Eugene Weekly : News : 03.02.06

No Free Parking
Downtown garages are costly, questionable and avoidable.
BY ALAN PITTMAN

Gateway Mall has 3,757 parking spaces. Downtown Eugene has 15,254 spaces. But city staff and a council majority say that's not enough. They want to spend about $25 million of taxpayer money on building two new parking garages downtown to subsidize developers.

The city has proposed a $9 million, 260-space garage for a Whole Foods development project on the east end of downtown and a 455-space, roughly $16 million garage on the west end of downtown to subsidize developers Tom Connor, Don Woolley and the Opus corporation (CWO).

But opposition to the garages is growing. Opponents of the Whole Foods garage plan to rally at 7 pm, March 7 at EWEB in preparation for a March 13 hearing on the "garage giveaway."

With the high costs and questionable need of the proposed garages, the city has better options, a look at the projects and studies by parking experts show.

HIGH COSTS

Parking garages are very expensive. The Whole Foods garage will cost taxpayers about $35,000 per space to build—more than the value of most of the cars that will park in it. The city will charge for parking, but the city says its parking fees barely cover the cost of operating and maintaining its garages after building them.

Opponents of the Whole Foods garage have questioned whether the city is getting a good deal on the project by buying it from Whole Foods and its developer without a competitive bid. A decade ago, the city built similar garages on Pearl Street and at Broadway Place at about half the price per space, even after adjusting for inflation.

But the real price of the garage could go well beyond its price tag. Donald Shoup, a UCLA planning professor and leading parking expert, has written that Los Angeles killed its downtown with excessive parking structures. L.A.'s downtown is dense, but its excessive parking garages attached to buildings mean that people drive downtown and go from garages to buildings without ever walking and shopping on downtown streets — making for a dead downtown.

Garages further limit street life with ugly blank walls and dangerous driveways for pedestrians, Shoup and other planning experts say. The Whole Foods garage features driveways and blank walls along 8th Avenue, the city's supposed "great street." The CWO garages will present blank walls facing south to the new city library.

The worst impact of garages may be the huge amounts of space they take up downtown. Each parking space in the Whole Foods project will require 430 square feet of building space for car storage and access. The Whole Foods project will cover a full city block in a 280,000 square foot building, but only about a fifth of the floor area will actually be retail space, the rest will be car storage.

Downtowns depend on the efficient use of space with "agglomeration economies" making them attractive due to convenient access to a dense variety of services, attractions, housing and offices, writes Dom Nozzi, a national expert on urban sprawl and walkable streets. Adding more parking to help a downtown is a "poison masquerading as a cure" as it takes up valuable space that could better be used to attract people downtown.

Planning experts note that successful, vibrant downtowns often have scarce parking while dead downtowns have ample supplies. Over the past three decades, Eugene has spent almost all of its downtown revitalization money on parking garages, building five massive concrete garages with a total of 2,544 spaces. Despite all the garages, Eugene's downtown has withered, losing most of its retail and is plagued by vacant buildings.

For decades, critics have said the garages have hurt downtown vibrancy by offering indoor connections to the Hult Center and Downtown Athletic Club and presenting an ugly streetscape for pedestrians.

Portland moved away from excessive downtown parking garages three decades ago when it revitalized by tearing down a garage to build Pioneer Courthouse Square, now one of the nation's top urban amenities.

Excessive garages also present high costs by hurting city efforts to promote alternative transportation, planning experts warn. Subsidized easy parking makes it harder for walking, biking and bussing to compete and forces cities to build yet more expensive road capacity and suffer from more unlivable pollution, traffic congestion and accidents.

QUESTIONABLE NEED

With the social, economic and planning costs of parking so high, cities should be very careful that they don't overbuild, planning experts say.

Eugene city planners point to a recent parking study that they say shows they're not overbuilding. But the study by a parking construction firm from suburban Detroit, Mich., Rich and Associates, does not appear to meet the standards of many parking planning experts.

The Rich study estimates that the city needs 717 more spaces downtown. But the consultant never visited Eugene and did not base his accounting on actual surveys of parking use downtown.

