Do you have a car? Do you pay under $100 a month to park your car? If so, chances are you are enjoying an effective subsidy. And by “you,” I am also talking about me. I have never thought much about the cost of parking (except when I had to valet my car in trendy parts of town). In fact, I have come to expect free parking as the norm, or heavily subsidized parking at public garages / meters for $1 or $2 per hour.
Why free parking exacts a heavy cost
New York Times’ Tyler Cowen argues that free parking exact a heavy environmental and financial cost: motorists are more likely to drive when they don’t have to shoulder the true cost of parking, cash-strapped cities and states cannot charge enough to increase their revenue, and perhaps most importantly, we do not feel the sense of urgency in developing adequate public transportation systems as we would if we had to pay the true cost of automobile usage.
According to this article,
Under a more sensible policy, a parking space that is currently free could cost at least $100 a month — and maybe much more — in many American cities and suburbs. At the bottom end of that estimate, if a commuter drives to work 20 days a month, current parking policy offers a subsidy of $5 a day — which is more than the gas and wear-and-tear costs of many round-trip commutes. In essence, the parking subsidy outweighs many of the other costs of driving, including the gasoline tax.
Gulp. This article hits home for me because ever since I started my job 30 miles away, I have been a heavy user of my car and of my office’s parking space. In fact, one of the reasons we chose our current apartment is that the complex offered two parking spots for our unit.
Somewhat selfishly, I am glad that I benefit from free and heavily subsidized parking I receive on the streets near my apartment, at work, and at restaurants and cafes. There is truly no good alternatives for a car where I live right now. Although I live close enough to a subway station that I thought taking the metro might be a possibility, the nearest drop off point from my work is more than 15 miles away.
What if free parking went away?
If I had to pay $100 a month to park my car at home and another $100 to park at work, I will have to cough up the cash and keep on driving. If CB had to pay $100 a month to park his car, though, he might be in a position to rethink having a car – it is possible to get from our home to his work on the subway for around $250 a month. That amount is currently more than what he is paying for his car in gas – add in the convenience of the car (especially on the weekends), it’s not worth it for him to pay an additional $250 a month to take the subway. If, however, he would have to pay, say, $200 extra a month to park at home and at work, then the incentives obviously shift more in favor of using public transportation for commute.
In many large cities such as New York, Boston, San Francisco, and even in Los Angeles, it is possible to go without a car if you live right in the center of town near public transportation and you don’t work in the suburbs. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for most of us.
Do you benefit from free parking? If you had to pay $100 per month for a parking spot, how would you change (or not change) your behavior?
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Our current home is quite close to town – the CBD is literally a 5-10 min drive down the road.
Parking, however, is a big turnoff when it comes to going into the city. Luckily, when BF was doing his course at uni, they told him about a spot where students could park after hours for free.
Aside from the fact that I do not want to live in a shoddy shoebox apartment, the other reason I don't want to move into town is that very few places actually come with a parking spot. T would still need a car for work and for us to go and see friends/family – our PT system isn't great. I would absolutely refuse to pay for a parking lot on top of our rent.
Everywhere I go, I pay for parking.
$85 at work, $140 at "home" in the hotel… parking is going to cost more than my damn car!!!
This is also the reason why I try to take the bus or walk, rather than pay for parking here and there.
The bus system where I live is pretty terrible. CB used to visit me when I was in school – we lived 20 to 30-minutes apart by car, but it would literally take him 2-3 hours by bus once all the transfers / delays are factored in.
In Toronto, it's horrible if you are going from downtown out to another part of the Greater Toronto AreaBut in smaller cities, it isn't so bad. It kind of depends… I just hate driving and parking if I know I can get there by bus and not worry about having to watch the clock & feed the meter
The article does a great job of showing us a subsidy we aren't used to thinking about. However, I think this should be part of a broader discussion on the true cost of transportation. The oil and public transportation are also heavily subsidized. I'd like to see how much all these things would cost without taxpayer dollars.
We pay $85 for parking a car at our apartment – I didn't want the car, but BF needs it to get to work, since he does landscaping and frequently has to be at a meeting place before the subway starts. I take transit to get to work, and have most of my life around transit (I also don't have a license though). BF drives on weekends to though, and it is convenient in that we can get all our groceries at once, etc … but it's annoying to go to movies, since he specifically drives to the more suburb area of the city, where there is free parking. Meanwhile, it's a 15 minute streetcar ride to two theatres, or a 5 minute subway ride to a different theatre, plus there's lots of things we can do downtown. The movies in the suburb area has little else there, unless we want to go to mega strip mall land and walk through big box retail stores.
We don't have a car – it would add some convenience to our lives, but the cost and day-to-day responsibility is just not worth it for us.
Where do you live that the subway costs $250 a month?? That's insane!
Parking in downtown Denver, where I work, is very expensive. I can park about six blocks away for free on a residential street (dangerous part of town at night) or a few blocks away for $3 per day. Parking in my building would be about $150 per month.
I take the light rail train, which I can walk to from my apartment. I am not paying to leave my car somewhere when I can take the train for less.
$100 a month in general seems rather high, to me. Nonetheless, I don't currently benefit from too much free parking since I already take the metro to work and I pay for parking at my apartment. I suppose I benefit when I go to the supermarket and such, but then again, they bundle that parking in order to attract consumers and also because that parking is likely not costing them anywhere near $100/month. Some places actually do restrict the parking or charge (like supermarkets downtown).
We share a car and have one spot as part of our apartment. If we were to get another spot, we'd be able to get street parking (permit only) for a nominal fee. $15/year? My work also has a parking lot attached to it.
That's interesting though. I don't think I could give up my car. It takes 3 buses to get to my work and doubles the commute, unfortunately. (I know this because my car was in the shop for a couple days, and I did take the bus.)
How does sharing a car work for you and T? I don't even think we can share a parking space…
So… i have an email saying you asked how that works for us? But the comment isn't here.
Anyway, I shouldn't really say we share a car – it is more I have a car, and we both use it on the weekends.
So it works out well for me!
And for him, because before I moved here, he had no car access. He also is able to work from home a lot (at least this summer) and his bus commute is probably roughly as quick as a car commute would be for him. I hope we can get away with 1 car forever, but it will depend on where our jobs are!
Free parking is something that is plentiful in my old Kentucky home. I get so frustrated when I travel and have to pay for parking. I guess I have a lot to be thankful for…
Great post! I think I would definitely make more of an effort to bike to work. I might even consider moving closer to work, too! $100 a month on transportation sucks, but a bus pass in a one zone (within the city of Vancouver here) costs about $80 too.
If the true costs of our transportation was converted into money and we had to pay it, many of us would choose to stop driving. Just thinking about gas, wear & tear, stress (especially if you drive in Jersey!), insurance, and the cost to the environment.
I think it would take something dramatic for people to change their habits. When the price of gas more that doubled a few years ago, I knew that it would just create a "new normal" that people would get used to. All of those frugal travel choices went out the window within a year for many.
I don't own a car and it saves SO much money. No car note, no insurance, no sticker fee for the city of Chicago, no license fee for the state of Illinois. Most importantly, no parking tickets (which I used to be a pro at getting) AND no speeding tickets which I was also not bad at.
I have Zipcar and I borrow people's cars from time to time. When I do that, I do drive around like a crazy person looking for free parking. I HATE paying for parking. Especially in this crooked city I live in where our mayor sold out our meters to some outside company. It costs like $6.50 an hour at the meter downtown. And parking garages range from about $30-40 a day.
I'll take public transportation, please and thank you.
It's great that you can take public transportation around. I really wish my neck of the woods had better options, but no dice.