City Officials Consider Parking Meter Rate Increase
An article in today’s Dispatch is reporting that some city officials are considering a 50% rate hike to parking meters throughout Downtown, the Short North, the Arena District, German Village and other urban neighborhoods. The increase is estimated to bring in an additional $1.5 million in revenue. This news comes just three weeks after parking meter restrictions were lifted in order to make Downtown on-street parking more convenient for businesses.
You can read the full Dispatch article here.
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Related Tags: Arena District • city hall • downtown • German Village • parking • parking meters • Short North • transportation
October 18th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Maybe COTA could break the Trolley buses out for the shuttle service? They could run a free shuttle from Broad and High through the SN and back.
October 18th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I have to agree with Dr. Shoup (author the “The Hgh Cost of Free Parking”) on this. The price should be high enough to ensure there are always a few vacancies on a metered street and the money from the increase must first go directly towards the area where the meter revenue is being collected, if you want businesses to actually support this. In this case, revenue collected on Gay St should go back into funding Gay St.
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/dr-shoup-parking-guru/
There’s more here on eradicating the minimum parking requirement, which Columbus still has, and how it reduces density and raises housing costs.
www.uctc.net/papers/351.pdf
There’s a slide show if you don’t feel like reading.
www.cis.yale.edu/transportationoptions/parking/documents/Highpriceoffreeparking.ppt
October 18th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Mike,
Could you provide more details about why the article states that the city is using the meter revenue to subsidize a private developer’s construction of a hotel?
October 19th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
@Urbanboi: the dog is an applehead chihuahua named Riley, was my old roomies dog a few years ago and he weighed 4 pounds and was really social, unusual for his breed. Riley would still not be a fan of parking meter increases. However perhaps a change machine or two would be useful since the credit card thing didnt work out…
October 19th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Great thread, glad I checked back in today. Here’s my list of replies:
1. Westgate Rain Garden pic - awesome… check out the big one we built behind the new W. Side Hx Center on Broad, it is huge.
2. Parking - I personally agree that the price at meters should be higher, especially in highest demand and densest districts to encourage meter turn-over and use of alternative transit.
Also, this amount of increase is almost the same as if we’d done an annual increase at a 3% rate of inflation for each of past 11 years since the last re-pricing of meter fees in ‘98.
2.5 In addition to expanded hours of meter operation in high demand areas, in the coming year we are also going to look at expanding meter zones… mostly likely north, from Short North, to un-metered areas where demand is growing along High Street Corridor.
3. Hotel. We are helping to build a 500-room Hilton at the Convention Center downtown. This is a good project (with parking) that will support businesses in a large area and help us compete for more national conventions.
The City and County promised to serve as back-up financially for the Convention Facilities Authority (CFA), which is actually funding the project. The “city” stands to gain significantly from the project and the travel and tourism will help area restaurants, etc.
The City’s financial promise is to place $1.4m in reserve (a 1 time set-aside), in case the CFA’s hotel fails at some point in the next 20 years. Nothing good comes free, and we had to determine where to get the $1.4m, which only gets spent if the hotel fails.
We decided to use a portion of the $4.6ish million we will be getting from annual meter revenue instead of taking it from the general fund during tight times.
We are setting aside less than 1/3 of our meter revenue during 1 year to create this back up account to help make sure a major development happens downtown. That is a pretty good deal for the city when you look at jobs created, potential convention business and spending, increased activity in the area from downtown to Short North, and all that having a downtown Hilton will bring.
Other parking meter revenue in the short and long-term will help us pay for all the new, digital, solar-powered, cc-reading, meter heads that we are buying, and the remainder of funds can go into our general fund for City operations or other projects as allocated.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
^RE:
2. I don’t understand why inflation has anything to do with the pricing of parking meters. The cost should be related to current demand at each location, not the cost/demand from 1998.
