City Studies Downtown Parking.  In the next 10 years, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) projects 20,000 jobs will be added in the area bounded by the American and Sacramento rivers, Alhambra Boulevard and Broadway. About 5,000 new housing units will be added in the same area. 

This year, the city of Sacramento began studying how all those parking spaces in the city's core are distributed, and how to meet all the parking needs, while encouraging the choice to use alternative transportation. The goal is to create a master plan to manage it all. is becoming an issue. The city is evaluating enforcement, time limits and rates for city-controlled spaces in parking garages and at on-street meters. (Click here for the link to the August 2nd report to City Council.)

Fran Halbakken, a city project manager, is in charge of the study that is looking at what parking is available, both public and private.  Years of piecemeal policy adoptions and department reorganizations left the city without a comprehensive approach to parking, according to Halbakken. It has only been in the past year that the staff in charge of on-street parking and the staff in charge of off-street parking have been brought together under the Department of Transportation.

The study began with an inventory -- city employees with clipboards counted every parking space - on street or off, free or paid, public or private. They counted about 64,000 spaces in the central city and Midtown.  Enforcement, time limits and rates for city-controlled spaces are all under review.

The parking survey showed that Sacramento doesn't have the overall supply problem that led to the construction of several parking garages in the recent past, but there are still a few "hot spots," some parts of midtown where clusters of businesses have grown up without providing parking for employees or customers.

Next came a series of invitation-only stakeholder meetings in February, April and June, with another set for August; participants have included the Sacramento TMA, neighborhood associations, churches, commercial parking lot operators, Regional Transit, retailers and large employers.

Comments from attendees at the first meeting covered a broad range of concerns and requests.

• Garages in Old Sacramento close during some special events, forcing monthly patrons to park elsewhere at the same time visitors are piling into the area.
• Many bars and restaurants don't provide off-street parking. "At 2 a.m. we have drunks making their way to their cars, which are usually blocking our driveway," wrote one neighborhood resident.
• Stringent zoning regulations and beautification ordinances make it hard to profitably run a parking lot, so many property owners won't make their lots available for parking.
• Liberal granting of variances over the past three decades has resulted in too few parking spaces for renters living in the central city.

Officials will host an open house in September to give the general public an opportunity to view the findings and voice their opinions. A final presentation to the City Council is targeted for October. 

Potential strategies under consideration by the city of Sacramento include

• metering more on-street parking,
• leasing private or state-owned lots to make more parking available at night and on weekends,
• temporarily allowing parking on vacant land and, of course,
• building more garages.

Parking policy is a hot topic among urban planners these days. This year Donald Shoup, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles, release his book "The High Cost of Free Parking".

Shoup argues that cities shouldn't have any off-street parking requirements at all, and that curbside parking rates should be set at whatever the market will bear, with the proceeds going to improve the neighborhoods where the money is collected.  He says cities should not force anyone to provide more parking than people are willing to pay for.

Halbakken is familiar with that concept. "That is the basic philosophy in the industry: When you are over 85 percent occupied, you raise the rates to give yourself more room.  But that can hurt nearby businesses, and the city has to keep them in mind as well.

"There's not one solution that works everywhere," Halbakken said.

Part of the solution is for Sacramentans to face up to the reality of a central city with limited space.

Many people believe that parking is something they don't need to pay for; people for some reason think that parking is something that belongs to them," Halbakken added.

The High Cost of Free Parking.   Donald Shoup, an economics professor at UCLA, has written a book that is undoubtedly the most comprehensive study of parking ever undertaken in this country.  Shoup tells us that the minimum required number of parking spaces for different businesses comes from a document called “Parking Generation,” first published decades ago by the Institute of Transportation Engineers and updated periodically.  As Shoup puts it, local zoning officials who consult Parking Generation “act like frightened supplicants bowing before a powerful totem. ITE’s stamp of authority relieves planners from the obligation to think for themselves because simple answers are right there in the book.”

Unfortunately the numbers tend to be based on a percentage of maximum occupancy — that is, the largest number of cars ever likely to use a facility at a given moment. The manual recommends enough spaces to ensure that virtually every driver will be able to find a space virtually all the time. And then cities require those spaces as a matter of law.

So, if a hotel might fill 200 rooms on the busiest day of the year, but only 50 on an average day, it has to build 200 parking spaces and leave three-quarters of them empty most nights. Restaurants aren't built as big as they must be to accommodate everyone on Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve. Instead we accept that once in a while, somebody will have to be turned away.

It’s only when it comes to parking lots that planners and local governments insist on invoking a concept as foolish as maximum capacity. And that’s for a rather simple reason: When it comes to parking, nobody worries about losing money. Parking, after all, is free.

Or, rather, they think it’s free. Of course, it isn’t, as Shoup details in his 733-page book, “The High Cost of Free Parking” that includes quotes from Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Lewis Carroll and Graham Greene, and is filled with details about the way ordinary people live.

Most of all, however, it is filled with animosity toward free parking.  Shoup hates free parking — especially the off-street parking that developers and businesses are required to provide in order to operate. He says it degrades urban life in ways that hardly anybody bothers to think about. “Because we never see the money we spend on parking,” he says, “it always seems someone else is paying for it... but by prescribing massive overdoses of parking, planners are poisoning the city.”

For one thing, parking lots eat up a huge amount of land that could be used for more productive purposes. Many shopping malls devote 60 percent of their surface land to parking spaces and only 40 percent to the buildings. For the most part, that’s not because developers insisted on all that parking. It’s because zoning law forced them to create it. Either way, the result is oceans of asphalt and an ugly landscape as far as the eye can see.

All the land that’s paved over and reserved for cars is land that can’t be used for housing — affordable or any other kind. Because parking requirements have taken so much land out of development, they force up the cost of building on whatever land remains. Rents are higher than they would otherwise be. What’s more, the parking requirements written into zoning law make smaller, moderately priced apartments difficult to produce anywhere.

Some cities in Southern California require residential developers to provide as many as 3.25 spaces per apartment. That often leaves as practical only two kinds of projects: a massive, sprawling condo complex that meets the requirement by paving over additional acres of land, or a boutique development that makes money by selling or renting luxury units at luxury prices. A densely built project filled with compact two- and three-bedroom apartments just doesn’t cost out.

Meanwhile, in the central business districts of older cities, the amount of parking keeps increasing and the number of buildings keeps declining. Buffalo and Albuquerque devote more central-city land to parking lots than to all other uses combined. For anyone who wants to come downtown, a member of the Buffalo City Council lamented a couple of years ago, “there will be lots of places to park. There just won’t be a whole lot to do here.”

Ironically, the central city districts that have thrived in recent years aren’t the ones that have provided the most parking; they are the ones that have provided the least. Portland, Oregon, instead of expanding its downtown parking capacity, has spent the past 30 years restricting it. There was less parking per capita in downtown Portland in the 1990s than there was in the 1970s. And Portland, as any visitor notices at once, has one of the most successful downtowns in America.

Los Angeles and San Francisco both opened new concert halls in the 1990s. Los Angeles included a six-level garage for 2,188 cars, built at a cost of $110 million. San Francisco, on the other hand, put in no garage — for a total cost of nothing. After each concert in L.A., the patrons head straight for their cars, leaving the area around the building deserted. After concerts in San Francisco, people spill out onto the local streets, spending money in local bars, restaurants and bookstores. Some of them have to walk several blocks to their cars parked along the curb, but every block they walk adds extra life to the neighborhood.

Shoup has a few modest proposals for dealing with the disasters of parking policy.

First, instead of making developers build off-street parking, allow them to pay a fee in lieu of each space provided, and the fees go for public improvement in the area.   If you make the fee less than the cost of building the space, most of them will accept that deal. Some 25 American cities are actually doing this. Most of them are small towns in California, or wealthy suburbs in the east, but there are some surprises. Orlando, Florida, allows subsidies in lieu of parking. So does Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The developers get to spend more money on the actual project.

Then, since the amount of parking will be reduced, allow commuters to take the value of a free parking space in the office lot and trade it in for cash. They can use it on public transportation, and if they don’t spend it all, they can keep what’s left over. Different versions of this experiment have been tried in Denver, Dallas, Salt Lake City and San Jose.

Ultimately, though, Shoup concedes, there’s a more basic answer: Local governments have to rethink the whole idea of parking.  Minneapolis and Chicago are now exempting the first 4,000 square feet of retail space in a new development from any parking requirements at all.

The asphalt jungle we have created will not disappear anytime soon. As Shoup says, “automobile dependency resembles addiction to smoking, and free parking is like free cigarettes...it will take decades for cities to recover from the damage.”

