From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: SF Parking Subsidies
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 23:54:48 GMT


Hi folks.  I'm back from vaction and while catching up on my
email I came across this item and decided to post it here.  It
was "posted" to a transit mailing list that I'm on...

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Why are Parking Subsidies Immune to S.F. Budget Crisis?
by John Holtzclaw

(from MOVING PEOPLE May-June, 1992)

How much do the city's parking subsidies contribute to San
Francisco's looming $140 million budget deficit?  What subsidies
are we talking about?  The City provides parking in garages and
lots, mostly in the downtown and Civic Center areas, and on the
streets, some of it metered.  City costs that exceed the parking
charges are subsidies.  City costs include land value (or the
property taxes that would be paid if the land were privately
owned), paving, striping, maintaining, policing, and interest on
all these costs.

Economists tell us that the market is the best measure of real
costs and efficient service supply.  Commercial garages and lots
encounter the same costs as the City.  Let's use their charges to
estimate the value of City-provided parking.  I would be glad to
provide the details of this analysis.

The City operates 15 garages and lots, according to the Department
of Parking and Traffic, the biggest being Sutter-Stockton.
Comparing each one's three-hour parking rate with randomly sampled
nearby commercial garages indicates the rate of subsidy.
Three-hour rates are compromises between short stays and all day
parking.  Allowing for garage size, City revenues would be $67
million at market rate, or $40 million over the $27 million the
City collected in 1991.  Even if these higher rates reduced parking
by 20 percent, City revenues would be $27 million higher than now.

As A. Lawrence Chickering pointed out in the March 10, 1991
Chronicle, meter rates higher than nearby commercial garages
discourage all-day meter-feeding and open up curbside parking for
shoppers.  Comparing meter rates with nearby garages shows that we
should charge eight times higher rates, yielding $70 million more
than the City's annual take of $10 million.  Even if parking drops
off 20 percent at higher rates, the City would still get $54
million more.

Free street parking is actually subsidized by those with off-street
parking and those who can't afford cars through their property taxes
(or rents) and sales taxes.  Similarly, parking in residential
permit areas is heavily subsidized.  The best indicator of the true
cost of residential parking is the monthly parking charge by the
apartments which don't hide it in the rent.  A random survey of
these charges throughout San Francisco yields an average of $77 per
month.  Discounting this to $60 per month, or $2 per day, to
account for concerns that on-street parking is less secure, would
yield $129 million more than the present $2 million.  Even if street
parking dropped by 20 percent at higher rates, the City would still
get $103 million more.

Adding these together, the City subsidizes parking $240 million
annually.  Even if all parking dropped by 20 percent at higher rates,
the city could collect $184 million more by ending subsidies.
Increasing fines would easily cover any additional enforcement costs.
The $44 million over the City's budget deficit could be used to
reduce sales taxes and improve transit, benefiting the low and
middle income [groups].  With federal matching funds we could afford
to improve Muni service, extend Muni Metro, extend the CalTrain
downtown and electrify it, and build an East Bay light rail system
coming across the Bay Bridge to downtown.

Are we being sensible and responsible if we keep cars on welfare
while starving transit?  Are we business-like?  Fair?  Then what's
our excuse for doing so?  These questions are admittedly
embarrassing to motorists wanting to deny that they are on welfare.
But fairness, an improved environment and a healthy economy are not
served by self-deception.

***********
Moving People is an excellent transit newsletter published by the
Modern Transit Society, P.O. Box 981, Sacramento, CA 95812.
Regular membership $15.
***********

Joel Woodhull, SCRTD

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov