The Grattan Institute has this month released a report entitled, Productive Cities: Opportunity in a changing economy offering solutions to help increase economic productivity and efficiency in Australian cities.

The report analyses housing, income and transport data in Australia’s four largest cities to show that while highly paid and qualified workers are living close to city centres, workers with trade skills and low skills, and people on low incomes, are living further from the centre.

Amongst its recommendations, the institute advocates building more homes in established areas of cities and improving urban transport. Wayfinding Forum wrote about the benefits of transport oriented developments in established urban areas last month.

However, of most interest to our subscribers, the report also recommends consideration of road-user charging to ensure that road space is preserved for the most productive uses and as a way to raise funds for public transport.

According to the report “in order to address traffic congestion, it is not enough to rely solely on building new roads without also paying attention to managing the demand for road space. A more efficient use of road space could be achieved by introducing a pricing system such as road user charges, congestion charges or time-of-day tolling.” It notes that this was a recommendation of the 2010 Henry Review into Australia’s Future Tax System.

Recent research by our PTC team relating to the time-of-day tolling introduced a couple of years ago on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Tunnel had practically no impact on congestion and use of these roads. The reduction of vehicles between 2008 and 2009 of 1.6% was more than compensated by the increases in cars using the Ryde Bridge ( 5.2%) and Gladesville Bridge (+2.7%) with an overall result of +0.7%.

Chicago City Mayor Rahm Emanuel is attempting to make up for what he describes as the mistakes of a previous administration by renegotiating its 75 year deal with the private company now responsible for running the city’s parking meters.

In 2008, the Chicago Parking Meters group paid $1.15 billion for the lease to monetize about 36,000 street parking spaces. It is the third-biggest street meter system in the U.S. and the largest to be privately administered.

The agreement was endorsed by the then Chicago alderman to the tune of 40 votes to 5 in just two days, with the money received said to be used by the council to address a budget deficit.

According to the Chicago Tribune the deal “stands as one of the dumbest and most despised decisions in the council's history.” It is believed that the city greatly underestimated the real value of the meters as a stable revenue source for city coffers.

To make matters worse, the private company was last month seeking an additional $49 million from the city as compensation for lost revenue caused by street closures. This amount was the result of a two year audit undertaken by the company itself, and has been questioned at all levels. The current Mayor subsequently refused to pay, forcing both parties back to the negotiating table.

Under terms agreed to this week, the Mayor has obtained control over the processing of data to determine whether the city owes or is owed money from future adjustments to available street parking. This arrangement is hoped to save tax payers $1B over the remaining lifetime of the lease.

In further negotiations the city agreed to extend metered parking by one hour in most areas of the city and until midnight in other areas. In return, the private company will allow free Sunday parking in neighbourhoods outside the city’s core.

Terms of the revised agreement and legal settlement were put before Chicago’s city council on May 8, who now have 30 days to review it.

America’s National Parking Association conducted a research study to determine the general size, scope, segmentation, employment and distribution of its nation’s parking industry.

Entitled Parking in Perspective: The Size and Scope of Parking in America, the study found that the parking industry has 13,010 parking facilities, generates more than $8.2 billion in revenue and employs more than 125,000 people.

However this is just the tip of the iceberg. The study excludes any revenue generated by the thousands of facilities where parking is considered ‘ancillary’, therefore the total value of the industry could be greater than $18 billion with an estimated employment reach exceeding 143,000.

An important finding of the 2011 study was that during tough economic conditions parking rates have “largely held steady”. Whilst this doesn’t go as far as suggesting the industry is recession-proof, it compares favourably with other travel and transportation sectors such as aviation.

Understandably, California and New York make up a large portion of the industry, accounting for 1/3 of total facilities nationwide. New York has the distinction of accommodating the highest concentration of employees (by total and per capita), and along with San Francisco and Philadelphia, it boasts the highest CBD parking rates in the country.

While this study is one of the most detailed we have seen, due to the wide range of industry segments (resulting in fragmented data sets) there is no single source for comprehensive market data on the entire industry today. It’s a good start, but it looks like more research is required!

The report is available to members of the NPA on their website: http://www.npapark.org

CBD parking levies are still a hot topic of discussion around Australia following last week’s blog reporting on the Victorian government’s plans for an increased parking tax.

This week has seen South Australia’s Opposition ramping up its fight against their state government’s planned parking levy for Adelaide’s CBD. The controversial plan is fast becoming a key election issue ahead of the March 2014 vote.

As we reported on Wayfinding Forum in March, several influential industry groups have attacked the plan as a slug on locals and businesses. The levy, purportedly a $52m injection for ‘transport development’ projects over two years, will be charged at $750 per space and most likely affect property owners who are sure to pass on the increase to their customers.

The opposition leader Steven Marshall has gone to the extraordinary length of releasing a television commercial almost a year out from the election slamming the plan and vowing to scrap the tax should he win government. View ad here:

Mr Marshall said, "At a time when cost of living pressures are rapidly rising, the Labor Government is reaching into the pocket of South Australians to repay the debt."

