Thread by @twjpdx23

@MeghanSkornia I just read over the article you posted. In Portland we have an RPP that is badly designed, permits are generally very cheap and they sell basically unlimited amounts of them. They do allow for 2 hour visitor parking though. 1/x

@MeghanSkornia But I don’t come to the same conclusions as you do about RPP in general. I don’t think it’s a given that RPP privatize space so long as the permits cost a market rate and are available to anyone with a legitimate interest in parking in the area. (More on this in a bit) 2/x

@MeghanSkornia It’s also interesting that you would find that RPP raise the cost of development in an area. One of the main reasons a city considers implementing an RPP is to alleviate concerns about eliminating minimum parking requirements. 3/x

@MeghanSkornia If a permit is available to all people who live in the zone & is priced appropriately, then some parking may be built, but it would still likely be very much less than with minimums. 4/x

@MeghanSkornia Of course no minimums and no permits is also fine, but if the parking is actually congested, then the city should be implementing a permit/metering zone to make sure that people can access the area if they need to drive. 5/x

@MeghanSkornia I do think we need to be sensitive about impacts on low income people, but those concerns must be held in context of the impact of new structured parking on housing costs and supply. Also, given that time is money, allowing people to choose what their time is worth is fair. 6/x

@MeghanSkornia If the city is doing it right, they will limit the permits sold to some percentage of the actual supply, if permits are warranted, this will lead to higher prices for permits. How that money is spent is the key. I advocate for direct redistribution to low income residents. 7/x

@MeghanSkornia This might be in the form of transit passes or other subsidies, but I would say it should actually be a cash rebate sent to SNAP recipients or some other such identifier. What I don’t like to see is discounts for permits, a subsidy only for car owning low income people. 8/x

@MeghanSkornia I think technology can be used wisely to allow for pretty dynamic “virtual permitting,” particularly in areas impacted by commercial parking. In these zones, visitors (be they customers or airBnB guests) could purchase neighborhood parking at market rates w/o meters. 9/x

@MeghanSkornia All in all, it’s like @DonaldShoup says: “/All may park, all must pay.”

If there’s more demand than supply for parking we should use markets to manage it.

I’m a socialist for healthcare, education, housing, & more. I’m a capitalist for parking. 10/10