Moylan and Schabas 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 RESIDENTIAL PERMIT PARKING: BETTER OFF
WITHOUT IT?
Emily Moylan (corresponding author) Department of City and Regional Planning University of California, Berkeley 228 Wurster Hall #1850 Berkeley, CA 94720-­‐1850 (510) 642-­‐3256 Phone (510) 642-­‐1641 Fax Matthew Schabas Department of City and Regional Planning University of California, Berkeley 228 Wurster Hall #1850 Berkeley, CA 94720-­‐1850 (510) 642-­‐3256 Phone (510) 642-­‐1641 Fax [email protected] Elizabeth Deakin Department of City and Regional Planning University of California, Berkeley 228 Wurster Hall #1850 Berkeley, CA 94720-­‐1850 (510) 642-­‐3256 Phone (510) 642-­‐1641 Fax [email protected] Submitted: August 1, 2013 Word Count: 5845 words + 1 figure + 1 table = 6345 equivalent
TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
1 2 2 ABSTRACT 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Residential Permit Parking (RPP) programs are an often-­‐used yet imperfect solution to parking spillover concerns in residential neighborhoods. A common form of RPP allows residents to purchase stickers that permit unlimited on-­‐street parking but imposes short time limits on non-­‐resident parkers. These programs are generally successful in protecting on-­‐street spaces for residents, but raise concerns about costs, enforcement difficulties, and inefficiencies if parking goes unutilized. They also raise issues about the equity of favoring resident parkers over others. New technologies such as license plate readers, variable pricing, and pay-­‐by-­‐phone systems may allow new forms of residential parking management to upgrade or replace the older programs. 13 14 15 16 We develop a set of metrics to evaluate the success RPP programs. The metrics are applied to a case study of parking in three residential neighborhoods on the south side of Berkeley, California, USA, adjacent to several activity centres including three shopping corridors and the University of California’s Berkeley campus. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 The current parking system in Berkeley’s residential neighborhoods allows non-­‐
residents to park for up to two hours free of charge while residents with a city-­‐
issued sticker displayed on the vehicle may stay for unlimited amounts of time—this is a common residential parking policy design. We find that this system works well for residents but limits availability for non-­‐residents who have a justifiable right to the street. Many blocks within the study area are under-­‐utilized and, in this context, introducing longer-­‐term pay parking for non-­‐residents in the residential neighborhood is a better alternative to RPP. 25 TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 INTRODUCTION
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Popular but flawed
3 Many local governments employ Residential Permit Parking (RPP) programs to manage parking in neighborhoods that are impacted by spillover from nearby commercial centers and other trip attractors. By restricting who can park on residential streets and for how long, RPP programs aim to address concerns about safety, local air quality and the availability of on-­‐street parking for residents. These programs have been widely implemented over the last several decades and are usually considered effective components of broader transportation plans (1,2). A common model for RPP programs is to issue permits to residents either for free or a nominal fee. Residents with such permits have unrestricted access to on-­‐
street parking for their vehicle(s) on streets near their home. Non-­‐residents are subject to restrictions on whether, where, when, and for how long they can park on-­‐
street within these designated RPP zones. By blocking or limiting the duration of stay for non-­‐resident cars, these RPP programs are intended to keep spaces free for residents, reduce traffic impacts on the neighborhood, require commercial uses to internalize the cost of parking, and encourage non-­‐residents to consider alternative modes. Despite their popularity, RPP programs have raised concerns on a number of fronts. In some instances, the programs become a tool for exclusion: outsiders are explicitly barred from parking their cars even when there is legitimate reason for their presence (3). For example, the excluded may be the residents’ own visitors, household workers, or repairmen, or they may be teachers in neighborhood schools or owners or employees of neighborhood businesses. Excluding these parkers or sharply restricting their use of the streets can result in conflicts over who has a “right” to be present in the neighbourhood. In other cases, residents themselves are divided about RPP; with some desiring it while others object to the bureaucratic hassle or having to (nominally) pay for street parking when parking shortages are caused by non-­‐residents (4). Some residential parking programs are ineffective because they do not restrict