I’ve been doing a slow burn about this for months now — but the match hit the haystack Saturday afternoon.
See, over the last few months, I’ve been trying to reduce my driving trips downtown. Between the challenges finding on-street parking, the non-functioning new smart readers, the parking tickets I’ve gotten mere seconds after my meter expired, or the new Sunday parking regulations, well — it’s just easier to plan ahead and take the MAX. Or to skip the trip downtown in favor of shopping with a more convenient local retailer.
But I had a plethora of fun activities to attend Saturday afternoon that made driving my car downtown for stop #1 a necessity. So I girded my loins, found on-street parking, and bought the maximum amount of time allotted, just to make extra super-special sure I didn’t get a ticket this time. I was even going to leave my parking coupon behind for the next recipient, thinking that going for some extra karma couldn’t hurt.
I opened my passenger door (the one facing street-side), pulled down the parking coupon from the night before (where I’d been a solid corporate citizen and sprung for 20 minutes of parking until 7 pm), and pasted the new one on the window. So, far, so good — right?
Wrong. Before I could move three steps away from my car, a stern parking meter attendant barked at me from across the street. “You can’t DO THAT, Miss! You’ll have to move your car.” Huh-wha? I’d just parked it, Mister!
He proceeded to lecture me about my obvious attempt to stuff the meter, and even went as far as insisting that I produce last night’s coupon to prove my honesty when I explained the circumstances. And when he couldn’t nail me for any wrongdoing, he stomped off to find the next parking ne’er-do-well.
Now, I could just make the resolution to just avoid downtown driving altogether & leave well enough alone. But then I heard about this new crazy-ass promotion: Spend $150.00 downtown at any holiday retailer this Saturday (while parking for free at a SmartPark garage, no less, if you get there between 10 am & 12:30 pm) and win a $50.00 American Express gift card if you’re one of the 1st 250 people to turn in your receipts to a kiosk downtown. (This via today’s PDX Sucks podcast; haven’t been able to find info re. this anywhere else…)
And then my head exploded. (Or as Robert Wagner put it, “if you’re so #%$#%^&&% worred about the economy’s impact on shopping downtown, why make it harder? Why not just let people park downtown for free on Sunday instead of running a #%$#%^&&% promotion?”)
But I freely admit that I might just be a tad cranky about the whole parking situation. Or impatient. Or unwilling to pay for the revenue that our fair city so desperately needs. Or something.
So I turn it over to you — what do you think?
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There would be ONE simple thing the City could do if it wanted more people, and that’s remove the striping. Since it’s no longer one space per meter, more cars could cram in, like they do in the Northwest, and the city would even make more money. But they do not want more people in cars. Like Vera Katz, the Mayor and some of the Council hate people who drive cars and want to make life as difficult as possible for us.
I think you just ran into a cranky parking meter attendant (is that what they call them now?). Everything would have been fine otherwise, yes? And if you’re keeping your downtown driving to a minimum, well, that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t think we do nearly enough to discourage automobile trips. It’s an unsustainable, expensive, and unhealthy way of getting around.
I don’t really go downtown unless I need to for a meeting… it’s a pain from a transportation standpoint (as you’ve noted, parking is a pain, and riding MAX at 4mph through downtown is maddening). I can buy pretty much anything elsewhere without having to deal with the downtown hassles. I’m sure it’s great for everyone who lives in the Pearl and rides around on a bike, but that’s so not me.
You might read this book:
Here’s a precis (from BoingBoing):
Free parking costs a fortune
POSTED BY CORY DOCTOROW, AUGUST 7, 2009 1:26 PM
UCLA urban planning teacher Donald Shoup’s book The High Cost of Free Parking makes the case that urban parking has a high, hidden cost:
“The free parking that Americans love isn’t really ‘free’ at all. A recent parking garage project in New Haven, Conn., for example, cost more than $30 million for almost 1,200 spaces – that’s more than $25,000 per space. If you were to finance it using a mortgage, the actual cost would be over $40,000 per space. This breaks down to roughly $135 a month, or $1,600 a year per space – not including externalities like the air pollution and congestion created by increased trips drawn by cheap parking. Even when garages and meters charge for parking, they rarely charge the real value of the parking space. (In Vauban, by contrast, drivers must purchase a parking space in the garages at $40,000 each.) All this amounts to a massive subsidy. Shoup calculates that in 2002 the total subsidy just for off-street parking was between $127 and $374 billion (for comparison, the budget for national defense that year was $349 billion).
Who pays for this? Everyone. The cost of building all that parking is reflected in higher rents, more expensive shopping and dining, and higher costs of home-ownership. Those who don’t drive or own cars thus subsidize those who do.
Free parking can become a drain on city coffers. According to a study (PDF) by Bruce Schaller, deputy commissioner of planning and sustainability at the NYC Department of Transportation, the city was losing more than $45 million in parking meter revenue annually as a result of the free parking privileges commonly offered to city employees. But the costs are more than economic: free parking also changes behavior, encouraging us to take more trips and drive alone more often. According to the same study, without that free parking, 19,200 fewer vehicles would enter Manhattan every day, easing congestion.”
***
As with so many other things in 21st century America (cheap gas, fast food, foreign wars, sprawl suburbs, the CRC etc etc,) what’s really a government subsidized corporate welfare program somehow becomes an entitlement defended by alleged conservatives. If we’re going to subsidize urban mobility, the return on investment for bike lanes or mass transit is much greater than “free” parking for cars.
