… when measured in most urban areas.
Cheap street parking means that most people are willing to search it out—forgoing immediately parking in a pay lot or paying to take the bus—in hopes of winning what amounts to a lottery for the cheap public street parking. At current rates, street parking in Seattle is frequently saturated, with all available spots used at almost all times. If you want to drive to a busy neighborhood, you’ll need to spend quite a bit of time to randomly chance upon an open spot.
No less than 13 studies in a variety of different urban areas have shown about one third of downtown traffic (at peak times) is composed of drivers circling the block, cruising for the cheaper street parking. (Unfortunately, such a study has not been done here, but there is no reason to believe Seattle’s situation would be any different. The mechanism for this cruising is decidedly in place.) All this wasteful cruising for parking means more congestion, more pollution, and more danger for pedestrians and cyclists—all demonstrated in subsequent studies.
The effects of cheap street parking in cities—in this week’s Dear Science column.
