Donald Shoup article in the Los Angeles Times

is pointed out to us -- "He puts parking in its place: UCLA professor Donald Shoup, hailed as the 'prophet of parking,' believes free or inexpensive space for cars is at the root of many an urban ill: congestion, sprawl, wasteful energy use, air pollution -- by Notions Capital.

From the article:

Shoup's 2005 book, "The High Cost of Free Parking," for many the de facto bible on the subject, posits a simple-sounding solution: Charge fair-market prices for curb parking. Use the meter revenue to pay for services and enhancements in the neighborhoods that generate it.

Eliminate off-street parking requirements. Cities are starting to listen. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Redwood City, Glendale, Ventura, Portland, Ore., and the District of Columbia are among those implementing or contemplating changes to hew more closely to Shoup's vision.

My problem with the way DC is "applying" Shoup's proposals is that they are mostly one way. The biggest user of almost free parking from DC are DC residents, who pay under $20/year for residential parking streets on the streets that require them, and nothing to park on the residential streets that don't have residential restrictions--this, for spaces worth upwards of $2,000 or more per year.

Instead, "performance parking" rates are being charged for commercial parking, and increasingly neighborhood street parking privileges are often restricted to residents only.

I know that free parking is the third rail of local politics. But this is a subsidy of massive proportions. And at the same time, DC competes with the suburban jurisdictions, especially Arlington County and Montgomery County, where in various urban centers such as Shirlington, Clarendon, Bethesda, and Silver Spring, weekend and evening parking in municipal parking structures is usually free. So this means that DC commercial districts compete against suburban retail districts unequally.

Note that I don't think that street parking in DC should be free. But somehow we need to balance support for shopping districts with reducing the desire to drive rather than use transit--but since the quality of the transit system is declining and the cost is skyrocketing, that's a conundrum as well.

I haven't done a massive comparison study, but Toronto is the only place I've come across that comes close to charging rates that are significantly higher than typical city prices, with increasing rates for the number of cars per household.