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JVH comments on Parking News every day at PT Blog – log on at www.parkingtoday.com. Each month, there are at least 40 other comments like these, posted daily.


A different kind of public-private partnership I have been musing about this problem for some time. Chicago leased out its on-


street parking operation for what, half a billion, and is using the money to pay off loans and in some cases for ongoing operations. Is this a good thing? I’m not so sure. Yes, they got a liability off their books (the upcoming repair costs of the garage), but is


this a good idea in every case? They are in the process of selling the on- street operation, too. Take the city of New Haven, CT.


They are considering selling their Parking Authority. The reason? They need money. They sold a pumping station a few years ago simply to cov- er a budget shortfall. What are they going to do when they run out of things to sell? I suggest a better approach


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might be a more short-term solution. Privatization is not a bad deal. Most private companies work much more efficiently than the public sector. How- ever, if the city gets greedy and decides it wants its money all upfront, the long-term view may not be so rosy.


Of course, from the point of view


of the investment banks and the pur- chaser, this is a good deal. They get a property, usually at bargain-base- ment pricing, and then get all the income from it. If they do their num- bers correctly, they will find that the income from these operations is actu- ally much higher than the city had


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from all over the world, with strong con- tingents from the UK and France glaring at each other across the aisle. Parking had fewer than 10 booths, and the products on show were standard fare: pay and display, pay on foot, variable signs and so on. This was not the place to launch a new product. Six seminar sessions were planned,


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and a big emphasis of this conference was on road safety. The UAE has just about the poorest road safety in the world. (I think only Lithuania is more dangerous.) Despite various safety ini- tiatives, the figures seemed to be get- ting worse, particularly among male UAE citizens. This is not so surprising in a country where a 16-year-old can be given a 200 mph Bentley Coupe as a birthday present. Parking filled one of the six confer-


ence sessions, where I was joined by Erik Ferguson, from the American University of Sharjah, UAE, whose paper bore an uncanny resemblance to one he had giv- en at the parking seminar two weeks before. (But let’s not be picky; I was the only person at both events.) I spoke about work I had done in Albania, and tried to draw some parallels and distinc-


JANUARY 2009 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


tions between there and Abu Dhabi. Nobody threw anything and they clapped at the end, so I guess it went OK.


So two weeks, two events, and I


guess that the lesson to take from all this is that parking is now on the map in the Gulf, and if you have a product or a serv- ice to offer, get out there and get your- self local representation. You won’t get far without it, and the Europeans and Asians are already there. And the biggest parking project in


the world? It’s still not progressing. The government’s DOT has won the prize, but they are short on resources and short on experience. They need to get the managing consultant team in place ASAP; and while they “haver” (old Scot- tish, means vacillate), things keep getting worse. The population of Abu Dhabi increased by an astonishing 63% last year, and car ownership rose by about 50% in the three years since we started. If they had gone live in 2007, there was just about room to maneuver; now there isn’t.


Peter Guest, past President of the British Parking Association, is a parking consultant and PT’s reporter on the scene in Europe and the Middle East. He can be reached at peterguestparking@hotmail.co.uk.


PT


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