Park and Ride Back and Forth

Post meeting e-mail followup between Sam Zimbabwe, COTD, and me. I ask for an example of a "half-filled up" park and ride, which Sam implies exist in the Bay Area. But, then he can not give an example of a half filled park and ride that actually exists!

Sam,
Thank you for the presentation by your group this noon. You indicated to me after the meeting that you may be able to provide citations to literature about park and rides. I would also appreciate your comments regarding the Brainstorming Park and Rides post.

Thank you.

David Rasmussen


Update, 9/23/08: A response:

David,

Sorry it has taken me a few days to get back to you. The Victoria Transport Policy Institute has a good primer with some citations on park-and-ride.

There area also some resources on our website of best practices under the "parking" category, although these are mostly about parking policies to support TOD, rather than addressing transit parking needs.

I think the VTPI information spells out some of the costs and benefits associated with park-and-ride. Particularly that park-and-ride is most appropriate for more fringe areas of a region than a context like the Central Corridor.

I would also quibble that our response was that all park-and-rides "fill up" as you stated in your blog post. I think one of the biggest dangers, actually is that they only half fill up, and they become stuck because they can't be replaced with other development, due to the small constituency of users on one hand and the high replacement cost of structured parking on the other. Large parts of the BART system in the San Francsico Bay Area is dealing with this issue now.

Costs are a very real issue in the corridor with respect to the development strategy. Structured parking (above ground) could not be supported by current rents, and underground parking can run at least twice as much per space. In my opinion, the public subsidy that would go into a park-and-ride to serve those coming from outside the neighborhood could be better allocated to the types of pedestrian, bicycle, and transit improvements that will support the vitality of University Avenue.

But that's my opinion. Let me know if this raises other questions for you.

Sam

Sam,
Thank you for the response. I will go through it in detail. But, I am curious. Where is an example of a "half-filled up" park and ride? When I lived in the Bay Area, I never saw one. Also, I aim for accuracy. Are you saying that I misunderstood what was said?

Dave


Update, 9/24/08: Another round:

At the Coliseum Station in Oakland, where the City has done some planning to create a transit village similar to Fruitvale, parking utilization was 50-75% (a few years ago when I was working on the project). BART requires 1:1 replacement of all surface parking, and there was no way the project could support that level of parking replacement, even though it wasn't being used.

I think you did misinterpret some of my statements about park-and-ride always filling up. They often do, and spillover parking is just as much of a problem as not providing park-and-ride in the first place. I think the bottom line is that there are potentially some places with good freeway access where park-and-ride could be appropriate in the corridor.

BUT, two caveats to that:

1. it is very very hard to model how much demand there will be for a park-and-ride lot because a lot of the demand will be induced just by providing the parking. So park-and-ride lots, especially free ones, are often under or over-parked, which create their own problems.
2. are people who are driving to either downtown now (the people you are trying to divert from the highways) really going to get off, park, and wait for a train unless the parking is free or very cheap? My guess is that they are not, or at least not in any great numbers.

I still don't really think it's the right decision to provide park-and-ride in a corridor like yours, though.

Sam

Sam,
Thank you again for getting back to me. I am still looking forward to reading the links that you provided.

At Coliseum station, you are referring to a project that never happened based on Oakland zoning requirements?

I took the bus to the Twins game last night, and the bus to the game was stuck in slow freeway traffic, so yes, I think Saint Paul residents may park and use the train.

The woman sitting at the table next to you and to your left spoke with authority, but I can not say for sure that she consults for COTD. I recall her making the statements about park-and-ride always filling up. I revised the blog to include the concern about overflow.

You are saying that the design aspect is critical. We can agree on that.

Dave

David,

Nadine (my colleague to the left) may have said something to that effect, I honestly don't remember. I don't really feel it's true, but don't have evidence one way or the other. Regardless, she works for Strategic Economics which is a partner in CTOD.

At the Coliseum Station it was a BART policy on replacement parking, not a zoning issue that was the problem. And therein is one of the problems with designating something for "park-and-ride". If you do so with the Central Corridor (and get the Met Council to acquire land and build such lots), you are (a) potentially risking the financial viability of the project, and (b) leaving the decision-making about how to use and operate those lots to an agency that you as a resident of St. Paul have comparatively little control over. It seems like more a need for the City of St. Paul to assess. The City would be more in a position to market price any parking that was built, and potentially have revenues to either cover costs or even make some pedestrian upgrades.

I still would contend that park-and-ride is not a great idea for the corridor. It seems like encouraging shared parking at some of the shopping centers or other big parking reservoirs on the corridor that wouldn't conflict with game time would be a way to address your problem last night, since they don't really have overlapping demand. And using shared parking is a strategy that the city has already been trying, to my knowledge.

Glad we can agree on the importance of design.

Sam