parking enough to achieve the intended purposes of reserving spaces for residents, either due to violations or to high demand, or they restrict parking too much, creating inefficient, empty curbs RPP implementation can be challenging. The RPP zones often encompass a large enforcement area without parking meters. Keeping permit fees low, as is often the case, can lead to budget shortfalls and imperfect enforcement. If non-­‐residents are allowed to park for a limited time period, enforcement can be especially difficult. The common practice of chalking car tires makes it easy for non-­‐residents to game the system by moving and re-­‐parking their cars to circumvent the time limit. Moreover, selecting an RPP policy that meets its objectives without undermining nearby parking strategies is a subtle art. Edge effects occur where savvy drivers take advantage of the boundaries between adjacent zones or utilize the RPP on-­‐street parking instead of nearby priced parking. Some local governments have turned to innovative policies and new technologies in response to shortcomings in RPP programs. Traditional RPP can be TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 4 supplemented and supported by license plate recognition technology, electronic chalking, online payment systems and permit prices based on vehicle emissions or number of vehicles (5, 6, 7). Some locales have proposed or implemented parking management techniques that differ philosophically from RPP. These include charging for parking in residential neighborhoods, trading traffic capacity for parking capacity, and shifting priority between residents and non-­‐residents by time of day (8,9,10,7). With the flexibility provided by these innovations, some locations might be better off without their Residential Permit Parking programs. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 METHODOLOGY
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Occupancy Rates
RPP programs are multifaceted, and their success must be judged against several criteria. This work proposes a success metric for evaluating RPP programs in the context of currently viable alternatives. The metrics are 1) occupancy rates for curb parking within the RPP zone; 2) satisfaction rates amongst residents and non-­‐
residents; 3) spillover rates from local destinations into the RPP zone; and 4) pricing. The standards proposed for success and failure of these metrics can be adjusted to reflect local priorities. There are two components for both the occupancy (upper and lower limits) and satisfaction (residents and non-­‐residents) metrics, so the RPP is evaluated against six measures. To generate an overall all score, the values are averaged. In addition to locally appropriate changes in the standards, weighted averages can be used to emphasize local priorities. The methodology used for the evaluation combines two types of data collected within the RPP zone: ‘snapshot’ counts of parking occupancy and mailback surveys distributed to parked cars. The design of the ‘snapshot’ counts and mailback surveys is meant to provide a practice-­‐ready system for urban transport planners without needing either specialist equipment or extensive personnel. The analysis techniques to interpret the data are valid for alternative occupancy counts or equivalent data. The evaluation methodology is demonstrated with a case study from the City of Berkeley using data collected in March 2013. A simple evaluation metric of a RPP program would be based on the amount of parking that is available within the RPP zone. The stated goal of many RPP programs is to assure that residents are able to find a curb parking space close to their homes. This is especially important for residents without sufficient off-­‐street parking for all their vehicles and for achieving community support for implementing the RPP program. Cities generally consider streets for participation in RPP if parking congestion regularly exceeds some threshold of capacity (e.g. 75% of the available spaces, (11)). Once a parking program is implemented, excessively high occupancy rates (less than one available space per block on average) indicate that the policy is not managing parking demand. We propose a standard which prevents parking congestion but does not result in underutilization, i.e., occupancy of 75% or more but at least one space available on every block. This would avoid the congestion, emissions, wasted time TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 and frustration from cars cruising for parking. However, a city could choose to implement a lower occupancy standard, e.g., no more than 85% occupied. A simple indicator of latent parking demand (for both residents and non-­‐residents) is when all the spaces are occupied. Implementing RPP has costs of enforcement, administration and reduced consumption of on-­‐street parking by non-­‐resident drivers. Cities have differing perspectives on whether on-­‐street parking in residential areas should be made available to