Under-freeway parking  (excerpted from July 7, 2005 Sacramento Bee article)  In a report to the governor and legislative leaders issues in July, Elaine M. Howle, the state auditor, disclosed that more than 400 state workers have used government parking passes without paying for them, costing taxpayers $24,500 a month and contributing to a $2.1 million deficit in State Department of General Services parking lot operations.

Howle's auditors discovered this while auditing management practices at the Office of Fleet Administration, which operates 30 parking lots near state offices primarily in downtown Sacramento, and a fleet of about 6,400 cars used statewide.

Parking spots at the state lots cost $40 to $85 a month, and state employees are supposed to pay for monthly parking through payroll deductions.  But the report discloses that more than 400 government employees never paid, possibly because their payroll deduction forms were lost or not submitted, or because their deductions stopped when they changed state jobs.

According to the report, the situation was first detected by the state in November 2004, but it is not clear how long it had been going on. The shortfall in parking revenues was not discoveredbecause officials never reconciled the number of parking permits in circulation with the actual permit revenue collected.

The state auditor's report added that none of the state workers who received free parking ever reported the oversight, and that senior state officials were not going to ask employees to pay for the parking.  Howle said she thinks those who didn't pay for parking should have noticed and reported the matter and should pay.

Matt Bender, a spokesman for the Department of General Services, which oversees the Office of Fleet Administration, said state records may not be accurate enough to figure out how much each individual owes the state and sending people a bill based on these records would be suspect.  He added that the problem was the Department of General Services' (DGS's), not the employees'.

Reminded that employees' pay stubs or direct deposit slips show whether parking deductions were made, Bender replied that DGS doesn't know if people noticed or not, that not everybody looks at their pay stub.

General Services Director Ron Joseph said in a written response to the audit that officials will re-examine the decision not to seek back payments and report back in September.

The fleet office has come under fire for mismanagement and waste in recent years, and the joint legislative Audit Committee asked Howle to look at the operation. Howle's report criticizes the office, saying its mismanagement of its parking facilities has resulted in financial losses the past two years.

To make matters worse, the office borrowed $2.1 million from its motor vehicle fund to cover the losses in its parking operations.

In addition to the uncollected parking revenue, the report also describes a money-losing agreement the office signed with the Sacramento Regional Transit District to provide a shuttle bus service for state workers traveling between state parking lots on the periphery of downtown Sacramento and their downtown offices.

The state paid the transit authority $960,000 in 2004 for 5,000 annual transit passes, but the parking sites on the downtown periphery have only 1,750 spots. The agreement was costing the state more to provide the bus service to and from such lots than it collected in fees for the spots.

Bender said officials are taking steps to cut the $1.4 million loss the parking operations had in 2004. The fleet office will only buy 2,000 transit passes in July and August, and then will not buy more.  The office also will save $160,000 a year by closing one leased parking lot and by not paying the full cost of the shuttle service from remote parking lots.

One government employee left his job after the problems were discovered, according to Matt Bender.

Parking Prices increase nationwide

Sacramento's parking rates are increasing along with those of 48 U.S. cities surveyed by Colliers International, a Boston-based real estate services firm.  During the last twelve months, the average rates for monthly reserved spots increased 2.7 percent.  Monthly unreserved spaces increased 3.7 percent, and daily rates rose 7 percent. Colliers expects the trend to continue, as a result of a healthier business climate and rising employment nationwide, with an even greater spike in parking rates in 2006.

Sacramento's average daily rate rose 100% between 2002 and 2005 because of an increase in demand caused by more workers and residents in midtown and downtown.  Also, no new parking garages have been added to downtown's supply since 1999, while new high-rise multifamily and retail developments, such as the Safeway-anchored center on R and 19th streets, have been added, and new development has replaced some paid parking lots.  A number of proposed high-rises could make parking even pricier despite the fact that all have planned parking garages.

The average daily parking fee at municipal garages in Sacramento is $15.

THINGS COULD BE BETTER . . .

• $6: Dallas and Memphis, Tenn.
• $6.50: Bakersfield
• $6.80: Houston
• $7: Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Phoenix
• $8: Austin, Texas; Boise, Idaho; Denver; Detroit; Fresno; Kansas City, Mo.; Orlando, Fla.; and West Palm Beach, Fla.