3. Seems like it should make sense financially, but having the city take on financial responsibility/risk for a future potential private-sector failure still makes me nervous.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
More expensive parking meters makes sense if it is paired with increasing the ease of getting to downtown (and getting around downtown) via non-car modes of transport. Until then, increasing parking meter fees is not a no-brainer. I live far north (Worthington), and using the crappy bus system to come down for non-work reasons is just not viable til COTA does a MUCH better job. Light rail wont help that much without COTA beefing up, so that you can get to the light rail. And streetcars is only gonna serve a tiny part of the city. Let’s get major mass transit improvements going in this cowtown that I (otherwise) love.
October 19th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
The hotel is being built by the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority, not a private developer. The CFA will issues bonds, plan it, build it, and pay off the bonds over the next few decades. This is a governmental body with an appointed board that oversees the County’s convention center and other facilities. The only private-sector part will be the operator, Hilton, who will come in and manage the facilities and market it nationally under their corporate flag. It is a public private partnership as seen in other communities for convention hotels, that is why it has multiple layers of public backing.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:43 am
Here are some key issues that I know many stakeholders have:
–Downtown meter rates are already high. Downtown meter rates were raised in recent years by the city’s downtown development office. The Director says that meter rates have not increased since 1998 and this is not true. Downtown meter rates were sharply raised already. Gay Street is now 7 minutes for a quarter. Will it now be a quarter for 3 minutes? It takes nearly half a roll of quarters to eat lunch at Tip Top. When we had the credit card meters it was ok, now patrons will have to carry a roll of quarters just to eat lunch! This means business owners will have to stock up heavily on quarter rolls just to handle patrons parking at the meters. If we are charging so much, we need the credit card meters. The quarter issue aside, a quarter for three minutes will just deter would be customers.
–A public process. The Transportation &Parking Commission was told they do not get to vote on the rate hike. Why not? Why aren’t hearings scheduled so the Administration can share with the public their rationale? Why no FAQ? Where is the research that led to the rate hike? What about the perspectives of the business owners and visitors? Why is this the only solution? Why aren’t we extending hours of meters or adding meters to add revenue? I guess I’m not sure I believe this is the only solution. Since we’ve been left out of the discussion, we don’t know what, if anything, has been explored.
–Stakeholder Discussions. Why hasn’t the department reached out to civic groups, business associations and SIDS. The department should brief the key area commissions where meters are located: Downtown, BDC, IV, VV, UAC. Most of us found out about the rate hike when a Dispatch reporter called us. Why weren’t the stakeholders told about it and allowed any input?
–New Meters. Hiking rates without improved meter heads is a mistake.
Existing meter revenues should buy new modern ’smart’ meters BEFORE rates are raised. The Gay Street demonstration was extremely well-received yet those heads were removed. Today, you cannot use a debit or credit card at City meters. Do you know how many quarters we’ll have to haul around? Do you know how much business it will drive away simply because someone isn’t loaded down with enough change to stop in for a coffee at Brioso?
Infrastructure Improvements (new meter heads) are a MUST prior to
discussions of another rate increase.
–Aggressive ticketers. We all know them and we all hate them. They are an embarrassment to our city. We watch them stand at meters in the Short North and on Gay Street waiting for a meter to expire so they can write a ticket. They are known by visitors to be unhelpful, unwelcoming and often rude. Why can’t some of the increase in money go towards either a small grace period (like in other cities) or towards training the ticketers to be nicer to our city’s guests? Nice meter maids in the Short North would bring a world of goodwill to the neighborhood. And yes, I am talking about Ziegler but there are others too. Everyone has a rude ticketer story to tell. Visitors encountering steep meter rates AND a rude ticketer? And we expect them to come back?
I think many of us don’t mind increases in some areas or later hours for the meters to run but the fact the stakeholders have had no input on the matter is really upsetting. We work really hard to bring people to downtown, parking is huge. It doesn’t seem fair to leave us out of the discussion and instead make a unilateral decision that greatly impacts so many of us. In some areas a raise is certainly warranted but Gay Street?
Also, couldn’t we first get new meters and fund the hotel after that? Are there other ways to fund the hotel besides meters? We don’t know, none of it was ever discussed with us, the stakeholders.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:30 am
I don’t think I like the idea of government getting involved in the hospitality industry. Oh well.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:35 am
@johnwirtz - Lots of cities get involved in funding sports facilities, too. I don’t see this as that different. It’s an investment that somebody has to make to help Columbus pick up bigger, more lucrative conventions. If no one else is stepping up and there’s a plan to fund it, why not?
