POINT OF VIEW


pletely used up in a year (promised savings accounts somehow were never opened). Pittsburgh is trying, but the city council is balking as are the learned coun- cilmembers of Indianapolis.


My sources tell me that many cities that were looking at the


“Triple P” (public-private partnership) are rethinking the process. What happened? First, there was Chicago. The mayor pushed the process


through and a billion was realized, but what has happened is that a number ofwhistleblowers are claiming that the city left a bunch on the table. They also are seeing that the private sec- tor can, in fact, perform and that revenue has jumped three times over what it was just a year ear- lier. Many are saying, “Gee, why couldn’t we have had all that money? Allwe had to dowas clean up our act or hire the pri- vate sector.” Plus, the changeover inChicagowas shaky,with lots of initial problems that stuck in the craw of the folks in theWindy City. Then there is Pittsburgh. The mayor said they had learned


L ‘PPP’ Passé, Abu


BY JOHN VAN HORN


ET’S REVIEW THE BIDDING. A number of desperate cities are looking to sell or lease their on-street parking for quick bucks to cover budget shortfalls. Chicago did it, and the money was com-


little secret – a lot ofmoney never gets collected, formyriad rea- sons. They found that putting professionals in charge in Chica- go, replacing meters, and some rate adjustments and, boy, the money just flowed in. Pittsburgh and Indianapolis saw the hand- writing on the wall, and LA got a jolt when only 25% of its meters were upgraded. There is something lurking in the background. The voters are


beginning to realize that government’s troubles can’t be solved by more and more money. The time has come to look at the expense side of the ledger. Free spending has got to come to an end. Time to starve the beast. Sell parking today, and city hall and the police may follow tomorrow.Then what’s next? There is another consideration, one dealing with public poli-


cy.When you lease out on-street parking operations, you also lease out your ability to affect policy decisions in the future. Who knowswhat a citywill look like 50 years down the road?


Someone realized that the private sector doesn’t just plop down a billion dollars if it doesn’t have a “lock” somewhere.


from the issues in Chicago, but still underestimated the amount that was going to be bid by, what, 40%. Then he didn’t have his political ducks in a row and an opposing city council killed the deal, after the city and a lot of vendors had spent a bundle to bid the deal. The council says it’s dead; the mayor is trying lifesav- ing measures. Indianapolis is working on a redo of the proposal made by its


bidder. They, too, seem concerned that there is a lot of money on the table and are reworking the deal to provide them a higher per- centage down the road. In LA, Hizzoner is trying to lease out on- and off-street park-


ing, but the parking department has just upgraded 10,000 meters and the revenue has skyrocketed.The council is rethinkingwhether they can stand the political onslaught when voters discover they leased out such a lucrative operation. What these and other city governments have seen is that


parking revenue in their jurisdictions can be substantially more than it currently is. Someone realized that the private sector doesn’t just plop down a billion dollars if it doesn’t have a “lock” somewhere.Most of the time, that lock is parking’s dirty


6 DECEMBER 2010 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


Some streetsmay need to be closed, others changed to no parking; parks and malls may be needed. However, if the parking spaces are leased, the ability to make these changes can be difficult, if not impossible. No private business is


going to pay big bucks to have their future controlled by a planning commission or a city council, and if they do, the bucks aren’t


going to be nearly so big. Cities are realizing that they can hire professional parking


operations and getmuch of the revenue increases they are looking for without resorting to sale or lease of assets. They are realizing that rushing in to sell one of their most visible assets is not neces- sarily the best possible option. IsTriple P as it relates to parking history?Who knows? But I


will tell you that they are realizing that farming out trash collec- tion, or building maintenance, or even a court system is very dif- ferent from leasing an asset as potentially revenue-generating, personal to the voters, and volatile as parking. Remember, all pol- itics is local, and there is nothing more local than where you park your car.


*** Does Abu Dhabi, UAE, own the Chicago parking system?


Well, sort of, kinda, not really. Seems that afterMorgan Stanley closed the deal in Chicago,


they set out to do what investment banks do all the time – they wanted to use OPM (other people’s money). So they – well, let me quote from an Oct. 19 article on The AtlanticWire, which quotes freely from journalist Matt Taibbi’s new book, “Griftopia,” as previewed in Rolling Stone:


Continued on Page 8


Dhabi, The Holidays


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