CHEAP PARKING….One of Matt Yglesias’s hobbyhorses is the scourge of cheap parking, and today he explains how mispriced parking can hurt downtown businesses:
On the one hand, meters might be so expensive that there are just tons and tons of vacant parking spaces haunting downtown. In this case, the high price of parking is keeping customers away from stores and the meter rates are [too] high. On the other hand, meters might be so cheap that convenient street parking is rarely available and drivers leave their cars parked for long stretches of time. In this case, the low price of parking is creating parking shortages and low turnover, keeping customers away from stores.
As a born and bred suburbanite, my reaction naturally is, “What are these parking meters you speak of?” Here in The OC, when you want to park your V-8 Cadillac Escalade, you just cruise through a vast expanse of asphalt until you find a suitable spot. What’s to meter?
But I guess you city slickers do things differently, don’t you? So here’s my question: what’s the best way to figure out a market price for parking? Surely someone has done this, haven’t they? Electronic meters that adjust pricing to different times of day? Experiments with different prices? Studies of how many open spaces there are at different times and places? What? There must be some clever answer.