October 20th, 2009 at 10:05 am
I’m not saying it’s definitely a bad idea in this case, but I’m skeptical of any plan that gets government involved in direct competition with the private sector, especially when the private sector can do it profitably. My concern is that if no one else is stepping up to build a hotel, there’s probably a good reason. If there were money to be made, Hilton or some other hotel chain would build it. Assuming this hotel is a success, how will it affect other local hotels? Aren’t they concerned about a glut of supply of rooms downtown or in the city in general?
As for the sports facilities, I don’t like government funding those either. I’d rather have lower sales taxes than a publicly owned stadium. I think people in Franklin County are better off since they rejected a sales tax increase for the arena and then had Nationwide and the Dispatch fund it.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:02 am
@columbusite - I’m with you on Donald Shoup. He’s a must-read for anyone interested in the economics of parking.
Columbus, like most other municipalities, have parking policies that are connected to raising revenue rather than managing demand and traffic. But if parking policies were connected to demand, the City could probably raise greater revenue. It’s strange that when I go to the Short North for lunch on a weekday, I have to pay for parking when there’s ample vacancies. But on weeknights and weekends, most of the meters are off, all the (convenient) spots are taken, and people are cruising for parking - resulting in traffic congestion. It’s completely asinine.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:21 am
^ +1. I would be in favor of Shoup’s concepts guiding the City’s metered parking policies.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:57 am
@johnwirtz - I think the current state of the economy makes this a special case. It’s not that it wouldn’t be profitable, it’s just that very few hotel chains are investing in 500-room hotels at this time. But when the economy picks back up, as the local economy already is, Columbus will be ready. You have to invest in infrastructure in the bad times to reap all the rewards when the good times return.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
@Jungaroo -
“Columbus, like most other municipalities, have parking policies that are connected to raising revenue rather than managing demand and traffic.”
Well said. That pretty much sums up my opposition of the current proposal.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
@joev
I’m not sure hotels (or convention centers) actually count as infrastructure, but I get your point. I’m just really hesitant to publicly fund things that don’t or shouldn’t ordinarily need to be publicly funded (you can add the downtown parking garages to that list).
To me, this raises the question of where we draw the line to determine what local government should fund/build to attract conventions. Is it just the convention center? How about parking lots? Streetcars? Free airport to downtown buses? Hotels? Restaurants? Downtown shopping malls? Stadiums and arenas? Casinos? Roller coasters?
I’d rather government just stay out of most of it. Frankly, I’m not even sure we need a convention center. TRB is the biggest convention I’ve been to (10,000 people) and it’s in three private hotels located within walking distance of each other. I’d rather have kept Union Station.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
@Jon, agreed to an extent, but half of his point supports the proposal. The meters need to be more expensive and run later for nights. I would argue they are perfect during the day. There are always one or two spaces available but mostly filled. Still, a good percentage of the meters during the day are filled by employees of the neighborhood and that needs to stop. I wish it were as easy as a campaign reminding all of the businesses that we are hurting ourselves by taking those spaces, but I doubt it would be effective.
We need a garage like the 3rd St. Promenade in LA. Free for 2 hours, pay if you’re there more than that, or just a validation system. I would gladly pay my share of that.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Change the meter systems.
Tech based forced turnover
The first quarter gives 30 minutes, each additional quarter: 5 minutes, dime: 2 minutes, nickel: 1 minute. Resets when the car leaves the spot (use a magnetic loop sensor to determine movement, similar to traffic signal sensors, not very high tech nor very expensive).
Or work with the division of traffic to find a quick way to appeal tickets with a receipt from nearby business during the same time similar to parking validation.
