Parking Reform is Finally Coming to Los Angeles

Since November, Los Angeles Parking Freedom Initiative has been prompting questions and seeking solutions to the problems of parking in the city.  It started with one citizen (myself) with a single page of ideas about how things could be done better and has mushroomed into a major political issue.

When I started this process I suspected that there were many other Angelenos that felt that something was awry with our parking enforcement regime.  But the depth of that sentiment turned out to be far wider and deeper than I had anticipated.  As I visited Neighborhood Councils, Chambers of Commerce and Residents and Homeowners Associations, I also found that there were many in and around the city government and associated political circles who had given a great deal of thought to these matters and had a lot of insight and ideas to share, including Jay Beeber, famously known for ending the city's red light camera traps.  We decided that it was time to tackle this problem head on.  As we listened to peoples ideas and experiences and picked brains we gradually formed a deeper and clearer understanding of the issues involved and began to assemble a concrete set of reform proposals.  Recently, we met with the Mayor's office and agreed to co-create a "Working Group on Parking Reform" with an eye towards producing real reforms in a timely manner.

One way or another, parking reform is coming to the city of Los Angeles.  People want it.  People need it.  People demand it.  The only thing standing in the way is bureaucratic resistance and inertia.  A fear of “out of the box” thinking and an attachment to established channels and patterns of action appears to take hold in some organizations; the way things have always been done is perceived as necessary and immutable.  But today we have the opportunity to remake our approach to parking in an entirely new paradigm.  There is no reason that we have to settle for an antiquated, backward, 20th century parking system.  Technologies and systems are readily available or easily within reach that allow us to completely rethink and redo parking in the image of a 21st century, world-class city.

The new parking paradigm can be consistent with the needs of drivers, residents and businesses as well as revenue neutral--or even revenue positive--for the city government while also accommodating further enhancements to alternative modes of transportation.

PLEASE NOTE: the proposals contained herein are meant to illustrate some potential directions that could be taken as we move forward with parking system reform and design. They are not meant to be exhaustive or chiseled in stone. The discussion continues. Let’s develop and implement solutions that work for Los Angeles. If others have better ideas, I’m all ears.

I LOVE L.A.

Cities have characteristics that make them unique and special places to live.  The City of Los Angeles is known and loved as a city of many small centers.  Whereas many other large cities have a single center that is the hub of most commercial, economic and social activity, L.A. has many smaller hubs.  This is a valuable asset that should be protected, nurtured and developed.  We are in competition with cities all over the country and around the world for human resources, investment capital, tourism, events and all other kinds of economic activity.  Success in competition is largely dependent on making your assets work for you; you must play to your strengths.  For L.A. to succeed in the global marketplace, we need to take what we have now and build on it.

INTERACT AND TRANSACT

As a city of many small centers, Angelenos frequently travel from one area to another to interact and transact with each other.  We may start the day in Studio City, commute to work in Westwood, visit a friend for dinner in Hancock Park, go see a movie with family in Hollywood and then stop off at the Trader Joe’s in Toluca Lake on the way back home.  All of these interactions and transactions are core components of the character and economic health of our city.  They represent economic and social value for ourselves and the businesses that serve us, as well as tax revenue for the city government.  Available, accessible and affordable parking is required to facilitate each of these interactions and transactions.

PUBLIC SERVICE ORIENTATION

Properly conceived and designed, a municipal parking system would serve the public by facilitating commerce, ease of transit and livability.  It would make it easier and simpler to transact and interact.

Presumably, city government would prioritize such a system because it would recognize its role in helping the citizenry conduct the comings and goings of daily life in a metropolis.  It would recognize that it has a fiduciary duty to provide a complete managed parking system as a vital public service.  There would be a plan to manage both supply and demand.  There would be a plan for redeploying revenue generated from the system.

WE DO NOT HAVE A PARKING SYSTEM

Our current parking regime does not meet any of the above criteria.  In fact, we do not have a parking system.  It simply cannot be referenced as a system because there has been really only one function at work: generate revenue for the general fund.

In Los Angeles, parking has not been an end in and of itself; it has been a means to other ends.  What we have is a revenue collection system that uses parking as a convenient mechanism for accessing the bank accounts of Angelenos.  Supply/demand imbalances have been dealt with by attempting to suppress and thwart demand while neglecting and even shrinking supply.

