Free Parking is like Squatting

[Thomas Beyer]

From time to time I am a guest editor or contributor on the urban design forum called pricetags. It was started by Gordon Price, a former Vancouver City Councillor and now a director at the Urban Studies Program at SFU, in 2007, and covers a lot of topics related to urban design, road use, public transit, sense of place, density etc.

You may wish to join the debate, especially if you are in the Greater Vancouver area and have an interest in city design. I am one of very few more fiscally conservative guys on this very well written, content rich and highly read blog, and as such I could use a few compatriates to contribute thoughts.

One guest blog I wrote a few weeks ago - inspired by the squatting in Victoria and Vancouver, is entitled Free Parking is like Squatting ( https://pricetags.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/free-parking-is-like-squatting/ ) as the free or almost free use of road space by cars in residential neighborhoods really irks me. Vancouver is choke full of cars, with lousy mainly bus based public transit. Vancouver is trying to get funding for more transit, yet does not price road use high enough. That was the reason why I voted "no" in last year's transit referendum when they tried to up the PST by 0.5%. In my opinion the wrong tool to fund transit. We must make car use far more expensive in cities first. Cars parked on the surface must be one of the worst land uses out there.

Offloading your personal parking requirements onto the public realm, for free, is like squatting.

 

[RE123RE]

Hi,
The questions are what is the (most moral) number of cars we want to allow people to drive and park in a certain area?
Is limiting the number by means of money the most moral way of all means?
Not easy questions which make you think(,) right.
Thanks

 

[Thomas Beyer]

Why let them use it for free ? Public property has value. If house A has four people living in it with 3 cars and two of them park on the road is that fair to the neighbor with a similar house and similar property taxes that has only one car, parked in his own garage ?

Cars parked on a surface must be one of the worst land uses out there. With prices at about $20M an acre, or $500/sq ft in many central city locations, and assuming that a car is about 6 x 20 feet or 120 sq ft a typical parking spot's value is about $60,000. Using a 4% interest or monetization rate that would be $2400/year or $200/month. Anything less is a subsidy, is it not ?

 

[Kir Luong]

I agree... we should have some mechanism to tax the people that have many vehicles, which would otherwise clog the road system (ex. Parking on streets). This applies not only to busy central places, or expensive lots. House lots are getting skinnier now and more townhouses being built , and lots of older places changing from RF1 to RF3 (ex. mature neighborhoods in Edmonton).
Cities will naturally grow, meaning more people. Maybe this is more of a problem in such places like Vancouver where they can't grow horizontally (ex. no more land). In Edmonton, we just create more suburbs, so less of a problem. However, suburbs cost alot of money so part of our taxes goes to pay for that. Why not tax the people with more than 3 vehicles.(?)..perhaps this can alleviate rising property tax. Alternatively, if it goes to provincial revenues, we can reduce the stupid carbon tax, or maybe get rid of it.

 

[Thomas Beyer]

The question is if all lot levies and property taxes are sufficient to pay for construction and ongoing maintenance of all required road infrastructure ? Some argue cars are "subsidized". Gasoline taxes are often too low, especially in Alberta, and especially with the e-car getting more popular eventually road tolls and parking fees have to be raised to cover road use/depreciation.

 

[Kir Luong]

No, the direct taxes and charges collected from car usage and parking fees is not enough to build new and maintain our road infrastructure.
That's why our taxes always go up 3-6% annually. However, there are some indirect taxation collected that is used for road maintenance. Now in Edmonton, we are faced with back lane taxes (another few percents) to maintain back alleys. In previous years, I had some rentals that were faced with a "revitalization levy" that was to service sidewalks. So the city will tax us accordingly for using new and worn down concrete. So we are taxed already things that relate to public roads. Since cities are always expanding (new suburbs), thing will get more expensive and total taxes will increased, inevitably. This is possibly an unintended consequence of our land-use policy that promotes suburbia. So I'm more interested in seeing what city planners are doing and what special taxes will they force developers to pay when a new suburb is created. Cars is just a by-product of suburbia since house and the workplace are just spatially spread out and not functionally within walking distance.

 

[Thomas Beyer]

The issue is " where is the incentive to reduce car use " if we tax properties or consumption or back lanes but not each car more ?

Why does a family that lives in an identical house with three cars pay the same taxes as a family with one, and uses transit more, walks more or bikes more ?

Once we get more e-cars, gasoline taxes won't do. So why are there so few road tolls, per km charges like in OR now or higher parking fees ?

More on the per mile charge in Oregon here http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/RUFPP/pages/index.aspx