non-­‐residents. Some limit it to residents’ guests (requiring guest permits.) Others, including Berkeley, aim to balance non-­‐residential parking demand and resident needs by permitting time limited parking by non-­‐residents. The cities in the latter group consider it an inefficient use of public streets to have a vast supply of empty on-­‐street parking where demand from non-­‐residents exists. In this view, low occupancy rates (<75%) are a sign that the policy is too stringent if it prevents drivers from using curb parking after resident needs have been accommodated. A working RPP program should have a ready supply of available curb parking at all times for residents. The evidence for assessing this metric comes from counts of the number of parked cars on every block. Capacity for each block is required to calculate occupancy. In the case study below, capacity was defined as the block-­‐by-­‐
block capacity estimated by the field workers, except in cases where the maximum observed count exceeded the estimated maximum. The maximum observed occupancy could exceed the estimated capacity in several circumstances. Notably, residents will sometimes park across their own driveway or a number of smaller cars might be present during a particular observation. Alternative definitions of capacity – e.g. the number of marked spaces – could be substituted for subsequent applications of this metric. There is a problem of causality in this interpretation. The methodology is a post-­‐policy analysis. It examines how the policy currently works rather than a pre-­‐ and post-­‐ policy comparison. Consequently, the RPP zone may perform well on this metric simply because of low intrinsic demand in the neighborhood. A limitation is that the occupancy counts do not separate out whether the availability of curb parking is caused by the RPP zone or would occur anyway, because of low demand. Two values are calculated to determine performance under the occupancy rate metric: congestion (percentage of block-­‐hours with at least once vacancy) and efficiency (percentage of block-­‐hours where occupancy was above 75%). In this case study, the RPP program passes the occupancy standards if a majority of block hours show the desired behavior. Some cities may need to adjust these standards to reflect local goals. 39 40 41 42 43 44 Satisfaction Rates
An RPP zone is usually implemented at the behest of the residents but the needs of non-­‐residents may also be an important consideration for decisionmakers. Two metrics are proposed to measure public satisfaction with the RPP policy, one that considers the satisfaction of residents in the RPP zone and the second that assesses the compatibility of the RPP policy with the needs of non-­‐residents. TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 A mailback-­‐survey distributed to parked cars in the RPP zone is the methodology used to measure satisfaction for both groups. The survey asks residents for their opinions on the effectiveness of the RPP program and their satisfaction with its existing outcomes. Key information about the respondent’s parking options are used to reduce some bias from the satisfaction response – e.g. residents with off-­‐street parking for all their vehicles are less likely to experience problems from congested on-­‐street parking than those who do not have off-­‐street parking available. For non-­‐residents, the survey asks questions about what led them to park in the RPP zone and the duration of parking that they needed. The responses are used to determine whether the existing policies and off-­‐street facilities serve non-­‐
residents who require parking in the local area. The satisfaction standard for non-­‐
residents is whether or not the policy accommodates the parking needs of non-­‐
residents. A limitation of this method is that those who are deterred from parking in the area would not be surveyed; e.g., where the RPP policy outright bans non-­‐
resident parking, only those who are violators would be surveyed. An alternative method for measuring non-­‐resident opinion would be to survey employees and customers of nearby non-­‐residential land uses. The satisfaction metrics look at whether RPP works in the minds of both residents and non-­‐residents. Regardless of the theoretical basis for the RPP policy or its effectiveness in managing occupancy, it needs public support to be considered a success. In the case example, passing scores are based on a majority of residents expressing satisfaction and a majority of non-­‐residents having their parking needs accommodated without violating the RPP ordinance. 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Spillover rates