If you are concerned with being unable to find cheap parking for extended periods of time and are unwilling to walk a few blocks, then you are wrong. We have plenty of parking capacity for our current business demands, but people have to be willing to walk.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
so now when you put 2 dollars in a meter on gay street you only get 2.5 minutes instead of 5? fantastic!
what i really want to know, is when someone is going to do something about the fact that for each dollar you put in a parking meter, it only gives you credit for 50 cents. its a pretty good scam they have going on there. they get to steal 50 or 75 cents from everyone who parks at a meter… im sure that adds up quite nicely.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
captain janks Says: what i really want to know, is when someone is going to do something about the fact that for each dollar you put in a parking meter, it only gives you credit for 50 cents.
If you park at a faulty meter, report it. I recently got a ticket for an expired meter on Long Street where I was parked for 30 minutes and had put in enough change for an hour. I came back early to find that the meter was flashing “0:00″ and I had a ticket written 10 minues prior. I called and reported it, and a week later I got a letter stating that the meter was inspected and repaired and my ticket was dropped.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:40 am
@Josh - As someone who is an observant stroller of High street all day long I think the issue of employees taking up all the metered parking is grossly overstated. Especially during the day.
A large percentage of businesses are owner/ operator staffed by one or two people. Most of whom are local and don’t need to drive. Of the restaurants with a larger percentage of staff that do commute it still doesn’t make much of a dent in metered parking.
On parking meter turnover in the Short North during the day, turning over meters doesn’t appear to be a problem. Even in the Macs lot and along Park street where a quarter still buys a decent amount of time on the meter.
The issue of metered parking during the day in the Short North is more of a cultural issue than a problem of no meters being available to park at. They’re plenty. People just don’t want to walk two or three minutes down the street. Most of that is laziness, some of it is people are afraid of letting their car out of their sight because they’re being shaken down by bums and some of it is just plain confusion, which the rate increase with no improved parking meters will perpetuate.
That confusion will lead to more people bad mouthing downtown when they get the inevitable tickets and it will destroy more economic value downtown than it creates.
“I can park at Easton for free. Why would I come downtown to eat and shop?” - I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard that remark from suburbanites.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:20 pm
^The Easton comment reminds me, why is it only a few select areas like Downtown and the Short North where motorists are going to be doubly punished for patronizing our urban core, but the city is doing nothing to charge for parking in other parts of Columbus like the strip malls, Easton, Polaris, etc? As much of a proponent I am for car alternatives, this is just too much and will cause more suburbanites to say the above quote. Reminds me of when some people Downtown were outraged that the meters on Gay were the same price as in NYC. The city should have learned their lesson by now with the all of the new developments on Gay St; an urban street attracts urban businesses while a suburban street repels them (see the closings on Main St. which could have been Gay St. part 2, but the city let entrepreneurs on Main suffer. That going to change any time soon Mike?). More Gay St. replicas would increase demand for parking meaning more people would be using more meters, no increase needed.
This move is actually very pro-sprawl when you think about it since motorists, the majority, will be even more inclined to make use of free parking out in the burbs, which they already do. The city needs to charge for parking whether it’s the SN or a parking lot on Sawmill (they already have meters in parking lots across from OSU). For the latter, installing meters at every space in a parking lot could be done, but I’m sure there’s a way to have parking charges added and separated from purchases made. Why should Columbus suburbanites continue to not only have no meters to pay for, let alone worry about a 50% increase as along as they stay in the burbs and are rewarded for it? This increase would be so very unnecessary if everyone had to shell out their part for parking their car.
Also, why is German Village listed? When I had a car, I didn’t pay for parking on 3rd, Whittier, or Mohawk and I can’t think of anyplace that has meters here. And when they say “other urban neighborhoods”, don’t they just mean some neighborhoods around OSU and the Brewery District? KL, OTE, Fton, Hilltop, Clintonville, etc they all have “free” on-street parking.
October 21st, 2009 at 6:33 pm
That’s a really good question Columbusite. Why aren’t there more meters at those places? They are in Columbus, yes?
October 21st, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I believe that most of the “streets” through Easton are private property, not public property. Same thing with the parking lots at Polaris or Tuttle or Walmart or anywhere else. I don’t believe the City of Columbus has any authority to install meters in the areas that Columbusite is talking about.