THINGS COULD BE WORSE

• $41: New York midtown
• $33: New York downtown
• $32: Boston
• $30: Honolulu
• $25: Chicago
• $23: San Francisco
• $20: Philadelphia
• $18.75: San Jose

The average amount charged nationally for a daily parking space is $14.04

The city says it parking garage revenue is about $18 million a year.

Parking rates have climbed steadily in Sacramento in the past five years, doubling for daily spaces and rising nearly 25 percent on monthly unreserved spots.

Residents must pay for Visitor Placards in Residential Parking Permit Neighborhoods

Residents in neighborhoods that require residential parking permits must pay a $15 annual fee for the placard that lets visitors park in front of their house.  Higher penalties for misusing visitor permits also will take effect, beginning July 1st.  Residents that sell their Visitor Permit to commuters, so the commuters can park in the neighborhood near their work, face penalties up to $500. 

The residential parking permit fee and increased penalties for parking permit misuse are two residential parking program changes approved by the City Council.

Like many cities, Sacramento has a parking shortage in some residential neighborhoods caused by all-day commuter parking, employees and customers of businesses, hospitals and an increased demand for parking from development of new downtown housing. Residential permit parking provides preferential parking by imposing parking time limits in neighborhoods. Residents with a permit are exempt from the time limits.

To help reduce all-day commuter parking and pay for citywide enforcement of residential permit zones, the City will be charging $15 annually per visitor permit and increasing the fines for the sale, assignment or exchange of visitor permits. Since visitor permits are the type of permits most frequently misused, current fines of $50 or $100 will increase to $250 and $500, depending upon the violation. The City also is expanding the scope of what constitutes “commuter use” in its city code.

The pilot project of city code changes and parking penalties are supported by several Midtown neighborhood organizations, including the Winn Park Capitol Avenue Neighborhood Association.

“Residential parking zones are not created out of a desire for preferential parking, but out of a need to offset the impacts of commuters, businesses, hospitals, and others vying for parking within residential neighborhoods. While we are supportive of the notion that the residential parking program be self sufficient, ultimately residential parking demand needs to be addressed and paid for by the ‘root cause,’” commented Bruce Holmes, chair of the Winn Park Capitol Avenue Neighborhood Association.

The City will continue to work with residents and other stakeholders as a comprehensive Central City parking study gets underway. The study will clarify the growing demands to both on and off-street parking. For more information about the parking study and help determine parking issues, please contact Fran Halbakken at the Department of Transportation, 808-7194 or go to this website:  http://www.pwsacramento.com/dot/dot_media/street_media/news/nr_061405.pdf

ParkSmart at the airport  Starting February 1st, the automated parking system will take the guesswork out of finding a space at the airport and will make shuttle transport to the terminals faster. 

Entering and exiting the lots at Sacramento International Airport is rapidly becoming as easy and convenient for credit card customers as paying for gas at the pump.

ParkSmart allows customers to gain entry and pay for their parking using only their credit card. Video screens guide all customers through the process and a call button is available to get assistance.

ParkSmart installation began in the current Hourly A parking lot and is expected to be complete in all lots at Sacramento International Airport when the parking garage opens in September 2004.

Are cash customers still welcome in the lots and can credit card customers still receive a ticket? Absolutely! Any customer can get a ticket from the machine and present it to the cashier when exiting.

ParkSmart+ makes parking easier in Economy Lots.  Starting February 1, a new strategy for finding parking Economy Parking Lot, ParkSmart+, will take the guesswork out of finding a space and make shuttle transport to the terminals faster than ever.

ParkSmart+ introduces a new strategy for filling the lot that directs passengers to available parking. Parking personnel direct drivers to designated areas where shuttles are dispatched to quickly pick up passengers. Wait times will be reduced to approximately 15 minutes between shuttles and you can arrive at your terminal approximately 20—25 minutes after parking the car. Upon return, passengers will still be dropped off near their vehicles. By allowing all passengers to get off of the shuttles without loading more passengers on, the process is made more fast and efficient, improving customer service in the Economy Parking Lot.

Look for parking personnel directing you to available parking to take advantage of this program.

For more information, call the Sacramento Transportation Management Association  (916) 737-1513  or E-mail Us

Please note the TMA's new mailing address: P O Box 19520 Sacramento, CA  95819-0520
               
Last modified: 04/21/08    Copyright© 2008