A trigger for introducing RPP zones is often a ‘spillover’ problem from key destinations adjacent to a residential neighborhood. If there are a large number of auto trips to the key destinations, then there needs to be space for drivers to park. Many transport planners advocate charging for parking both because it is expensive to provide and because requiring drivers to cover this cost may induce some of them to use other modes or otherwise reduce their demand for parking. However, parking charges—off-­‐street or on—can encourage drivers to find alternative free parking in nearby residential areas, creating ‘spillover’. The spillover metric uses data collected from the occupancy counts of permitted and non-­‐permitted vehicles. An objective of RPP zones is to preserve on-­‐
street parking for residents. If, despite the RPP restrictions, non-­‐residents are significantly reducing parking availability for residents, then the RPP policy is not succeeding. It is possible that parking congestion might also be caused by residents themselves, especially in high density areas with limited or costly off street parking; this problem can only be solved by pricing the RPP permits to moderate the demand or by successfully promoting the reduction in car ownership in the area, e.g., through carsharing programs or by promotion of alternative modes. Some residents may experience congestion caused by intrazone commuting—this can be addressed by thoughtfully defining the boundaries of the zones. TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 A city may decide that the negative externalities of spillover experienced by residents need to be balanced against considering on-­‐street parking as a limited resource that must be used efficiently. Spillover is less of a problem if there are still plentiful free spaces for residents but there may still be related negative traffic externalities. An RPP policy could choose to provide a portion of the on-­‐street parking to non-­‐residents near key destinations that lack sufficient parking, as is often the case for schools and businesses in older neighborhoods. This approach may be preferable at a system-­‐wide level even if it is non-­‐optimal for the residents. The spillover impact metric is based on a measurement of the percent of spaces occupied by non-­‐resident vehicles on a block during RPP enforcement hours. To measure the impact of spillover, the following criteria are used here: there are no vacant spaces and more than half of the cars are non-­‐residents. This two-­‐part definition reveals blocks where space is in short supply because non-­‐residents are using the majority. This definition of spillover is based on the idea that spillover is only a problem if it stops residents from finding spaces. A block that has 100% non-­‐
resident vehicles but plenty of vacancy should not be considered a spillover problem. The metric is the proportion of congested block-­‐hours (no free spaces) when non-­‐residents represent more than half of the vehicles. A passing score is when non-­‐residents dominate less than half of congested block-­‐hours. This approach focuses on the efficacy of the RPP when it is being enforced and must be adapted if there is concern about the appropriateness of the hours of enforcement. 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Pricing
41 42 43 CASE STUDY
Pricing is a demand management tool that allows drivers to make decisions accounting for often-­‐externalized costs associated with providing parking. In addition to supporting mode shift and travel reduction, pricing is also the most effective medium for communicating the relative costs of parking options. When residential parking surrounds activity centers, charging for on-­‐street parking is a method for reducing edge effects between the commercial and residential areas. Some localities have implemented multi-­‐use parking zones where residents use RPP style permits and non-­‐residents pay for parking through meters, pay-­‐and-­‐display or pay-­‐by-­‐phone (7, 12). Pricing also has the benefit of providing revenue for enforcement, which otherwise might be cross-­‐subsidized from other programs. The pricing evaluation metric is a simple pass/fail on whether the residential zone currently has any mechanism for non-­‐residents to pay for the parking. This test is kept deliberately simple because of the wide range of different payment systems and differing opinions over whether an RPP should be revenue-­‐ neutral, revenue-­‐positive, or paid for by a particular set of users. This is a local decision. If a city decides that on-­‐street parking in residential neighborhoods should be opened to non-­‐residents, an effective RPP must provide a mechanism for paying. A case study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of the current residential parking policies in Berkeley, California. With this goal, the data collection aims to TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 8 understand who is parking in the residential zones, how long they are staying, their trip purpose and their level of satisfaction with the current program. The case study has two parts: occupancy counts and a mail-­‐back survey. The occupancy counts are a ‘revealed preference’ of who parks where. The occupancy counts deliver real data on how on-­‐street parking is consumed across the RPP zones. They provide ‘snapshots’ of parking occupancy on residential streets in the defined study area. A sample of blocks is chosen to show geographical variation. The sample used in the case study is eight streets (four east-­‐west, four north-­‐south). The sample blocks create an even grid across the study area and a counter walks each block recording the number of resident and on-­‐resident cars parked on each block during each count hour. Each snapshot requires four counters (one per two-­‐
