Donald Shoup

Last week Streetsblog LA talked with UCLA Professor and parking guru Donald Shoup about ExpressPark, the new parking pricing system coming to downtown Los Angeles.

You might be shocked at how much traffic consists of drivers who have already arrived at their destination but find themselves cruising the streets, searching for an open parking spot. In some city neighborhoods, cruising makes up as much as 40 percent of all traffic. All this unnecessary traffic slows down buses, endangers cyclists and pedestrians, delays other motorists, and produces harmful emissions. The key to eliminating it is to get the price of parking right.

In the fourth chapter of what's become an enthralling series, UCLA professor Donald Shoup breaks down the incentives at work in the Cato Institute's decision to provide free parking for employees at its Washington, D.C. headquarters. While Cato senior fellow Randal O'Toole claims the choice has nothing to do with market distortions caused by government policy, a look at the tax code suggests otherwise. Joining us mid-series? Read installments one, two, and three.

Streetsblog is pleased to present the third episode in UCLA planning professor Donald Shoup's ongoing inquiry into whether the Cato Institute's free market principles extend to the realm of parking policy. Read Shoup's previous replies to Cato senior fellow Randal O'Toole here and here.

Last week we published a reply from UCLA planning professor Donald Shoup to Cato Institute senior fellow Randal O'Toole, in which Shoup clarified his positions on parking policy and explained several ways in which government regulations favor the provision of free parking. In response, O'Toole ran this post on the Cato@Liberty blog. Streetsblog is pleased to publish Shoup's follow-up, which suggests Cato estimate the price distortions that give incentives for the libertarian think tank's employees to commute by car. By doing so, Cato headquarters could serve as a laboratory for leveling the commute subsidy playing field, an idea embedded in Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer's Green Routes to Work Act.

We're reprinting this reply [PDF] from UCLA professor Donald Shoup, author of the High Cost of Free Parking, to Randal O'Toole, the libertarian Cato Institute senior fellow who refuses to acknowledge the role of massive government intervention in the market for parking, and the effect this has had on America's car dependence. It's an excellent guide to the misdirection, mistakes, logical fallacies, and falsehoods that form the foundation of O'Toole's arguments.

If you're interested in the power of parking policy to reduce congestion and make streets more livable, the most exciting place to be right now is San Francisco. For the past year and a half, the city has pursued an innovative slate of policies designed to manage parking supply wisely and deftly, thanks in part to a federal grant from the Urban Partnership program -- the same pot of money that New York City could have accessed if Albany had passed congestion pricing last year.

Streets designed for safe, accessible, and equitable use. That is the vision of the "Blueprint for the Upper West Side: A Roadmap for Truly Livable Streets," to be unveiled tonight by the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign. The product of one year of community-driven planning, in consultation with urbanist legends Jan Gehl and Donald Shoup, the 51-page Blueprint [PDF] is an expansive neighborhood-wide plan that would employ many livable streets concepts already in use by NYC DOT. 

What better time than Park(ing) Day (or should I say "Parrrrking Day") to break out a fascinating piece from the magazine known as Parking Today, "the leading publication serving the diverse needs of today's parking industry."