Can Parking Pay for Great Streets? A Potential Funding Strategy for the Great Streets Initiative Introduction to the Initiative
The Challenge
There is great demand for public improvements along the Great Streets but the City’s ability to fund these improvments is constrained by ongoing budget deficits and competing priorities.
Mayor Garcetti’s first executive order was to create the Great Streets Initiative. In the Directive, he states: Our street network stretches 6,500 centerline miles, making it the largest municipal street system in the United States. As the City’s largest public space asset, covering approximately 13% of our land area, streets reflect and drive the economic and social vibrancy of our neighborhoods...
A Possible Solution: Returning Parking Revenue A possible funding strategy would be to reallocate the parking meter revenue generated in each Great Street to finance the Initiative. Such an approach would fulfill one of Professor Shoup’s three main proposals for parking reform, the local return of parking meter revenue. Shoup writes that:
This Initiative will focus on developing Great Streets that activate the public realm, provide economic revitalization, and support great neighborhoods.
Mayor Garcetti
The Goals of the Initiative
... right-priced curb parking can yield ample revenue. If a city returns some of this revenue to pay for added public services on the metered streets, residents and local merchants will be more likely to support charging the right price for curb parking.
1.Increased Economic Activity 2. Improved Access and Mobility 3. Enhanced Neighborhood Character
Professor Shoup
EXAMPLE Pasadena is widely recognized as an example of how parking reform may lead to economic revitalization. Pasadena installed 90 parking meters in 2001 after promising to reinvest all the meter revenue back into the area it was generated.
4. Greater Community Engagement Find more on Twitter at #LAGreatStreets
Daryl Chan Client: Great Streets Initiative Faculty Advisor: Professor Shoup
5. Improved Environmental Resilience 6. Safer and More Secure Communities
Methodology
Preliminary Findings
To determine how much money could be allocated towards the Initiative, two estimations must be done, one for metered streets and one for un-metered streets.
Meter revenue from 2014 is substantial and varies widely by street. If the City returned meter revenue to entire communities, meter revenue would increase exponentially. In the case of Westwood, the parking meter revenue for 2014 is nearly equal to the value of the BID’s 2015 budget. 2014 Meter Revenue by Street
For Metered Streets For the purposes of this project, I totaled the meter revenue data along all the Great Streets segments from 2012 to 2014, where available. For PBDs To examine the potential of meter revenue of a parking benefit district, I added up all the meter revenue within the Westwood BID. For Non-Metered Streets I will estimate the potential revenue of un-metered streets using the same prices, hours, and days as the existing meters on the Great Streets. The existing rates on the majority of the Great Streets is a dollar an hour. The hours on most streets is 8am to 8pm, everyday except Sunday. To estimate the number of spaces, I will conduct field visits to estimate how many metered spaces could exist.
Total 2014 Meter Revenue
$1,575,654.46
2014 Westwood Meter Revenue $1,300,000 2015 Budget for BID $1,295,000