Consider how fantastically short sighted and counterproductive this regime is: instead of facilitating transactions and interactions through a complete parking system, thereby increasing revenues from sales tax, business tax and employment, our city government has actively driven people away from our commercial districts with overly aggressive parking enforcement and abusively high fines and removed scarce parking spaces while neglecting to create more supply.  While there has been no plan and no thought about how to increase the supply of parking, there are actual plans and much thought given to reducing both supply and demand.  Is a plan for less economic activity and lower tax revenues in a city with an ever growing budget sustainable?

An actual parking system would manage both supply and demand to facilitate commerce, ease of transit and livability.

MILKED AND PRODDED

It takes very little research or experience to learn that the City of Los Angeles has regarded revenue from parking—fees, fines and taxes—as a revenue stream that belongs in the general fund.  Policy and implementation has been driven by a revenue generation imperative.

If you scratch the surface a little deeper you also find a second policy imperative:  abusive parking fines and fees together with overbearing enforcement are considered by many to be a valid policy tool to alter public behavior.  It is deemed acceptable and even noble to club the motoring public into submission until they let go of the steering wheel and abandon their cars for alternate means of transportation.  Personally I find this outlook shocking, offensive and morally reprehensible.  Many in our governing circles perceive the driving public as cows to be milked, prodded and whipped.

I also have found that naked revenue grabbing and openly abusive practices are hidden behind a green fig leaf.  Somehow it’s all deemed appropriate because the ends that justify the means are colored in green hues.  I do favor more accommodations for alternate forms of transportation and greener choices.  But these must be developed without abusive policies towards our motorists.  Rather than making personal vehicular transit painful and expensive today, let’s make the other options better so that more people will choose them voluntarily tomorrow.  A better tomorrow should not and cannot be built on the whipped backs of today’s driving public.  It can and should be built on a prosperous and vital local economy.  And I see no reason that personal vehicular traffic and alternate modes of transportation must be set in opposition to one another.  They can and should be developed as an integrated whole.  Certainly there can be a vital role for bicycle and zipcar solutions to short haul traffic, while the private vehicle remains the domain of trips involving longer distances and multiple stops.

BASIC FAIRNESS

Any parking reform package needs to first address what I call “basic fairness” issues.  Here a some prime examples:

1. Many parking fines are just too high.  For example, at $63.00 an expired meter ticket is an entire day’s take home pay for a minimum wage worker.  This constitutes a highly regressive tax that hits our poorest citizens the hardest.  While fines for offenses that create a public hazard, such as blocking a fire hydrant and handicapped parking violations, may need to remain at current levels, many other fines that involve offenses that are more incidental in nature need to be reduced dramatically.  A cap at the Bureau of Labor Statistics average or mean hourly wage for the city might make sense.  We also need to take a good look at alternate metered parking fee and fine paradigms.  For example, is it possible to set up a system in which the fine is based on the time past expiration or the amount of time that has passed from expiration until payment?  Technologies exist that can help us entirely rethink the parking meter paradigm if we choose to take a public service approach to the matter.
2. It is almost impossible to successfully contest a ticket.  The appeals process is run by Xerox and they have a built-in interest in denying all contestations right off the top.  It really doesn’t matter what kind of evidence you may have to support your case.  To have any kind of chance of getting a ticket invalidated, a citizen must pay the ticket and then request a hearing.  That involves an in-person proceeding and for most people that means losing a day’s work.  Faced with that choice, most Angelenos choose to just pay the ransom demand and get on with their lives.  We need to either stop outsourcing our ticketing and appeals process to a corporation with an vested interest in seeing injustice done, or we need to create a separate, neutral entity that handles the appeals process.
3. A popular Los Angeles meme is the parking sign totem pole.  Boiler plate parking signs are stacked sometimes 5 or 6 high to delineate a zone of apparently conflicting parking regulations.  It’s somewhat of a joke among Angelenos and a recognized attribute of the city among outsiders, sort of an anti-Hollywood sign.  Is it really fair to expect citizens to accurately decipher these cryptic codes?  Shouldn’t the onus be on the city to provide clear, logical and understandable notice of regulations?  Perhaps one reform would be to require that all parking restrictions applicable to a given parking zone must be contained within a single sign written in such a way as to convey simple and concise understanding to the public.
4. To get a review and changes to the parking regime in a given area (presence or lack of meters, hours of enforcement, cost per hour, restricted parking zones, permit parking, ect.) currently stakeholders have to hope to get the attention of their City Council representative if they have issues that need to be resolved. If they are lucky they may see action on their issue years later after a good deal of trouble and cost. In addition, stakeholders are not guaranteed any input into changes to the parking regime affecting livability or business. Beginning in 2008 all sorts of changes were made that adversely affected businesses, residents and homeowners with no notice or consultation.  There needs to be a consolidated, clear process to apply for a review and changes from the Department of Transportation and a process by which potential alterations to the parking regime are subject to input and review from the community.
5. Parking Enforcement officers are unaccountable.  There are a wide variety of abuses of basic fairness in parking enforcement that Angelenos face every day.  For example, it is common practice for parking enforcement officers to issue a ticket to a vehicle with the driver seated behind the wheel.  In many cases the officer will note or photograph the license plate and write the ticket later to be mailed to the driver in order to maximize the opportunity they have for ticketing others.  This happens under a wide variety of circumstances in which it is not the driver's intent to violate a regulation.  For example, a driver may pull over to the first available spot on the side of the road--possibly a metered space or a red curb--because he is feeling ill, needs to get directions, needs to get out of traffic to take a call or the vehicle is experiencing mechanical problems.  It is common for parking officers to pull up behind and write a ticket without first seeking to gain compliance by speaking with the driver.  Parking officers need to have clear rules governing their conduct mandating, for example, that they must make an effort to gain compliance first when the driver is behind the wheel before issuing a ticket.  And there need to be clear consequences for officers that fail to abide by the rules and that have a high percentage of tickets contested by the public.  And the practice of mailing a ticket to drivers must be limited to instances where the driver speeds off before the ticket can be placed on the car or handed to the driver.

