Joaquin Neighborhood Parking Permit Proposal Under Development

More than a year ago a committee started working to develop a parking permit program that could be used in the densely populated area of Provo south of BYU.

Last week I was interviewed over the phone by a reporter with the Daily Universe about the proposal that is being developed. The article was published yesterday.

The article prompted a discussion on the Provo Forward Facebook group. I wanted to answer some of the questions and fill in some of the details. Here is what I wrote:

Ms. Andersen did a great job writing this up. There is a limit to the amount of information that can be transferred in a quick phone interview and a single newspaper article, so hopefully, I can address some of the questions and fill in some of the details.

There are a lot of good questions here. And there will be plenty of opportunities to learn more about the draft proposal and to help shape the final form of the proposal. Most of the work took place last year, and the pandemic has put a hold on the effort, but so far we have used student and resident surveys, focus groups, stakeholder groups, and leaned heavily on a committee composed of students, landlords, and non-student residents of the neighborhood.

Why not use a regular parking permit program? Most parking permit programs are used to keep commuters or patrons of a nearby attraction from taking up all of the parking in front of residences. (There is a philosophical question about whether a public resource like on-street parking should be reserved for only some members of the public. This was asked in a comment above, and is a valid question to ask. But the public generally feels that residents should get priority over commuters for on-street parking. I feel that this proposal does a decent job of balancing these interests). This area of the City is somewhat unusual because it has so many residents compared to off-street spots that the on-street parking demand of just the residents outstrips the supply. This is compounded by commuters who choose the free parking on the streets and then walk or catch transit to campus.

So what do you do when resident demand outstrips supply? You can still allow all residents to obtain a permit, but, in this case, this will certainly lead to more permits than parking spaces. As one commenter complained above, it is frustrating to buy a permit and still regularly not have a spot to park in. If you want to not over-subscribe the program, then what is the best way to limit the permits? We could just have a hard limit, and sell them first-come-first-served. Hopefully, everyone can see why this would be a bad idea. Or we could use price the permits high enough that it dissuades enough residents from buying the permit. That certainly would create a lot of revenue for the City, but the point of this effort is to address a major hindrance to the quality of life in this area, not to create a new one.

There is a regulation that applies to all of Provo and has been around for several decades. It is that every property should provide enough off-street parking for every automobile operated from the premise. If this was the case in Joaquin then there wouldn't be a problem to address. One option to fix the on-street parking problem is for the City to try to enforce that regulation. But I can't imagine that that would be too popular. The proposal that is being developed currently is based on the concept of augmenting the off-street parking that every property should have, with some of the parkable frontage.

I should note that property owners (which include landlords) are not being offered the parking spaces in front of their properties. Permits would be valid anywhere in a fairly large area (perhaps a two-block radius). The number of permits that they can buy would be less than the amount of parkable frontage they have. This would under-subscribe the permit program, in other words, the number of permits sold will be less than the total number of on-street parking spaces. This ensures space for visitors. ANYONE can park in ANY open on-street space. If the license plate is not associated with a permit then payment will be required. There are a ton of details to work out, but the first half-hour or hour is likely to be free. We have received presentations and proposals from several companies and are looking across the country for the most convenient systems to manage on-street parking. It will be license-plate based. It will allow for payments by app, web, or over the phone. The pay-by-the-hour price will be adjusted as frequently as needed and will vary across the neighborhood. Parking occupancy will be constantly measured as the parking enforcement license plate readers count the number of parked cars on each block as they drive by. The price will be set to try to always have one spot open during the most congested times.

The price of the permits would be fixed and would just cover the cost of administering the program. This will be WELL below market value. The only way this program would raise rents generally is if even more people want to live in the area once the parking headache is resolved. Simple supply and demand.

As it is now, the "free parking" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking) skews the rents in the area and benefits complexes will little off-street parking and penalizes complexes with adequate off-street parking. It also leads to the inefficient use of parking as Celeste mentions above. This proposal will level the playing field. Some older properties have little off-street parking and are effectively being subsidized. They may need to lower their rent if this proposal is implemented, because they can't offer a parking spot to all of their tenants. Some complexes may choose to decouple the cost of parking from their rent. This would provide opportunities for savings for tenants who don't have cars, and would encourage residents to have fewer cars. Some property managers might even try to buy permits from other properties. This is part of leveling the field, will encourage more efficient use of parking, and may encourage the redevelopment of the underutilized properties.

Anyway, I look forward to the broader public engagement phase of this effort. Hopefully, we will have a completed draft of the proposal ready to publish soon.