Parking Pricing
Parking pricing encompasses parking policies that rely on market forces to influence the decision to drive, including variable pricing of curbside parking, commuter parking taxes, and parking "cash out" programs that require employers to provide their employees with the option to take the value of free or subsidized employee parking in cash in lieu of using the parking space provided by the employer.
Parking Pricing Examples
- California: SFpark, San Francisco – The San Francisco SFpark was officially deployed in April 2011 and focuses on managing on- and off-street parking in the city. It comprises two key components: providing better, real-time parking information (such as through applications on smart phones, as shown in Figure 6) and implementing demand-responsive pricing. In the project’s eight pilot areas, parking sensors and meters with a credit card payment option were installed for 7,000 spaces. Meter pricing varies by time of day (three 3 hour increments) and by block. An initial revenue evaluation of SFpark showed that more parking revenue is coming from meter payments rather than ticket payments in the pilot areas. This may suggest that the new credit card option has made payment easier, so customers are more likely to pay and avoid a parking citation. In addition, although increased revenue is not the primary goal of the project, the new meters are generating approximately 11 percent more net revenue than meters that were not upgraded.
- New York: PARK Smart, New York City – New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) has implemented three “PARK Smart” parking pricing pilots since 2009 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and Greenwich Village and the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Based on community support and feedback, NYC DOT has expanded and made permanent the PARK Smart programs in Park Slope and Greenwich Village. In Park Slope, metered parking is now $2.00/hour during peak hours (noon - 7 p.m.) and $1.00/hour off-peak. In Greenwich Village, metered parking is now $5.00/hour during peak hours (6 p.m. - 10 p.m.) and $3.00/hour off-peak. The extensive analysis and community engagement made possible by the VPPP grant allowed NYC DOT to tailor the pricing strategies and parking regulations to neighborhood needs. This meant addressing commercial loading concerns, expanding the peak-pricing area when each pilot was made permanent, and tweaking meter shut-off times and time limits to improve curb performance. Overall results show that PARK Smart has been effective at managing parking demand. Interestingly, the results are more evident in parking turnover, where 18 percent more vehicles were able to find legal metered spaces as compared to pre-implementation levels a year earlier, than in curb occupancy. Traffic volumes declined by 7 percent after implementation, partly due to drivers finding parking more quickly and spending less time circling.
- Additional Parking Pricing Examples