street route) equipped with two-­‐column data sheets. Cars are marked in the resident column only if they have a valid permit for that zone on the back-­‐left bumper, and all other vehicles are marked in the non-­‐resident column. Some vehicles without permits might have guest/temporary permits on their dashboard, business permits or a disabled placard. While these vehicles behave like resident vehicles in some ways, the simpler test of sticker-­‐or-­‐no-­‐sticker can be applied more consistently by the counters. The vehicles were not identified by their license plates, nor was the duration of stay recorded. Five counts per day are used to measure temporal variation. The times are chosen to see different types of consumers of curb parking: • 07:00 – 08:00 see the largest percentage of residents • 10:00 – 11:00 see how many residents are daily commuters and how many non-­‐residents choose RPP for parking • 12:30 – 13:30 see whether there is a lunchtime peak from local retail and restaurants • 16:00 – 17:00 see the impacts of pick-­‐up from local K-­‐12 schools interacting with residents returning home • 19:30 – 20:30 see the availability of parking after the end of RPP restrictions on street parking. An ideal methodology would conduct counts throughout the week for an extended period to create an average snapshot for each time period on both weekdays and weekends. It is hypothesized that non-­‐resident consumption of curb parking will be different on weekends when there are more shopping, leisure and entertainment trips compared with weekdays when residents and non-­‐residents alike are more likely to be making non-­‐discretionary commute trips. Consequently, an RPP policy may be successful on some days but not others. The mail-­‐back survey focused on what the parking decisions the driver had made on his or her most recent trip. The survey asked questions in the following categories: o Residents: ! How do you use the on-­‐street parking? ! Do you have off-­‐street parking available? TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 9 ! What is your opinion of RPP and some alternatives? o Non-­‐residents: ! How did you choose to park in this space? ! What brought you to the area? ! How long dig you park? ! Are you aware of other available parking options? Surveys were distributed by placing a survey on the windshield of parked cars in the study area on a single day. RPP permit holders were provided surveys once at 7:00am. During all five counts, every non-­‐resident vehicle was provided a survey. Surveys were marked based on geographic location and time of survey placement so that responses created spatial and temporal distributions of parking behavior. 341 surveys were returned giving a response rate of 14.5%. A copy of the survey instrument is available from the authors upon request. All data used in this case study was collected during March 2013 as part of a studio project at the University of California at Berkeley. The Study Area
The case study neighborhood was selected because it encompasses residential areas interspersed with key non-­‐residential activity centers. Its location is shown in Figure 1. The character of this neighborhood is a mixture of large single-­‐family homes, single-­‐family homes converted to communal student accommodation, small apartment buildings, and university dormitories. Only one public off-­‐street facility (35 spaces, 2hr limit) falls within the study area. Private parking capacity in the area was not documented as part of this study but is known to be limited, e.g., most homes have only one or two parking spaces off street and many apartment buildings have one or fewer parking spaces per unit. The area spans three RPP zones. The program is enforced between 8am and 7pm except on Sundays and holidays (one of the three zones is only enforced on weekdays). Residents renew their permits each year at a cost of $45, and a sticker is attached to the left-­‐rear bumper of the car. Stickers are available to residents of the zone who drive a car that is registered at that residence. The permit allows the residents to park indefinitely in that RPP zone (13). Residents can purchase short-­‐