The above list is by no means exhaustive.  While these are just symptoms of an underlying disease and not the illness itself, we do need to provide relief from these symptoms for long-suffering L.A. drivers.

THE DISEASE

While most Angelenos quite understandably tend to focus on the symptoms, we need to treat the underlying disease.  Our city government is addicted to the cheap, easy fix of parking revenue.  And like any other addict, it doesn’t care who gets hurt or what the long term consequences may be.  Anything goes, as long as it gets that cash injection.  Well, it’s time for an intervention.  L.A. needs to get on a 12 step program.  We sincerely hope that the Mayor’s willingness to engage in a Working Group on Parking Reform is a big step towards admitting that there’s a problem.

THE CURE

At the core of the treatment plan is a two fold process:

1. Create a new parking administration authority that is built from the ground up with a public service orientation and is designed to facilitate commerce, ease of transit and livability for residents and businesses
2. Separation of parking revenue from the general fund. Parking revenue needs to be segregated into a locked box and used only for parking and other clearly designated purposes.

While all of the foregoing is certainly important, I’d like the reader to focus on this section because without it everything else would represent cosmetic and not systemic change.

LOS ANGELES PARKING ADMINISTRATION OFFICE

Establish the Los Angeles Parking Administration Office, encompassing the current Parking Violations Bureau and Parking Enforcement office and other city offices pertaining to parking policy and administration.  This office would be built from the ground up with a public service orientation and designed to facilitate commerce, ease of transit and livability for residents and businesses. The functions of field officers would not be merely to write tickets for violations, but to assist motorists in parking correctly and safely, facilitate the flow of traffic, monitor for parking and traffic issues and be a point of contact for the public with regards to complaints and suggestions for improving the driving and parking experience in the neighborhood.

We'll expand on this concept soon in later posts.

SPECIAL PARKING REVENUE FUND

The Special Parking Revenue Fund (SPRF) was established to pool revenue from parking meters, lots and garages to fund the creation of additional parking supply. But the city has routinely failed to spend the money as intended and instead declares anything above and beyond operating costs to be a “surplus”, transferring it to the general fund. I find it utterly remarkable that the City Council voted itself the power to transfer these funds into the general fund in 2008 with the proviso that the funds would be paid back and that the ability to make such transfers would sunset, but then later also voted to revoke the necessity to repay the funds and also voted that the power to pillage the SPRF would never expire. Mayor Garcetti’s current budget document spells this out:

“The 2008-09 Budget included an ordinance to amend the Administrative Code to allow the City Council to determine a surplus amount to be transferred to the City Reserve Fund for unrestricted use. The 2010-11 and 2011-12 Budgets removed a sunset date for that amendment, but stipulated that any future surplus transfer would be considered a loan that, unless the City declared a fiscal emergency in that year, must be repaid in the same amount to the fund within two years. The ordinance also required that funds be set aside for a 5-year maintenance and operations plan for the fund's programs prior to declaring a surplus. A subsequent ordinance in 2012-13 eliminated the loan repayment provision.”