Parking spaces in the city's six existing parking garages are only about 53 percent full at peak hours, according to city survey data.

The Rich study relied mainly on formulas for parking demand based on land uses. CWO relied on a similar approach in making its estimates for needed parking.

Such formulas, based on suburban shopping malls, are notoriously inflated and unscientific, according to Shoup and other planning experts. They do not factor in increased alternative transportation in downtowns, pedestrian amenities, shared parking and combined trips in downtowns and assume abundant, free parking, Shoup, Nozzi and others write.

In Portland, successful projects are often built with about half the parking per square foot of retail and housing as CWO and Rich demand. The Rich and CWO studies even disagree wildly with each other. CWO, for example, says it needs twice as much parking per square foot of restaurant than Rich says is needed.

The Rich study also appears to suffer from faulty assumptions. It assumes no major downtown vacancies, ignoring the many empty buildings downtown and plans for PeaceHealth to relocate the Eugene Clinic. The study also assumes that the new federal courthouse will dramatically increase downtown federal parking demand, even though the facility will mostly just move around existing downtown federal employees.

ALTERNATIVES

Even if there is a real need for more parking downtown, cities can address the issue cheaper and better by reducing demand rather than increasing supply, planning experts say.

The Victoria Transport Policy Institute has published a book detailing two dozen different parking demand reduction strategies that can result in 20 to 40 percent reductions in needed parking. One key strategy ignored by the Whole Foods and CWO garage proposals includes simply sharing parking—at night theaters can share spaces used by daytime office workers, for example.

Another key strategy is financial incentives. The city of Eugene could increase parking supply downtown dramatically by paying its workers and downtown residents to not use garage spaces. Even buying back spaces at $1,000 a year would save the city millions. Many employees and residents would likely leap at the money.

But most city officials appear stuck on their expensive garages. Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy has dismissed criticism of the Whole Foods garage subsidy as unrealistic. "We need more parking capacity," she said.

Table of Contents | News | Views | Calendar| Film | Music | Culture | Classifieds | Personals | Contact | EW Archive | Advertising Information | Current Issue |

