SFparkWill Create a Better San


Francisco from Page 15


deployed along a one-mile stretch of the San Francisco waterfront in a pilot project that began in 2005, as well in installations now operating in LosAngeles and Sausalito, CA. The sensors are being paired with wirelessly networked single-


space and multi-space parking meters, which accept credit and debit cards as well as coins. The meter installations began in July, with 190 curb parking spaces in Hayes Valley getting upgraded meters. By December, nearly 5,100 spaces will be regulated by the new net- workedmeters. The occupancy sensors allow the city’s parking managers to


observe, on a continuous basis, parking occupancy on each block.The networked meters allow managers to easily adjust parking rates and hours of operation at eachmeter, simply by reprogramming themeters froma central computer. As described at length in the project’s planning documents and on


its website, SFpark will “use demand-responsive pricing to manage parking demand towards availability targets.” 1


Priceswill not be set on


an area-wide basis. Instead, according to SFMTAdocuments, “priceswill be adjusted


up or down in increments of $0.25/hour every four to six weeks for a certain geographical unit (whether block-to-block, two-block units, or other appropriate area) using availability data fromparking sensors.” 2 The new prices also will “emphasize ‘time-of-day’ pricing


because it is expected to have a greater impact than strict ‘length of stay’pricing,” the SFMTA reports. 3 Overall, the agency says, “SFpark seeks to create a driver experi-


ence in which drivers either (a) go directly to a parking garage with available spaces; or (b) are able, most of the time, to find an on-street parking space as near to their destination as possible, preferablywithin a block or two of their destination.” 4 It’s not hard to predict what will happen in HayesValley in the


comingmonths, if the city proceeds as planned. On Sunday, the prices for curb parkingwill go up, from$0 per hour nowto a rate that is com- petitive with the $10 flat rate charged at the prime off-street lot. Prices will very likely be highest on prime blocks of themain street (Hayes), and lower on outlying blocks. Parking demand patterns are actually fairly predictable and recur-


ring. On Sunday in Hayes Valley, for example, demand on many blocks is higher at 11 a.m., when restaurants are open, than at 6 a.m. So, in keeping with SFpark ’s plan to emphasize time-of-day pricing, on those blocks, Sunday rates will very likely be higher for the hour from11 a.m. to noon than the hour from6 to 7 a.m. What will happen? Some demand will shift from the curb to the


$10 flat rate private lot; some will shift to other underused off-street garages nearby. Curb parking shortageswill largely disappear; circling the block will mostly stop.And those of us with economics degrees who havewaited a long time for basicmarket economics to be applied to traffic engineering problems will smile, and go happily to brunch.


1 San FranciscoMunicipal TransportationAgency. SFpark Updated Scope ofWork – Parking Pilot Projects Urban Partnership Program,


August 6, 2008, page 9. 2


Ibid.


3 Ibid. 4 Ibid.


Patrick Siegman is a Principal with Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates (www.nelsonnygaard.com). Trained originally as an econo- mist, he has led the development of parking plans for numerous cities.


16 OCTOBER 2010 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


Is this the Future forMunicipal


Parking? from Page 15


frequently than once amonth. American parking doyen Donald Shoup seems to be


convinced that this is the way forward. The UCLA urban planning professor is quoted by the San FranciscoMunici- palTransportationAgency (SFMTA) as saying: “It’s very appropriate for the federal government to


sponsor this research, because every city on Earth can learn from it.You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and that bettermanagement will have a whole cascade of benefits.” Although San Francisco promotes this project as a


trial that will run for two years and then be evaluated, that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. After the trial period, officials plan to roll out the project citywide, rather suggesting that the outcome has already been decid- ed and the trial and evaluation are nothing much more than formalities. Do I think this plan will work? I don’t know, and I am


prepared to be completely open-minded about it.However, I do have some quite serious concerns. First, the technology of occupancy sensors is clear and


well understood; however, have they ever been tested in use? I am not aware of any proven technology of this type, and by that Imean installed in city streets in realworking condi- tions, not limited tests by the company trying to sell them. I hope theywork and do all that is expected of them, butwhat is Plan B if the batteries don’t last or if the street sweeper starts pulling themoff the road after three weeks? Second, the plan to change parking rates no more fre-


quently than once a month doesn’t make sense. Parking demands change hour by hour. StreetA is busy in the mid- dle of the day, and StreetBis busy in the evening because of the restaurants. If the rate is set on the basis of some sort of overall picture, they both get a high charge, which will be completely wrong some of the time. Perhaps it is the intention to set rates that vary through


the day, but nothing in what has been published suggests this. Certainly, the proposal that the rate would change “no more than once a month” and the proposal to have “match day” surcharges would appear to bemutually exclusive. I am just a little concerned that this is a $20 million-


plus project that is replacing what could be achieved by a competent parking professional with a few hours’ obser- vation and a willingness to adopt a more flexible approach to charging than setting a “one size fits all” neighborhood rate. Finally, there seems to be a poisoned chalice in some of


the preliminary research. SFMTA says that “surveys show that drivers in San Francisco are more interested in parking availability and convenience than in the price of parking.” If this is true – and I have no reason to doubt it – then a project based on using charges to drive parkers away from the spaces they consider “convenient” would seem unlikely to have a happy outcome. I will watch the progress of SFpark with interest, and I hope that it will proveme unnecessarily pessimistic.


Peter Guest is Parking Today’s correspondent in the UK. He can be reached at Peter@parkingtoday.com.


PT


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