The Property Council has welcomed the opposition's promise, which it said recognised the concerns of city’s retailers. The PCA has since released a survey showing the levy could scare off “almost 60 per cent of motorists” from the CBD.

A good result for congestion says the SA Premier, but at what cost? At PTC we conducted some research as to how the parking levy revenues in NSW and VIC had been spent and what correlation could be found to prove or disprove its impact on congestion. Sadly neither question was able to be answered satisfactorily.

Parking lot humour can sometimes be hard to come by, but here’s something recently “dug up” by one of our long term subscribers. 

Enjoy the rest of your week, from all of us at PTC!

Earlier this week the Sydney Morning Herald reported on the State Government’s imminent plans to extend clearways on Sydney’s most congested roads to include weekends.

The report tells us that there are up to 200,000 more cars on Sydney’s roads on Saturday mornings when compared with weekday mornings, and less people are using public transport. This has led to traffic chaos across the weekend on some of Sydney’s key arterials such as Victoria Rd, Parramatta Rd, Military Rd and Bondi Rd, to name a few.

The proposal to remove on-street parking will anger local businesses that insist their customers need a place to leave their cars while they shop. Pre-empting this backlash, the Roads Minister Duncan Gay has already slated plans to construct parking facilities using a combination of tax payer revenue, parking levies and contributions from the local businesses; an approach that is sure to enflame tensions with the local provedores.

Predictably, Opposition Leader John Robertson has criticized the strategy, suggesting that it is a ‘half-baked’ plan. He pointed to the desperate need to improve NSW transport network.

The NSW Coalition will have thought long and hard about this potentially unpopular, but ultimately necessary parking ban. Their Victorian colleagues reversed a similar decision taken by that state’s previous government to extend clearway conditions to weekends. In a 2010 media release, the new government described their decision to reverse the weekend ban as much needed relief from “onerous and damaging clearway restrictions”.

We have personally experienced the improvements to the trip from the Spit Bridge up to Mosman on weekend afternoons in the summer months when clearways apply!

Time will tell.

A former parking lot manager at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC has pleaded guilty to his involvement in a conspiracy to steal more than $1 million in visitors' parking fees.

For just over three years, Abeselom Hailemariam was the manager at the 2,000-vehicle parking lot servicing the renowned museum precinct. He was responsible for supervising parking-booth attendants and accounting for revenue.

Prosecutors have alleged that under Mr Hailemariam’s supervision, attendants would keep visitors' parking fees and conceal the thefts by failing to hand out serialised parking tickets and by unplugging the electronic vehicle counters in the booths.

The conspiracy involved the attendants paying Mr Hailemariam a share of the stolen revenues amounting to almost $1.4 million. Having  pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit theft of public money, he is scheduled to be sentenced in July, facing a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

According to the Washington Post Mr Hailemariam was arrested at Dulles International Airport where he was returning from Ethiopia after five months residing there.

Two former parking-booth attendees who were part of the conspiracy have already pleaded guilty to their roles in the thefts and have been handed sentences of between 2 and 3 years.

Toronto’s transport authority Metrolinx has big plans to solve their city’s congestion troubles, but the question remains, how are they going to pay for an ambitious list of proposed investments?

To better engage the community and help inform policy decisions, the authority has released an online interactive simulation where the public can select the projects they would like built and decide what revenue tools to pay for them. It’s called The Big Move. The revenue raising options include increased road, fuel and sales taxes, an increase in transit fares and a car parking levy.

However, according to The Toronto Star, City Mayor Rob Ford has dismissed a report delivered this week recommending that Council support the various tax hikes, saying that his constituents simply can’t afford it. Mr Ford believes the revenue can be achieved through cost cutting and bureaucratic efficiencies.

City Councillor and Toronto Transit Commission Chair Karen Stintz said that whilst she didn’t agree with all of the recommendations, she conceded the projects needed to be funded. However, Cr Stintz cautioned against using the parking levy as a tool, remarking that the impact on commercial centres and small businesses may not be not fully understood and could be detrimental to economic growth.

Metrolinx will release its final recommendations for funding tools on May 27. It says the region needs $2 billion annually to fund transit expansion.

Namibia’s capital Windhoek is close to finalising a futuristic transport master plan, focusing on safety, aesthetic and environmental concerns, as well as traffic efficiency by integrating the road network of the capital, including surrounding regions and the international airport.

The Sustainable Urban Transport Master Plan is a collaborative effort between the City of Windhoek and the Namibian Government, and is being conducted with the assistance of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The plan is expected to produce a clear and realistic vision for the development of a sustainable urban transport system for the next 20 years. According to the city's website, within twenty years Windhoek would have to cater for the mobility needs of close to one million people.

A key condition of the plan is to ensure developers wishing to set up businesses in the CBD would need to make provision for parking spaces for both employees and the general public.

The master plan has been sent to the city's management for consideration, and it is expected that a final draft plan would be ready by the end of May.