These recent parking items from around the world are worth a look. You will notice some striking contrasts.
Australia: The Australian Capital Territory ponders the value of the enormous land bank under Canberra's parking lots.
Canada has had a debate about parking prices at hospitals. It was sparked by Rajendra Kale, of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, who called for the abolition of parking fees at hospitals. This commentary takes a wiser approach: "If you offer free parking, why not pay for everyone’s full travel costs (which tend to exceed parking). And why not free daycare or salary replacement when people are in the hospital? And while parking is costly, so too is hospital food. These are not hidden user fees; they are the costs of daily life and the cost of sickness. Of course, that position does not preclude the creation of assistance programs for those who cannot afford parking. ... If you offer free parking at hospitals, what you do, more than anything, is subsidize parking for well-paid health professionals. And if hospitals open up their lots in urban centres, you can guarantee that the spots will be snapped up by local office workers and shoppers."
India: Delhi may be close to agreeing on much higher parking fees and different prices for peak and off-peak hours. They could go up from ludicrously cheap to just very cheap. The HIGHEST rate on the table is "Rs 50 for three hours and Rs20 thereafter". Note that, as of today, US$1=Rs50. A final decision is yet to be taken.
Malaysia: Non-profit group, TRANSIT, responds to a muddled journalist's complaints about Kuala Lumpur's city centre parking "woes". TRANSIT wisely opposes a recent proposal to 'standardise parking rates' in the CBD.
Russia: Astonishingly, parking in the streets of Moscow is free (even in the central area)! Needless to say, this causes numerous negative side-effects. The Mayor of Moscow now says paid parking MAY make a return to the city. But only on an experimental basis. "The task for this year – is to introduce some order with car parking. At present they are parked in rows of two and three. And right under no parking signs, anywhere”.
Sweden: Prices per square metre for some unbundled residential parking rivals that of nearby apartments in posh areas of Stockholm (or so says this article).
Switzerland: Insights into Swiss parking policy: "... at the beginning of the 1990s, Swiss cities started limiting the number of spaces available or turning free and unlimited white zones into limited blue or metered zones. The trend towards fewer parking spaces is increasing. In German-speaking Switzerland, Winterthur, Zurich and Schaffhausen – to name just a few cities – have recently changed the corresponding laws. Geneva is set to finalise its new master plan soon."
USA: Is it the financiers (rather than parking requirements) that largely determine parking supply in America's real estate developments? An interesting claim from Systematic Failure blog. Some commenters see it differently. Meanwhile, minimum parking requirements have been abolished in downtown Tacoma, WA and Nashville, TN.
Follow me on twitter (@PaulABarter) for more timely parking links (and tweets on a few on other mobility issues).
Australia: The Australian Capital Territory ponders the value of the enormous land bank under Canberra's parking lots.
Canada has had a debate about parking prices at hospitals. It was sparked by Rajendra Kale, of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, who called for the abolition of parking fees at hospitals. This commentary takes a wiser approach: "If you offer free parking, why not pay for everyone’s full travel costs (which tend to exceed parking). And why not free daycare or salary replacement when people are in the hospital? And while parking is costly, so too is hospital food. These are not hidden user fees; they are the costs of daily life and the cost of sickness. Of course, that position does not preclude the creation of assistance programs for those who cannot afford parking. ... If you offer free parking at hospitals, what you do, more than anything, is subsidize parking for well-paid health professionals. And if hospitals open up their lots in urban centres, you can guarantee that the spots will be snapped up by local office workers and shoppers."
India: Delhi may be close to agreeing on much higher parking fees and different prices for peak and off-peak hours. They could go up from ludicrously cheap to just very cheap. The HIGHEST rate on the table is "Rs 50 for three hours and Rs20 thereafter". Note that, as of today, US$1=Rs50. A final decision is yet to be taken.
Malaysia: Non-profit group, TRANSIT, responds to a muddled journalist's complaints about Kuala Lumpur's city centre parking "woes". TRANSIT wisely opposes a recent proposal to 'standardise parking rates' in the CBD.
Russia: Astonishingly, parking in the streets of Moscow is free (even in the central area)! Needless to say, this causes numerous negative side-effects. The Mayor of Moscow now says paid parking MAY make a return to the city. But only on an experimental basis. "The task for this year – is to introduce some order with car parking. At present they are parked in rows of two and three. And right under no parking signs, anywhere”.
Sweden: Prices per square metre for some unbundled residential parking rivals that of nearby apartments in posh areas of Stockholm (or so says this article).
Switzerland: Insights into Swiss parking policy: "... at the beginning of the 1990s, Swiss cities started limiting the number of spaces available or turning free and unlimited white zones into limited blue or metered zones. The trend towards fewer parking spaces is increasing. In German-speaking Switzerland, Winterthur, Zurich and Schaffhausen – to name just a few cities – have recently changed the corresponding laws. Geneva is set to finalise its new master plan soon."
USA: Is it the financiers (rather than parking requirements) that largely determine parking supply in America's real estate developments? An interesting claim from Systematic Failure blog. Some commenters see it differently. Meanwhile, minimum parking requirements have been abolished in downtown Tacoma, WA and Nashville, TN.
Follow me on twitter (@PaulABarter) for more timely parking links (and tweets on a few on other mobility issues).
Regarding the comment on Delhi, I agree that the increase in prices is not sufficient. But the comparison in prices should not be to prices elsewhere in the world (the fact that Rs 50 = $1 is meaningless.) It would be more apt to make a comparison to prices of real estate in (any given part of) Delhi.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent point @vishwakarman. Using PPP$ might be better than US$ (especially since the Rupee is unusually weak these days). But a real-estate price comparison is EVEN better. After all, the alternative use of space used for parking is other kinds of real estate.
DeleteBut do note that on such a comparison Delhi's parking prices will still look incredibly cheap. Delhi's real estate is actually rather expensive. A previous post made such a comparison and has a graph to illustrate: http://www.reinventingparking.org/2010/08/do-cbd-parking-prices-in-your-city-look.html