Free Parking Is Quite Costly

[jeffrey]

According to a new book The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup, an urban planning professor at UCLA, free parking isn't really free at all. While you might not think this is something that should concern you, the facts are that these costs are passed to you in hidden ways.

All the free parking spaces are first paid for by developers. They pass these costs onto their tenants which then pass the cost onto their customers, namely you and me. That means that every time we travel into our car to buy groceries, stop at the bank, see a movie or eat out, we are indirectly paying for the free parking we receive going there through the products and services we buy.




None of this is cheap. According to the book, the average parking space costs more than the average car. In 2002, some $374 billion was spent nationally to subsidize off-street parking which is similar in size to the Medicare or national defense budgets.

Furthermore, cities and taxpayers waste billions of dollars subsidizing parking on valuable land that could be used for housing or parks, according to Shoup.

In addition, the book found:

- Parking is free for 99% of all car trips while the average car is parked 95% of the time.

- In the US, there are three to four parking spaces for every car - or 705 million to 940 million spaces. If all these parking spaces were put together into a single surface lot, it would equal the size of Connecticut.

[gakline]

Yeah, it may cost more, but it feels good.

My city has free downtown parking garages (3-4 stories). Yeah, I know my taxes pay for it, but I'm also not shelling out $2-3 each time I head down there. It makes the downtown more appealing

That's always the biggest complaint too. Parking's too expensive.