term visitor passes from the city office to accommodate their guests. Non-­‐residents park for free in the zone, but they must leave the area after two hours1. However, many drivers move their cars every two hours without leaving the zone, because they either misunderstand or disobey the policy. Businesses are eligible to purchase one permit per business address to allow an owner or employee to park in the adjacent residential zone. Disability placards allow unlimited parking in the residential zone. The study area is adjacent to some of the City of Berkeley’s key activity centers. These include the UC Berkeley campus, the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and three commercial districts: the Elmwood shopping district, the 1 The policy now only requires that drivers move their car from that blockface after two hours. TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
10 1 2 3 4 Telegraph Avenue Commercial Area and the lower Shattuck shopping district. These commercial districts attract non-­‐residents as well as residents and generate demand for parking. 5 6 Figure 1: The Study Area in Berkeley, CA 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Application of the metrics
The data collected from fieldwork was analyzed to determine the performance of the City of Berkeley RPP zones B, D and J (hereafter Berkeley’s RPP) under the proposed metrics. Each metric provides a score from 0-­‐100% and the average gives the detailed score. Additionally, each metric can be distilled to a pass-­‐fail evaluation, allowing a simple tool for each locality to adapt the methodology to their goals. When relevant, the metrics are applied to data taken during the RPP hours of enforcement. The City of Berkeley’s RPP program passes three of the six metrics with a detailed score of 49%. TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Occupancy
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Satisfaction
11 During the RPP hours of enforcement (8am-­‐7pm), only 17% of the observations showed parking conditions in the sweet spot with occupancy above 75% but at least one space available on every block. In some ways, the policy is effective—only 2% of the during-­‐enforcement blocks-­‐hours had no vacancies—but 81% of the block-­‐
observations indicated that parking is underutilized. Rather than showing that the RPP policy is failing because there are not enough free spaces, the occupancy counts indicate that the policy is too restrictive: it is an inefficient use of the on-­‐street parking capacity. If demand is insufficient then RPP may not be needed. With 1142 of 1162 observations (98%) finding blocks with at least one vacant space during enforcement hours, the congestion metric gets a passing score. However, 941 observations (81%) show under-­‐utilization. This is 6% higher than observations conducted outside the enforcement hours, which shows that the under-­‐utilization may be an effect of RPP. The RPP policy fails the metric of promoting efficient use of public street parking. A majority (79%) of residents report satisfaction with the current parking program (average score of 3.36 on a scale of 0-­‐5). Furthermore, 72% of residents reported that there are spaces available on their block for residents (average score of 3.12 on a scale of 0-­‐5). These responses indicate that the residents feel that the program works for them and they are modestly happy with it. About 2/3 of resident respondents have access to some off-­‐street parking. These people are less dependent on the RPP program and they report higher satisfaction with it (Average scores of 3.46 compared to 3.12). With a clear majority reporting that they are happy, the RPP program passes the satisfaction metric for the residents. However, there are indications that satisfaction decreases when drivers rely on on-­‐street parking for their vehicles. Although non-­‐residents did not directly report satisfaction with the RPP program, they did report how long they stayed in the area. The average time in the area was 3hrs20 min—an hour and 20 minutes over the two-­‐hour time limit. In fact, 56% of non-­‐resident respondents stayed two hours or longer, which indicates that the current policy is not accommodating the desired uses for non-­‐residents. In particular, about 20% of the non-­‐residents (24 responses) indicated that they were in the area for work—including 12 non-­‐residents who stayed for 8-­‐12 hrs in the two-­‐hour zone. The survey did not ask how non-­‐residents reconciled spending more than two hours in the area with the time limit. A common interpretation of the RPP policy is that non-­‐residents can move their car to a new space to reset their two-­‐hour limit although that is not permitted under the City of Berkeley’s policy. The RPP program fails the non-­‐resident satisfaction metric because a majority of non-­‐residents need to stay in the area for more than two hours, but there are not valid parking options available. TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 12 Spillover