I live downtown. I wouldn’t own a car if you gave it to me; it’s a waste of money.
Personally, I don’t think cars should be allowed downtown at all. Seriously. If you visit any major European city, most of them ban cars in their city centers, making them pedestrian-only areas. I think that’s the way it should be.
Adventures like you describe contributed to my decision to go car free 6 years ago.
And that parking promotion kinda ticks me off. Where’s my $50 gift card?!?
But really, free parking isn’t a solution. If it’s free, no one will ever move their cars in a place as dense as downtown (trust me, I was a passenger is a car trying to find parking downtown on Veterans Day. We gave up after 40 minutes of circling.)
Thanks for all the comments!
The one element that those who advocate a car-free lifestyle downtown don’t address is this: time. And while I *try* to build in enough time to take mass transit downtown (instead of driving there), it’s just not always feasible.
That’s why I often can’t make it for WordPress user group meetings that start at 6 pm, for example – if I leave office at 5 pm, drive home, do a quick check in with family, and *then* try to take mass transit, I’d get downtown at a leisurely 7 pm, most likely.
Where do you find your extra bucket of hours each day, ’cause I want some too!
I live downtown and don’t own a car. I understand the argument that public transit is too slow (it is), but the hassle free lifestyle is for me. I’d rather take a little longer than slowly let my blood boil in a car.
One thing I learned when I ventured on my 2 yr walking spree a couple of years ago was that all those time I thought I was missing out on something and needed to “rush home” didn’t exist. Taking the time to walk places forced me to slow down. I believe we intentionally overbook ourselves because we know we can just hop in the car and zip zap zing, we get to go everywhere and all over the city. I’m guilty of it, I’m not trying to say anyone is wrong. Just throwing out a different perspective. Heck, I drove around a car this past weekend that wasn’t mine because someone loaned it to me. How messed up is that?
I agree that driving & parking downtown should be much more restricted than they are. But you don’t have to take transit the whole way; there are park-and-rides not too far away or just park in a handy neighborhood. In an ideal world the city center would be surrounded by park-and-rides and the only reason to drive into town would be to pick up or drop off something heavy, for which loading zones would suffice.
Dieselboi, I’d be with you on that whole ‘overbooking’ thing, if it weren’t for the two millstones I have around my neck (otherwise known as my kids.)
When I’m on my own, I can manage my schedule much better. But when one kid has volleyball practice that overlaps with dinner that overlaps with a school event that overlaps with the kid emergency (insert more drivel here, blah, blah, blah), well — I’m soaking in the overbooked schedule already. The only way even half of that is possible is because I’m driving.
Now, having said that, I do what I can to encourage alternate means of transportation for the household. The teen has his transit pass thanks to Trimet/PPS initiative for all HS students, or, um, “carpools” with friends for evening activities. The kid walks home from school each day. And I’ll use MAX to head downtown if time permits.
But when it doesn’t? I’m going to go for what should be easiest/simplest in a day that’s already complicated enough as-is. That means I’m driving.
While I love the idea of a car-free lifestyle, it’s not feasible for everyone. When I lived downtown, I sold my car and either walked or traveled by bus. It was great. I no longer live downtown, though, and I also have a young child. Trucking eight city blocks with bags and an unwieldy & impatient, 30 pound child in the rain is not what I consider worth it and yes, I’ve done it. Taking said child on mass transit is an adventure in itself and not an entirely pleasant one, especially when she decides 10 minutes into the trip that she would rather be at home doing anything but being dragged around running errands with me.
In addition, my mother is disabled with constant and severe pain and while not in a wheel chair, has a difficult time walking more than a block at a time. If she wants to go to Nordstrom, she should be able to without suffering through agony simply because there’s a select group of people that forget that not everyone is as mobile and carefree as they are.
I’m a bike & mass transportation advocate but I do wish that those who are able to take advantage of options besides a car, would be more understanding about those of us who may not be able to as easily.
p.s. Fascinated to know what (“most”) major European cities ban cars in their city centers– I’ve been to Paris, Athens, London, Oslo, various cities in Germany, Denmark, Italy and more and have seen cars in all of their city centers. The key in Europe is that cars are expensive, smaller than many of the behemoths driven here and people tend to live in, travel and work in much smaller areas (such as those who live, work & play downtown or in the Pearl), not to mention that their mass transit is underground (impedes traffic and pedestrian right of ways a lot less) and more efficient.
Don’t make it a false choice between “car free” and “drive all the time.” As long as we have subsidized urban sprawl — and yes, we have it in the Portland area, too, alas — there’ll be a need for some people to use cars. But something like 40% of all American car trips are under 3 miles, and a quarter under a mile. If better investment in mass transit and bike lanes can get most of those trips out of cars, imagine how many parking places will open up for those who really need them.
In the long run, the key is land use policies that bring residences closer to the central city where they can be served more efficiently. Some of our planners have got the message, but apparently not all the traffic engineers at the highway depst.
By the way, S, you might look into getting your mom a motorized scooter. My wife is disabled, can’t walk at all or drive, and uses her scooter, the bus, the max, and the streetcar to venture all over this city every day. Portland’s accessible and wide ranging transport options for disabled people are a primary reason we moved here. We do have a lift equipped van that is used almost entirely for trips out of town. Disabled people can get pretty much anywhere they need to go in Portland in a reasonable time using public transportation. My wife and her friends prove that every day.
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