Free parking in Halifax

As I have recently mentioned a few times, I just listened to the entire episode archive of the 99% Invisible podcast.  One of the first episodes of this show (but one of the last that I listened to) dealt with a new parking initiative that was being implemented in San Francisco.


99% Invisible-08- 99% Free Parking by Roman Mars

[Embedded audio]

The general parking scheme to be implemented in San Francisco, at least as described in the podcast, was to create a system that encouraged a more efficient use of available parking space (their goal is to always have one free space per block).  A key component of creating such an outcome is to have dynamic pricing that reflects usage.  Higher prices in high demand areas and lower prices in low demand areas.  Furthermore, such prices would change regularly to reflect changing usage patterns. (You can read more about the system at the SFPark.org site.)

Anyway, I was reminded of these concepts and ideas as I read a recent CBC article about planned changes to parking rules in Halifax.  Instead of dealing with parking congestion problems with an approach reminiscent San Francisco's, Halifax seems interested only interested in implementing a course permitting scheme that will be of the most benefit to homeowners on residential streets (who are currently complaining about the lack of available parking space on their streets).

Maybe I should take a second to step back and describe the parking situation as it exists on the non-campus streets near Dal, the province's largest university and an institution with a relatively well documented parking shortage.  What is immediately striking about parking near Dal is not that there are no available spaces, but that there are many near-empty streets with available on-street parking.  These streets have almost no cars because complicated no parking schedules (things like two hour maximums or absolutely no parking between certain hours) make them difficult to use for most people with commitments at Dal.  Of course, I should also note that the few completely unencumbered parking places are almost always taken.

So getting back to the new proposal, if streets in Halifax are uniformly converted from free parking to permitted parking a few problems may arise.  Firstly, streets that are now almost completely empty may fill up with newly permitted cars (making some aspects of the problem worse).  Secondly, homeowners will now have to pay for the privilege to park near their homes (though they will have reduced rates).  Thirdly, those with irregular commitments in areas impacted by the changes may have a harder time parking as they won't have a parking permit for the area in question (this is the change that really bothers me as it will likely impact me when I am trying to go to Dal).

But that brings us to a few questions: Do we have an inherent right to free on-street parking? and Do homeowners have an inherent right to street parking in front of their property?  I guess my initial response to both of these questions is 'no.'

Lets deal with the first question first.  As much as I like free on-street parking and as much as I think it is a reasonable thing municipality to decide to provide, I think one can make a pretty convincing argument that as streets that are wide enough to allow for on-street more parking cost more to build that such costs should be recouped from those using the service rather than the entire tax base.  Similar approaches are taken with regards to things like gas taxes or bridge tolls.  Thus a pay-for-parking approach isn't completely outside the norm in most North American contexts.

Now on to the second question.  Though homeowners in residential area might like to be able to park in front of their homes I'm not really sure that they really have much an argument beyond that.  If we look at cases of property ownership in areas of dense development we often see that there isn't enough room for all owners to take advantage of on-street parking, options other than parking in front of one's building must be found.  Thus I don't see that the home owners in Halifax should really have much of a claim to the on-street parking in front of their homes (particularly during business hours).  It should also be noted that as a property owner you can both choose how to allocate your property (such as how much of your property is dedicated to parking) and decide whether or not you own a car.  Expecting to also have some claim to street space for which you have not paid and that is not equally available to all property owners or residents seems a bit much to me.

Of course, the other part of the equation that has been seemingly completely ignored, at least if we use this CBC article as our only source, is that attempts could be made to reduce the number of individuals interested in parking in Halifax.  Maybe a better bus system or efforts to decrease sprawl might also help with parking problems.

I guess, in the end, I think that this policy is missing the point.  People parking on the street is fine, there is nothing inherently wrong with it (though a few parking garages and a more effective pricing scheme might not be completely uncalled for).  Furthermore, if you don't provide alternatives to street parking (either parking-wise or alternatives to driving) you won't really solve the problem, you might just shift it further afield.  And I suspect that in the best case scenario that is all this policy will do as they fundamentally haven't done anything to reduce the need for parking.