The Capital reports that a raise in downtown garage parking fees may scare businesses away http://www.capitalonline.com/cgi-bin/read/2007/09_25-15/BUS . CP says boo, hoo! Read this article to see the silliness of the whole debate from the likes of City Economic Development Director (soon to be $100k + per year Department Director?) Mike Miron and Chamber of Commerce President Bob Burdon and others.
These supposed capitalist and free market advocates whine when we let the market determine prices if it means THEIR COSTS go up, but remain silent when government subsidizes costs, thus spreading costs around. Roads and garages are extremely expensive to build, maintain, light, salt, sand, plow, stripe and patrol and they are subsidized right and left by government which seems okay, but when the private folks have to pay more, they want more socialism! Get government off our backs!
In his "groundbreaking" book, The High Cost of Free Parking, California Professor Donald Shoup http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/ clearly documents the inequity and problems created all over the USA by the idea and the practice of so-called free parking. So now we bring our rates into line with the market and businesses cry foul. But we keep building more spaces, i.e. "supply", to keep up with more and more traffic, i.e. "demand", in a "quaint" Colonial-era seaport town and then cry when when we think these prices chase people away? Why does demand continue to increase? Why do businesses continue to whine? Which of these business give their product or service away?
Does the high cost of parking at BWI chase people away? No! What we do there is charge a premium to be close to the airport for short term, and charge less as you move further from the airport where you stay longer. We are only slowly starting to do this in Annapolis. Nobody expects it for free.
Gasoline has gone up. Milk has gone up. Electricity has gone up. Rental costs have gone up. Why should parking go down?
Furthermore, we have a rapid and high quality shuttle service from the stadium to downtown and West Street. Somehow, that's just never good enough for these perpetual moaners. They want more, closer and less-expensive parking to take over downtown. If they realize that goal, who would want to come downtown? All we'd have would be parking garages.
BUT THE BIG QUESTIONS REMAIN: DO WE WANT A DOWNTOWN FOR PEOPLE OR FOR CARS? DO WE WANT GARAGES WHERE CARS SIT ALL DAY OR PUBLIC PLACES WHERE PEOPLE MOVE, GATHER AND...HERE'S A THOUGHT...ACTUALLY TRANSACT BUSINESS? CARS DON'T SPEND MONEY--PEOPLE SPEND MONEY!!!
Consider this reaction from the Arnold-based Building Owners and Managers Institute International (BOMI) http://www.bomi-edu.org/which just moved to the gleaming new Park Place:
Company officials said they were under the impression parking spaces would cost between $70 and $80 per month. Those rates were comparable to the private West Garrett garage across the street, company officials said.
One would think that "a nonprofit which provides education programs for commercial property professionals" would know a thing or two about the costs of parking, but apparently they thought $70 to $80 per month was market rate--for a covered, luxury garage no less!!!. Tsk, tsk. And if they were surprised, perhaps someone should have read the lease more carefully, as this is standard practice for any of their members when entering into a lease negotiation and contract.
This is all part of a bigger issue. It is time to seriously consider that our automobile oriented society is unsustainable.
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