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DCL
My town has free parking all along Main Street. It's the kind of thing visitors always remark on: "No meters!!" And we smugly say, "Nope, not here!" and pull up right in front of the nearest restaurant or antique store.
Yep, life seemed pretty sweet... until I realized that the abundance of free parking meant one thing: I. Drive. Everywhere.
Which is a big change for this New York City transplant, who used to think nothing of walking 20 blocks to run an errand. When we first moved up here, I lived a ten minute walk from my local yoga studio. Yet every time, I hopped in the car to turn the ten minute commute into a two minute commute. And issued the plethora of Standard Suburbanite Excuses: It's cold out. (So cold I can't be outside for ten minutes of moving?) I'm running late. (Is it that hard to leave the house eight minutes earlier?) It's such a short trip, it can't be that bad for the environment. (Wrong. Just plain wrong.)
A new report by the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy explains just how wrong. Consider these facts:
- Free parking means we drive more. A lot more. 99 percent of driving trips end in free parking.
- More driving means more traffic jams. Studies show that "cruising vehicles" (drivers circling blocks, looking for empty spaces) account for 40 percent of traffic.
- Free parking eats up land. Since 1960, almost all US cities have had "parking minimums," requiring a certain amount of available parking per building. A curbside space requires 200 square feet per vehicle, while a garage space requires 300-350 square feet. So you get situations like Manhattan's East River Mall, which couples 485,000 square feet of retail space with 686,000 square feet of parking.
The good news is that cities like Boulder and Portland (and to a lesser extent, San Francisco, New York, and Boston) are reinventing the (parked) wheel. On the to do list: Charge for parking, ideally using flexible parking meters, which set fees at levels (you pay more per hour the longer you stay) to ensure an 85 percent occupancy rate throughout the day. Then use the revenue generated through parking to improve walking routes and public transportation, even turning no-longer-used parking spaces into wider sidewalks or bike lanes.
I admit, paying for parking, or getting rid of parking spaces sounds like a hassle at first. But imagine if we didn't have to drive to get where we need to go. Now imagine if everyone in your city drove less because they could walk or take the bus with ease. Or, even better, everyone in the country. Now that sounds like free to me.