The Mayor’s new budget once again transfers $30 million from the SPRF to the general fund.  I would urge the Mayor to begin now by amending his current budget proposal to exclude the transfer from the SPRF and then instruct the Department of Transportation and the Transportation Committee to come up with a plan for spending the money to increase the city's parking supply. The SPRF also mandates that there must be a 5 year plan for parking supply management, yet there is no plan nor has there been.  Why not?  Let's begin right now and create one.

Here’s a possible approach to reforming and revitalizing the Special Parking Revenue fund.

1. Mandate that the fund needs to have an annual and a five year plan of parking supply investment, development and maintenance
2. Institute a fund management and administrative structure that is independent of yet responsive to the Transportation Committee and the City Council
3. The fund will have power of eminent domain but defined to protect private property rights
4. Authorize public-private partnerships between the fund and private developers
5. Authorize the fund to sell investment bonds in its projects
6. Expand the fund to include parking violations revenue and “in lieu of” fees
7. Restrict transfers from the fund to emergency situations involving imminent municipal bankruptcy only
8. Authorize the sale of a bond by the city in the amount of the 5 year average of the total revenues from parking meter, lot and garage fees, parking fines and "in lieu of" fees to offset the loss of revenue to the general fund in the first year of the new system
9. Widen the mission of the fund to include sidewalks, curbs and pedestrian walkways, parking and street signage, and maybe even electric car charging stations and bicycle parking too. There would need to be language securing the primary purpose of the fund as creating automobile parking supply so that any additional purposes do not overwhelm the principal mission.

The key to understanding this reform proposal is that the SPRF must become a genuine investment trust with a clear and defined purpose and mission.  It would not exist to simply drop money on favored districts.  It would literally invest in the future of the city’s infrastructure and it would generate positive returns on that investment in the form of fees and tax revenue.

I want to drive this home.  I am talking about a concerted strategic infrastructure development program that generates positive cash flow for the city and grows the economy for all Angelenos.

As I toured the city and talked to stakeholders of all kinds, I learned that there are many areas of the city that are suffering parking supply bottlenecks that affect residential and commercial interests simultaneously. Strategically placed parking facilities could potentially serve commercial and residential districts at the same time while also including bicycle parking as well.

Let me paint a picture of a near-term future reality that is easily realizable if we have the political will to create it.

LOS-ANGELES PARK PLACE

The hypothetical corner of Los Blvd. and Angeles St. has a serious parking supply bottleneck. There’s great potential for the district to be a thriving community and a popular destination as it sits on an important traffic corridor.  But the formerly thriving commercial district is struggling. The chain grocery store on the corner has an undersized parking lot and many customers park in spaces that would otherwise serve the customers of the smaller businesses in the district. Meanwhile, the comic book store next door has a lot that is underused. Employees of local businesses have nowhere to park and must leave work often to feed the meter. Overflow parking is also crowding the abutting residential district. This is exacerbated by the fact that newer developments were allowed to go forward without sufficient parking in exchange for “in lieu of” fees. Homeowners are demanding residential preferential parking permits. Bicycle advocates want to put a bike lane on Los Blvd. but business owners object because it would take away scarce parking spots. The situation seems hopeless. Nobody is happy.

The Special Parking Revenue Fund partners with a private parking garage operator and they approach the grocery store about building a parking structure on the lot. The grocery store company is willing but does not want to sacrifice the entire surface lot and does not want to block the front of the store, which is set back from the street, with a structure. The comic book store is approached and agrees to a fair eminent domain buyout. Starbucks had been looking for a location in the area and is brought in as a partner as well.  A number of carshare companies are integrated into the project as well.