		No Free Parking Downtown garages are costly, questionable and avoidable. BY ALAN PITTMAN Gateway Mall has 3,757 parking spaces. Downtown Eugene has 15,254 spaces. But city staff and a council majority say that's not enough. They want to spend about $25 million of taxpayer money on building two new parking garages downtown to subsidize developers. The city has proposed a $9 million, 260-space garage for a Whole Foods development project on the east end of downtown and a 455-space, roughly $16 million garage on the west end of downtown to subsidize developers Tom Connor, Don Woolley and the Opus corporation (CWO). But opposition to the garages is growing. Opponents of the Whole Foods garage plan to rally at 7 pm, March 7 at EWEB in preparation for a March 13 hearing on the "garage giveaway." With the high costs and questionable need of the proposed garages, the city has better options, a look at the projects and studies by parking experts show. HIGH COSTS Parking garages are very expensive. The Whole Foods garage will cost taxpayers about $35,000 per space to build—more than the value of most of the cars that will park in it. The city will charge for parking, but the city says its parking fees barely cover the cost of operating and maintaining its garages after building them. Opponents of the Whole Foods garage have questioned whether the city is getting a good deal on the project by buying it from Whole Foods and its developer without a competitive bid. A decade ago, the city built similar garages on Pearl Street and at Broadway Place at about half the price per space, even after adjusting for inflation. But the real price of the garage could go well beyond its price tag. Donald Shoup, a UCLA planning professor and leading parking expert, has written that Los Angeles killed its downtown with excessive parking structures. L.A.'s downtown is dense, but its excessive parking garages attached to buildings mean that people drive downtown and go from garages to buildings without ever walking and shopping on downtown streets — making for a dead downtown. Garages further limit street life with ugly blank walls and dangerous driveways for pedestrians, Shoup and other planning experts say. The Whole Foods garage features driveways and blank walls along 8th Avenue, the city's supposed "great street." The CWO garages will present blank walls facing south to the new city library. The worst impact of garages may be the huge amounts of space they take up downtown. Each parking space in the Whole Foods project will require 430 square feet of building space for car storage and access. The Whole Foods project will cover a full city block in a 280,000 square foot building, but only about a fifth of the floor area will actually be retail space, the rest will be car storage. Downtowns depend on the efficient use of space with "agglomeration economies" making them attractive due to convenient access to a dense variety of services, attractions, housing and offices, writes Dom Nozzi, a national expert on urban sprawl and walkable streets. Adding more parking to help a downtown is a "poison masquerading as a cure" as it takes up valuable space that could better be used to attract people downtown. Planning experts note that successful, vibrant downtowns often have scarce parking while dead downtowns have ample supplies. Over the past three decades, Eugene has spent almost all of its downtown revitalization money on parking garages, building five massive concrete garages with a total of 2,544 spaces. Despite all the garages, Eugene's downtown has withered, losing most of its retail and is plagued by vacant buildings. For decades, critics have said the garages have hurt downtown vibrancy by offering indoor connections to the Hult Center and Downtown Athletic Club and presenting an ugly streetscape for pedestrians. Portland moved away from excessive downtown parking garages three decades ago when it revitalized by tearing down a garage to build Pioneer Courthouse Square, now one of the nation's top urban amenities. Excessive garages also present high costs by hurting city efforts to promote alternative transportation, planning experts warn. Subsidized easy parking makes it harder for walking, biking and bussing to compete and forces cities to build yet more expensive road capacity and suffer from more unlivable pollution, traffic congestion and accidents. QUESTIONABLE NEED With the social, economic and planning costs of parking so high, cities should be very careful that they don't overbuild, planning experts say. Eugene city planners point to a recent parking study that they say shows they're not overbuilding. But the study by a parking construction firm from suburban Detroit, Mich., Rich and Associates, does not appear to meet the standards of many parking planning experts. The Rich study estimates that the city needs 717 more spaces downtown. But the consultant never visited Eugene and did not base his accounting on actual surveys of parking use downtown. Parking spaces in the city's six existing parking garages are only about 53 percent full at peak hours, according to city survey data. The Rich study relied mainly on formulas for parking demand based on land uses. CWO relied on a similar approach in making its estimates for needed parking. Such formulas, based on suburban shopping malls, are notoriously inflated and unscientific, according to Shoup and other planning experts. They do not factor in increased alternative transportation in downtowns, pedestrian amenities, shared parking and combined trips in downtowns and assume abundant, free parking, Shoup, Nozzi and others write. In Portland, successful projects are often built with about half the parking per square foot of retail and housing as CWO and Rich demand. The Rich and CWO studies even disagree wildly with each other. CWO, for example, says it needs twice as much parking per square foot of restaurant than Rich says is needed. The Rich study also appears to suffer from faulty assumptions. It assumes no major downtown vacancies, ignoring the many empty buildings downtown and plans for PeaceHealth to relocate the Eugene Clinic. The study also assumes that the new federal courthouse will dramatically increase downtown federal parking demand, even though the facility will mostly just move around existing downtown federal employees. ALTERNATIVES Even if there is a real need for more parking downtown, cities can address the issue cheaper and better by reducing demand rather than increasing supply, planning experts say. The Victoria Transport Policy Institute has published a book detailing two dozen different parking demand reduction strategies that can result in 20 to 40 percent reductions in needed parking. One key strategy ignored by the Whole Foods and CWO garage proposals includes simply sharing parking—at night theaters can share spaces used by daytime office workers, for example. Another key strategy is financial incentives. The city of Eugene could increase parking supply downtown dramatically by paying its workers and downtown residents to not use garage spaces. Even buying back spaces at $1,000 a year would save the city millions. Many employees and residents would likely leap at the money. But most city officials appear stuck on their expensive garages. Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy has dismissed criticism of the Whole Foods garage subsidy as unrealistic. "We need more parking capacity," she said.






		Table of Contents \| News \| Views \| Calendar\| Film \| Music \| Culture \| Classifieds \| Personals \| Contact \| EW Archive \| Advertising Information \| Current Issue \|