Editorial: Parking in Oakland about to get easier

Last week, history was made in Pennsylvania. The state threw out old ways of thinking and embraced a new, progressive attitude toward fixing the problems we face.

Councilman Bill Peduto announced legislation toward the creation of a “dynamic pricing” parking system in Oakland.

Should Peduto’s bill pass, a few streets surrounding Carnegie Mellon University and Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens will see their flat, $2 an hour parking rates vary depending on demand. After this pilot study, dynamic pricing might spread throughout the area.

For a city that lacks an extensive light rail system and rapid bus transit system, dynamic pricing promises to be the most innovative transportation project within city limits. Already implemented with considerable success in Los Angeles and San Francisco and being considered in dozens of other cities across the country, dynamic pricing for parking keeps streets less congested and prices more fair.

For the uninitiated: Dynamically priced parking was first proposed by Yale professor Donald Shoup, who saw lack of parking not as a supply problem, but as a demand problem. If it were impossible to find parking in a given area, you couldn’t simply add spaces to resolve the issue because then drivers who previously chose not to park in an area would come back, perpetuating the problem.

The solution Shoup proposed was to instead adjust prices to control demand. A lack of parking could be solved by increasing prices, thereby raising the parking threshold, sending current drivers either to other areas, such as garages, to park or onto busses and subways. By adjusting prices, an optimal 80 percent utilization rate of parking spaces could be achieved, perpetually insuring vacant street-side spaces.

In Oakland, it is hard to guess how parking rates might change with the widespread institution of dynamic pricing. Lower-demand areas near Frick Fine Arts and Schenley Park might see lower prices during the day. The Forbes Street and Craig Street corridors might see lunchtime spikes. The most effective rate might prove to be the original $2 per hour.

But regardless, Pittsburgh would become a more efficient city. Dynamic pricing has proven not to be sophisticated wizardry. It is not a wonky, impractical solution with no way of working.

With the installation of the area’s new parking meters, the capital cost for a large-scale transformation is low. Fears in San Francisco and Los Angeles that higher prices would scare customers away from businesses have proven unfounded — the guarantee of available parking has offset any price increase.

Drivers spend less time searching for parking on busy city streets, decreasing congestion and fuel emissions. And because lower-income transit users tend to not drive in urban areas, the increased fees are not regressive. In fact, because the market cost of parking demand is not being fully captured with today’s lower parker rates, lower-income workers in the city are implicitly partially subsidizing the parking of higher income suburbanites. Dynamic pricing more appropriately allocates costs.

Peduto deserves ample praise for this pilot project. As the City Council representative of District 8, which includes North Oakland, Shadyside and parts of Squirrel Hill and Bloomfield, he has overseen the neighborhood’s renaissance over the past decade, in large part by actively pursuing these types of local but extremely beneficial projects.

While full implementation of larger dynamic parking projects might take time — Peduto’s bill hasn’t even been signed yet — its mere existence is reason enough for celebration. Peduto has again proven he is willing and excited to look to other cities as models of good governance and progressive urban design.

If only the Pittsburgh Pirates played in Bill Peduto’s District.