Two Proposals for Solving the (self-created) Parking Problem in Dallas

Here we are in the second installment of my series on Parking Problems in Dallas (itself a part of my overall series on barriers to good development in Dallas). To summarize the main points of the previous piece:

1. Dallas’ parking policy damages our neighborhoods and hence our city.
2. All previous responses to this problem have only created additional problems, each nearly as bad as the original problem and together much worse.

This piece will cover two ways Dallas could solve its self-inflicted parking problem and corresponding erosion of our neighborhoods. Both of these solutions are practical in theory, but only the first would likely appeal across the political spectrum, the latter probably being too great a break from traditional practice.

How Dallas Handles Parking Problems

Mainly, it doesn’t. See, for example, a recent attempt to relieve parking problems in Oak Cliff’s Bishop Arts District. The Bishop Arts District, having achieved success, faces the same problem every popular commercial neighborhood does: insufficient obvious parking to accommodate the hordes of visitors craving brunch, coffee, and historic charm.

Sadly, since Dallas officials refuse to consider any sort of remotely market-based solution, we are left with shuffling around existing spaces, laughably ineffective time limits on parking, and perennial calls for “someone” to build a parking garage (which, at $30,000 per space provided, would likely never be commercially successful in itself) or more frequent DART service.

Requirements of a Practical Parking Policy

These proposed solutions will follow the framework for a realistic approach to parking policy laid out by Donald Shoup in his definitive work on the subject. The key elements of this framework are:

1. Eliminate off-street parking requirements
2. Charge for on-street parking when it becomes scarce
3. Return proceeds from #2 to the neighborhood where it was collected

Here’s why each of these are important:

1. Off-street parking requirements force transportation choices upon us, degrade the urban environment, deflate our tax base, and harm the environment.
2. When a good (like parking) is in short supply there are two options for dealing with it: raise the price or expect shortages (in addition to our current terrible method of City-mandated parking subsidies).
3. When nearby on-street parking is full, drivers will park in front of nearby businesses and residences, attracting the ire of the neighborhood (and politicians hate ire). Further, property owners usually hate parking meters because the funds collected vanish into the endless pockets of City Hall, ne’er to be seen again.

The Pragmatic Solution (Greedy-Capitalist-Free)

Donald Shoup’s advocated approach, which is designed to minimize political opposition while maintaining a minimum level of parking availability, involves creating “Parking Benefit Districts” (PBDs) in areas where parking demand has outstripped the supply of free on-street spaces.

A PBD allows the collection of fees for on-street parking and dedicates the fees (net of collection costs) to the PBD for additional city services such as beautification, security, sidewalk repair, or power line burial. The district is managed by an entity (such as a Public Improvement District) made up of property owners who decide what public use to put funds towards. Pricing is set to maintain an 85% occupancy, which Shoup cites as the ideal rate since that would leave roughly 1 open space on each block face, minimizing the need to hunt for spaces.

Pasadena, CA is the most widely cited example of a PBD, though Austin, TX also has at least one PBD, and Houston has a pilot program going as well. Sadly, both the Austin and Houston’s PBDs fall short as they do not in themselves address the first item in our list of requirements: elimination of parking requirements. The bright side though is that this gives Dallas the chance to show those losers how it’s done!

My Proposal to bring PBDs to Dallas

Here is my proposal for bringing PBDs to Dallas. I’ve been sending this out in a sort of “parking manifesto” to Dallas City Council members for a long time, but, strangely, they never respond (Though one Council Member told me verbally he believed business owners would fight any attempt to charge for parking, an attitude that would be mitigated by the carrots offered by eliminating parking requirements and access to PBD funds from meters.)

• PBDs would be an overlay (in Dallas zoning-speak, this means it sits on top of existing zoning) centered on a particular portion of a street and extend at least one block to the adjacent parallel streets to control spillover parking.
• Within the PBD there would be no off-street parking requirements. (see #1 above)
• The City, at its discretion or the request of property owners, would be permitted to install parking meters to charge for on-street parking after giving notice to property owners.
• Because this is Dallas, no Valet Stands will be allowed in on-street spaces.
• Meters will be priced with the goal of maintaining a 85% occupancy rate throughout the day.
• PBD funds collected (net of operating costs) would be administered in accordance with an annual budget set by a panel elected by the property owners within the PBD.
• At least 80% of PBD funds would have to be expended each year for public services like street cleaning, sidewalk repair, burial of power lines, security, or street trees.

Special Residential Considerations

The above PBD proposal is designed for a commercial or mixed-use district. In residential areas, the PBD would be combined with elements of Dallas’ existing residential parking permit program.

• PBDs that extend to residential neighborhoods would offer annual on-street parking passes at minimal/no cost to residents and at a higher fee to non-residents.
• Parking passes would be limited to the estimated number of on-street spaces for each block.
• If demand for parking passes exceeds supply the City will auction them off to residents annually.

This meets all 3 of our criteria for good parking policy. It eliminates parking requirements, charges market prices for on-street parking, and returns these funds to the area they’re collected.

I would bet my annual parking pass that after 10 years property prices would be so much higher in the PBDs than other parts of town that developers, residents, and businesses would be absolutely clamoring for their own PBDs. After all, we could hardly do worse than our current policy of requiring gigantic parking lots or ridiculously expensive garages.

Bonus Reading: The Market Purist Approach (skip this if you hate greedy capitalists).

In Dallas, on-street parking is available to the public on a first-come first-served basis on every street unless otherwise marked. In practice, property owners hate seeing cars parked in front of their property. There’s so much parking available in Dallas that this anger seldom reaches the fever pitch of other cities, but people get cranky about other people parking in front of their property. Our friends up in Richardson even go so far as to forbid overnight parking in front of residences.

Given that this space is largely unregulated and considered by etiquette to belong to the property owner, why not give the space to the property owner to do with as they please? That is, give the usage rights of the curb space along each property (thought not ownership) to the property owner, with the caveat that the rights can be reclaimed as needed by the City, e.g. if the space used by parking is converted to a traffic lane, has a new fire hydrant installed, or a bus stop put in.

The property owners could ignore it and leave it open to the public, reserve it for their own use, lease it out to a monthly tenant, install their own temporary meters, or turn it over to a parking management company who handles it all for you for a cut of the revenue (they file the paperwork with the city, install the meter, set the price, market the space, collect the fees, remit the collected funds, and tow violators away for you).

Donald Shoup briefly mentions this idea in his book but quickly dismisses it as having too many transaction costs to be be practical (a position I believe ignores the value of self-organization in actually getting things done in a city). Several libertarian writers have also opined on the subject (See pieces by Sanford Ikeda and Randall O’Toole which use typically dense economics terminology or the much pithier set of tweets from The Suburbanist where I first saw this idea.)

Personally, I love this concept. Combined with eliminating parking requirements, it meets the 3 criteria we laid out above for good parking policy and has the added benefit of costing the City next to nothing. Further it opens up a tidy little revenue stream for property owners and turns neglected space into productive assets.

That said, this probably isn’t politically possible since privatizing what are now publicly (mis)managed assets would undoubtedly be unpopular with those who believe publicly owned assets should be managed by a public entity, even if this policy leads to the inevitable wide-spread neglect that follows when an asset doesn’t have a motivated caretaker.