that everyday parking should be sized to meet peak demand, which is the philosophy that brings us massive fields of parking for Thanksgiving Day shoppers that sit mostly empty 315+ days per year outside big box stores. These types of analyses were never meant to work in downtowns, and even as a first step prior to shared parking reductions like that which has been contemplated in the Shelton Station application, we should put limited stock in them.

Anyone seeking an informative and entertaining read on the folly of minimum parking requirements should read Dr. Shoup’s entire paper here (PDF 324k). It’s not a long read and there are many graphics. The first 7 pages lay out most of the problems quite well.

Returning to the Chapel Hill News editorial, the piece concludes:

The aldermen may be right to relax the parking requirements for Shelton Station. But if they’re wrong those cars are going to have to park somewhere. Before the project comes back, they may want to figure out just how much parking downtown really needs.

This is not necessarily true.  Those cars might not have to park somewhere.  What the CH News staff is missing here is that downtown attracts PEOPLE first, and also, as a secondary derived consequence of attracting PEOPLE, also attracts VEHICLES, which include:

  • BIKES
  • BUSES
  • FOOTWEAR
  • SCOOTERS
  • WAGONS
  • STROLLERS
  • and yes, CARS

 

Travel behavior surveys from around the country and the UNC campus show that most people, when living in a community that provides transportation choices, use several different modes in any given week.  You might drive to work but walk to the Farmers’ Market on Saturdays.  You might take the bus to UNC for work but drive to the movies with friends.  (you might consider taking the bus home from the movies if it ran later, too)

The key point is that people are reasonably smart and if they want to come to downtown Carrboro, and we give them choices, and encourage them to make choices that keep the downtown less congested and allow more access for others to do the same, then many of them will figure out other ways to get downtown than get in a car.  This already happens thousands of times a day, every day- in downtown Carrboro. Some of them will still drive, and that’s fine as long as we don’t do things that makes downtown less vibrant to ensure they have a perpetual supply of free spaces.

If We Shouldn’t Trust ITE Manuals or Other Communities’ Unscientific Standards, How Should We Evaluate What the “Right” Amount of Parking is for Development, Particularly Downtown?

First, we should realize that there is no bureau of Parking Weights and Measures coming to sue us/yell at us/etc if we make unorthodox choices.  We’re on our own, and that’s good.

Second, we should discuss parking policy through the prism of our goals. Vision 2020 aims to double commercial space downtown.  Space for parking competes directly with that goal, which is why we need to focus on providing ACCESS to downtown rather than parking.  I wrote a column on Orangepolitics on this subject five years ago that I think still applies well today. Access will require improving our environmentally friendly mode access to downtown, and probably involves eventually putting a market price on parking downtown.

Third, we should conduct research on how people get to businesses in downtown Carrboro. What the exact percentage is, I’m not sure- but the percentage of people arriving at Weaver Street Market to shop on foot, by bike, and by bus is surely very, very, different than your standard grocery store.

Fourth, we need to recognize that the fragmented parking landscape of downtown with many owners, all trying to reserve parking for their own customers, contributes to congestion and air pollution when people drive from lot A across the street to lot B to avoid triggering a towing policy, even though the individual moving their car across the street is the mutual customer of two downtown businesses.

When Dan Burden visited in 2001, he recommended that we figure out how to get more shared parking arrangements in downtown.  With the exception of Fitch Lumber allowing Weaver Street Market customers to park there for Thursday night and Sunday morning events, I don’t think this has really happened in any tangible way in downtown.

Back to Shelton Station

This last point is where unbundling parking comes in, and remains a key variable for Shelton Station. Technology has improved a lot over the last ten years and may offer us an opportunity to create “virtually shared” parking in town.  If Shelton Station is approved with the 170 spaces that the shared parking portions of the Town parking rules allow, or even some lower number of spaces, then if there is a carsharing vehicle onsite, renting apartments with unbundled parking will maximize the chance of the Shelton Station lot having capacity because lower-car ownership households will have an incentive to rent there that is not present elsewhere in town.

If after unbundling, Shelton Station developers find they have seven empty spaces pretty much all the time, then it would be great if they could put those seven spaces into a “shared parking pool” for downtown.  We could call the system, you guessed it — “CarrPark.”

These spaces would have a special sign letting people know that while most of the Shelton Station property was reserved for residents and businesses on site, that these seven spaces could be used by anyone WILLING TO PAY the market rate for that parking space at that time of day and day of the week.  Surely at some times of the week, that price would likely be zero, but at others, there would be a per-hour charge that would be adjusted by time of day to make sure that Shelton Station’s shared spaces were priced to be 85% full and 15% empty all the time.

Why would any developer do this?  Easy- they could keep any revenue from the spaces after the costs of registering those seven spaces in the CarrPark system were accounted for. Over time, a network of CarrPark parking spaces would be created downtown, on both public and private lots.  The town could put its public lots into the CarrPark system and build the computerized backend, which would include sensors that share real-time information on whether or not a parking space is empty. Visitors to downtown could check a real-time information app before they drove into town to see which lots had the most availability, and what their price per hour is.

This approach would allow incremental changes, one parking space at a time, to yield genuinely shared parking in downtown Carrboro across multiple public and private lots, without necessitating complicated land swaps among parking space owners.

While an electronic shared parking “CarrPark” system is obviously a longer-term idea to discuss for the community, the key point for projects like Shelton Station which will reach the Aldermen’s table soon is this — there are a lot of parking innovation tools we could deploy to make downtown Carrboro even more lovely for pedestrians while making it a lot more convenient to park downtown.

All of them are likely to work better if Shelton Station rents apartments and parking spaces to residents separately in an Unbundled fashion.

The other stuff can come later; but this is a great time to try Unbundling. I hope we can see this happen through a condition in the use permit for the site, or some other appropriate mechanism the town can come up with.