RSS
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
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.
I am really glad to hear that the meters in the Short North will start running later. I still want to look at some data from other districts that have implemented parking increases, but I am sticking with my initial assumption for now that it’s a good thing. Mike, you may have the study available to you and know the exact number, but the last parking study found that something like 50% of the meters in the neighborhood are used by employees of the neighborhood. The Portland study found that their meters, on average, generate $250,000 annual to their neighborhood’s businesses by turning over customers as they are intended to do. I know that number wouldn’t be exactly the same here, but I bet its close.
Seems like this would be better paired with the introduction of more alternatives to travel in and out of the SN, downtown and surrounding areas.
lifeontwowheels Says: Seems like this would be better paired with the introduction of more alternatives to travel in and out of the SN, downtown and surrounding areas.
Agreed. Driving and parking are both going to have to become tougher throughout all of Columbus in order for mass transit to become a more appealing option. My concern is that this more focused proposal is just going to make parking outside of Downtown more attractive than parking inside Downtown.
As someone who rides the bus regularly to avoid the hassle and costs of parking Downtown, this type of proposal garuntees that I’ll be giving more money to COTA and less money to the city (via parking meters) in the future.
Unfortunately many won’t see COTA as an attractive option. Hopefully COTA can see the advantage, make some tweaks and market the hell out of themselves.
I wonder if any businesses with larger lots out of the Short North like Giant Eagle or the North Market or even the arena district garage could see a benefit in actually opening their lots to Short North shoppers, maybe even coupled with a shuttle service. Use the Short North’s pull to fill their lots and end up with some spill over sales from it. That Giant Eagle plaza always has spots to spare. I could see someone parking in the Giant Eagle place, eating at Spinellis, shopping, and grabbing some groceries on their way home.
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.
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.
http://www.uctc.net/papers/351.pdf
There’s a slide show if you don’t feel like reading.
http://www.cis.yale.edu/transportationoptions/parking/documents/Highpriceoffreeparking.ppt
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?
@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…
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.
^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.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t think I like the idea of government getting involved in the hospitality industry. Oh well.
@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?
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.
@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.
^ +1. I would be in favor of Shoup’s concepts guiding the City’s metered parking policies.
@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.