Problematic spillover is the coincidence of curb parking being congested and dominated by non-­‐residents. Specifically, a block is declared to experience spillover when there are no vacant spaces and more than half of the cars are non-­‐residents. The occupancy counts found 20 oversubscribed blocks during RPP enforcement hours, but only 11 of these (55%) were dominated by non-­‐residents. Furthermore, the spillover does not occur repeatedly on the same blocks. The RPP program passes the spillover metric by alleviating the pressure on street parking from nearby activity centers. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Pricing
20 Table 1: Results Berkeley’s RPP zones do not have a mechanism for non-­‐residents to pay. This means that demand for the parking is only controlled by enforcement of the time limit (2-­‐
hours), even though some non-­‐residents, including shoppers, employees or patients at the medical offices might have reasons to stay in the area longer. Free parking at the curb also sends the message that the space is not valued, which contradicts the motivation for the RPP program. Furthermore, the annual fee for residents to register their cars is not sufficient to cover administration and enforcement (City of Berkeley Staff, private communication), so the program relies on external revenue. Berkeley’s RPP program fails the pricing metric. Metric Congestion Efficiency Resident Satisfaction Non-­‐resident Satisfaction Spillover impact Grade P F P F P Details 98% of observed block-­‐hours during enforcement hours have an available space. 19% of block-­‐hrs are utilized at >75% of capacity. 79% of residents report satisfaction with RPP. 44% of non-­‐residents stayed less than the 2-­‐hr limit. 55% of oversubscribed block-­‐hours are dominated by residents during enforcement hours. Residential parking is free for non-­‐residents (0%). 49% assuming equal weighting 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Pricing F OVERALL 50% The metrics are equally weighted for this case study. Each locality should consider the relative importance of each metric. For example, if resident satisfaction is twice as important as non-­‐resident satisfaction, the weighting can be adjusted accordingly. Deciding how to weight these different aspects of the RPP assessment requires consultation with local stakeholders and the community. This study does not propose that equal weighting is always the correct answer. 28 RECOMMENDATIONS
29 30 31 City of Berkeley Case Study
The City of Berkeley’s RPP program passes half of our evaluation metrics. It succeeds in maintaining at least one vacant space per block for most of the TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 observations, the residents are (modestly) happy with the program and non-­‐
resident spillover is less of a problem during enforcement hours. On the other hand, much of the on-­‐street parking space is often under-­‐utilized, a majority of non-­‐
residents stay longer than the time limit and there is no pricing mechanism in place to manage that demand. Overall, the program achieves local goals for the residents while failing to contribute to the larger transportation plan. In the past, the burden of paying for equipment such as meters, maintenance and collection made residential paid parking prohibitive. However, the current technology for pay-­‐and-­‐display and pay-­‐by-­‐phone can be lightweight, flexible and inexpensive. More importantly it allows residential areas to manage demand to a level where residents are able to find space near their homes and non-­‐residents have more varied parking options. Pay parking also allows residential parking programs to balance their administrative and enforcement costs with a revenue source. The City of Berkeley should consider layering the RPP program with pay parking in areas near the shopping districts, campus and medical campus. If parking prices are chosen appropriately, allowing residents to pay to stay for longer than two hours could address the other weaknesses in the current program. Non-­‐residents who need to stay in the area for longer can do so, which represents an improvement in the policy design from the perspective on non-­‐
residents. It may also be preferable to residents to the extent that increased traffic from non-­‐residents is a concern and not simply parking per se. Introducing modern pay parking infrastructure would also allow for spatial variation in rates and time limits (14). This will even out demand and decrease under-­‐utilization in the RPP zone. Furthermore, many blocks in the study area are severely under-­‐utilized. These are blocks away from key attractions. Removing RPP from these streets is unlikely to create congested blocks because of the distance non-­‐residents would need to walk to reach their destination. Not having RPP on these under-­‐utilized blocks would simplify and reduce the cost of enforcement and also reduce costs for residents. It would provide a small reservoir of unrestricted free parking under the proposed system for those willing to walk much further. This may mitigate equity concerns that lower-­‐income employees in retail businesses would be the losers in any scheme to price RPP near the shopping districts. 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Other cities