Los-Angeles Park Place is a state of the art, multi-level, fully robotic parking facility and transportation hub.  It services the entire district and vacant storefronts are fully leased within weeks of the project’s announcement.  Yearly paid permit parking is available for residents of the area.  Grocery store parking is free with validation.  Customers of other area businesses receive one hour free parking with validation. Businesses in the area pay a fee to participate in the validation program and also pay for an employee parking program. Carshare companies pay a fee when their cars are parked at the facility as well as a yearly participation fee.  Since the average stay in the area is now over 2 hours, there are also significant revenues from hourly parking fees. There is also revenue from leasing fees from Starbucks and a small sandwich shop on the ground level. Business and sales tax receipts from the district soar.  The structure accommodates twice the number of vehicles per square foot than traditional structures and there is now adequate parking for customers and employees so the businesses on the street give their approval for a bike lane. Everybody is happy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaGJiQOHoZo

Some of the features of Los-Angeles Park Place:

• State of the art robotic system parks and returns cars in less than 2 minutes
• No emissions from cars driving through the garage looking for parking since it is fully robotic
• Electric car charging stations built into each parking bay
• Carshare parking
• A fully robotic bicycle parking system
• A bicycle repair bay
• A convenient Starbucks and small sandwich shop on the ground level
• The roof is a public park with real grass and trees adding much needed green space to the community
• Public wifi station that serves the entire area

Revenue streams generated by Los-Angeles Park Place:

• Business tax and sales tax revenue
• Hourly parking fees for cars and bicycles
• Carshare company yearly participation fees and parking fees
• Electric vehicle charging fees
• Yearly permit parking fees
• Leasing fees from ground floor businesses
• Validation and employee parking program fees
• Minimal staffing of robotic facility saves overhead costs and maximizes returns

A network of such installations strategically located throughout the city would be a positive cash flow investment for the city as well as its private partners. There is nothing here that is not doable. All that is lacking is the vision and the political will to make it happen.

OTHER REFORMS AND FIXES

Here are some other related and doable fixes to seemingly intractable problems.

1. The city’s street sweeping program costs $34,409,917 per year (note this is the same amount that the city is currently nabbing from the SPRF every year). It is a major inconvenience to residents who must play a game of musical chairs with their cars and who are constantly harassed by parking enforcement for huge fines. In some areas the street sweeping never comes, but the fines are always issued. Let’s scrap this burdensome, expensive and ineffective street sweeping program. Let property owners be responsible for cleaning the gutter in front of their commercial or residential properties. All responsible property owners already do this as part of normal maintainence. Let code enforcement issue a 24 hour warning notice and if the gutter is not cleared, issue a fine that is commensurate with similar code violations already on the books.
2. Make a citywide yearly parking pass and pre-payment card available.   For a reasonable fee, something like $99 per year, a pass that gives pre-payment access to meters, garages and lots. This program could potentially use the same TAP card that is used for the MTA for trains and buses to pay, thus integrating the parking system into the public transit system. This could be combined with a decal in the window for use in lots and could also make use of RFID technology to identify vehicles that have paid for their pass. The same card could be charged up with cash to pay hourly meter rates just as it is now charged up to pay for MTA trips.  Obviously, there are many ways the benefits and uses of the pass / payment card could be configured and structured. But if 200,000 frequent parkers felt that they would get at least $99 worth of value from the pass as well as peace of mind from ticketing, it could net the city $19,800,000 in upfront fees.  And we all know that pre-paid cards of all kinds frequently never get used, netting the city more cash.
3. Safe, level sidewalks are City Government 101. Somehow this seems to be a challenge in Los Angeles. Let’s empower property owners to fix the sidewalks in front of their property and then submit an application to the city for a property tax credit for the cost of the repair. A process can be established for submitting plans to the city engineer for approval and of course there would have to be an inspection, liability insurance from the contractor and established cost parameters. There is little doubt that private property owners and private contractors can get the job done faster and better than government workers and it would be a boon to the local economy. And lawsuits from trips and falls on our broken sidewalks would drop dramatically.

To reiterate, the foregoing has been a compendium of ideas to illustrate potential directions we can go in developing a working parking system for Los Angeles.  I'm optimistic that there will be a lot of talent and knowledge on our Working Group and that we can develop such concepts into an effective reform plan that brings real results for the people and the economy of Los Angeles.  I look forward to thoughtful and helpful responses.

Web Site:  http://www.ParkingLosAngeles.org

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