We have a lot of parking lots in downtown College Park – one behind the Maryland Book Exchange, one next to Applebee’s and a garage being built at Knox Road and Yale Avenue. Yet these lots will all sit empty while cars line up Route 1 to enter a parking lot more exclusive than The Mark.
I’m talking about the College Park Shopping Center’s parking lot at Knox Road and Route 1. The shopping center is home to all of your basic, non-alcoholic college kid needs: toothpaste, coffee and burritos. Its parking lot can be described as nothing other than a nightmare, with lines that frequently back up into the street and effectively stop Knox Road at rush hour. What’s the solution? Certainly not more parking lots. I’ll catch a lot of flak for saying this, but I think the meters aren’t charging enough to park.
Here’s an example. I pay more for a room in South Campus Commons, which is right in the middle of downtown College Park, than someone who lives in University Courtyards, which is more than a mile away. The rooms are more or less the same, but I’m paying for the convenience of having a short walk (or drive, if I’m lazy) to all of College Park’s deep-fried goodies. Shouldn’t the same principle apply to more convenient parking spaces?
In his book The High Cost of Free Parking, Donald Shoup, professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues that what you pay at the meter rarely reflects the actual value of a parking space. Two years ago, the city of Rockville built a new parking garage in its downtown that costs $1.5 million a year to maintain, but charges just $1 an hour to park there. The result? A garage they can’t pay for that fills up before lunch, sending people to continue searching for a space. And all of that extra driving puts a strain on the environment. In a study of Los Angeles’ 15-block business district, Shoup discovered that people drive 950,000 miles a year trying to park, wasting 47,000 gallons of gasoline and pumping 730 tons of carbon dioxide into the air.
If the goal is to take these cars – and the accompanying waste and pollution – off the street and into a space, the answer is what Shoup calls right-pricing: setting rates at a level that will ensure a consistent occupancy rate in parking spaces. In other words, charge people more to park at busy times (for example, around lunchtime) or in more centrally located lots. Basically, you’re putting a price on convenience – parking right in front of the store or not having to spend time waiting for a space to open up. It’s applying free market economics to the parking lot: The city gets something closer to its money’s worth on the space, and you’re guaranteed to get your errands done in a timely manner.
It’s true overpriced parking spaces can drive people away. Just look at the Mall at Prince Georges, whose many customers are attracted by the free parking available, while the neighboring University Town Center – which charges after two free hours – is fairly quiet. Being a new shopping center that hasn’t built a name for itself doesn’t help, either. But in an established destination such as College Park, having customers that can’t even snag a space, let alone pay for one, is just as bad.
Dan Reed is a senior architecture and English major. He can be reached at reeddbk@gmail.com.