Despite their prevalence, residential parking programs have serious drawbacks that can undermine the effectiveness of the larger transportation plan. This paper has shown that low-­‐tech data collection and a series of success metrics can be used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a local RPP program. The standards can be adjusted to reflect local policy preferences and can be used to balance success from the residents’ point of view with success in the context of the surrounding area and from the perspective of non-­‐resident visitors. For cities that want to assess the success of their residential parking program, the step-­‐by-­‐step process is: TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 1) Collect parking counts, recording permits and non-­‐permit vehicles separately, and distribute surveys to all parked vehicles in the area of interest across times of day. 2) Evaluate the program following each of the six metrics calculating both pass/fail assessments and the specific values for each criterion. 3) Determine the weighting that is most appropriate for the city’s goals through public consultation with the community or use the default of 1/6th for each metric. 4) Calculate an overall score and consider the strengths and weaknesses that contributed to that score. 5) Apply policy levers such as time limits, pricing, and permit prerequisites to improve the effectiveness of the program. Consider new technology to implement an effective program. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CONCLUSIONS
26 27 28 29 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
30 31 32 33 REFERENCES
34 35 36 2. Olsson, M. L., & Miller, G. K. (1980). IMPACT ON COMMUTERS OF A RESIDENTIAL PARKING-­‐PERMIT PROGRAM IN ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA. Transportation Research Record (786), 9-­‐12. 37 38 3. McShane, M., & Meyer, M. D. (1982). Parking policy and urban goals: Linking strategy to needs. Transportation , 11 (2), 131-­‐152. 39 4. Andrews, J. H. (2000 October). Don't park here. Planning , pp. 20-­‐23. This evaluation of the City of Berkeley’s RPP program used a set of metrics that consider the contribution of the program to residents, non-­‐residents and the broader transportation goals of the City. We find that the current program serves residents well, but fails to accommodate the needs of non-­‐residents who share the street. Moreover, free parking in the residential area undermines local efforts at managing demand and communicating the value of parking to drivers. We recommend a priced parking alternative for the Berkeley residential zones. As other cities move forward with their efforts to reduce congestion and mitigate emissions, this evaluation metric can be used to assess the strengths and weakness of existing residential parking programs. The multipart framework allows the locality to customize their priorities and isolate areas for improvement. This work was supported in part by a grant to the University of California, Berkeley and the City of Berkeley. The authors thank Manish Shirgaokar, Warren Logan, Joe Zissman, and the data-­‐collection staff who contributed to this work. 1. Meyer, M., & McShane, M. (1981). Assessment of Neighborhood Parking Permit Programs as Traffic Restraint Measures. Transportation Research Record (816), 35-­‐42. TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.
15 1 2 5. City of Toronto (2013). Types of permit available and fees. From City of Toronto: http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/onstreet/index.htm#type 3 4 5 6 7 8 6. Jin, Mingzhou, and Weiwen Guo. "EZ M-­‐parking system." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1944.1 (2006): 67-­‐71. 7. Kodransky, M., & Hermann, G. (2011). Europe’s Parking U-­‐Turn: From Accommodation to Regulation . Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. ITDP. 9 10 11 8. Shoup, D. (2003). Buying time at the Curb. In D. B. Klein, & F. Foldvary (Eds.), The half-­‐life of policy rationales: How new technology affects old policy issues. (pp. 60-­‐
85). NYC, NY: NYU Press. 12 9. Millard-­‐Ball, A. (2002 April). Putting on the parking caps. Planning , pp. 16-­‐21. 13 10. Shoup, D. (2008). The Professor says YES. Parking Today , 13 (9). 14 15 11. City of Berkeley (2013). Chapter 14.72 Preferential Parking Program. In C. o. Berkeley, Berkeley Muncipal Code. City of Berkeley. 16 17 18 12. De Cerreño, Allison LC. "Dynamics of on-­‐street parking in large central cities." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1898.1 (2004): 130-­‐137. 19 20 21 13. City of Berkeley (2013). Customer Service. From City of Berkeley: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Customer_Service/Home/RPP_Residential_Prefer
ential_Parking.aspx 22 23 24 25 14. SFpark (June 2011). SFpark Rate Adjustment Policy: On-­‐street Parking. From SFpark: http://sfpark.org/wp-­‐
content/uploads/2011/06/SFpark_Pricing_OnStreetPolicy_110608.pdf TRB 2014 Annual Meeting
Paper revised from original submittal.