Contemporary Approaches to Parking Pricing: A Primer.

摘要

United States drivers were introduced to the concept of paid, on-street parking in 1935 when the first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City. In the ensuing decades little was done to improve the basic tools or processes of parking pricing. Many cities arbitrarily set fixed parking rates that resulted in excess demand for a finite resource. The failure of cities to price parking based on demand has resulted in an underperforming parking system, the impacts of which include lost revenue, increased congestion, decreased access to businesses, environmental harm, and inconveniences to travelers. Underpriced and free parking also distort travel decisions. Studies have found that free parking can increase the drive-alone rate for commute trips by as much as 50 percent (Hess, 2001; Willson and Shoup, 1990a; San Francisco County Transportation Authority, 1996) and work by Donald Shoup (2006) reported that approximately 30 percent of cars in congested downtown traffic may be looking for parking, adding unnecessary vehicle trips to already congested areas. Correctly pricing parking can help address these issues.