by Steve Tracy
Davis Bicycles! began to survey the two parking structures downtown last March so the community could have a respectful and well-informed discussion about the need for more parking supply, particularly very expensive additional supply in a third structure. A few members of our organization’s Board set out to collect some data. Most of our counts until September were done when we were downtown for miscellaneous errands, shopping, eating, going to movies, or for other entertainment. In other words, times we might be looking for parking spaces for our own cars except we were generally on our bicycles.
We felt the unstructured nature of our counts was well suited for counting data of this sort, because our arrival times at the structures were similar to the random distribution of downtown customer and visitor arrivals. During the springtime counts we usually only went to a single garage, just as we would if we were driving downtown and parked. We don’t regret that now, but we have been accused of somehow fudging our numbers by not counting both garages at exactly the same time whenever we did our inventories. The strange irony is that if we omit the single counts and only use the paired counts (within an hour of each other) the number of vacant spaces goes UP.
After a pause in the late spring, we began to gather data again as we realized the next step in the process to review the proposed garage would bring it back to the Council just before their late summer hiatus. If proponents would rather we picked up our inventories again when UC Davis was in session, they could have put off the garage until after summer holidays and such. Of course, that would mean the proposed structure would come under more scrutiny by a refreshed population back in town and paying more attention to political happenings.
Because we were taking a scientific approach to all of this, we eventually created the third spreadsheet that the Vanguard is posting a link to. It shows the distribution of our counts for each parking structure through the days of the week and the hours of the day in two-hour increments. The bar charts we created give a quick visual of how these distributions look. As we neared the nice, round number of 100 counts, we tried to evenly balance the number of inventories in each structure and fill in any gaps or low spots in the distributions.
They are still biased towards times with higher parking demand, in part because our original strategy was to just inventory the structures when we were downtown anyway like other visitors. To see evidence of this bias, look at the F Street structure distribution, with more counts taken on Fridays than for any other week of the day in either structure. Then look at the yellow shaded boxes on the F Street spreadsheet and you will see that the top 3 occupancy rates out of the entire 100 inventories were on Fridays in the F Street structure.
This is probably the time to explain why no counts were taken in the middle of the night, even though the meter is running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on the payments for redevelopment agency bonds that could finance the construction of a third structure. We didn’t count between midnight and dawn because we weren’t downtown looking for parking spaces. Nobody is during those hours. Even though parking demand (or lack of it) during the middle of the night should be included in a true average, we didn’t want to be accused of creating a false picture of the public’s reasonable need for additional parking downtown. Again, all we wanted to do was provide data so the community could have an informed discussion about the proposed garage.
As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.
As we approached tonight’s Council hearing, the attacks on our data, our motives, and our integrity have heated up. Spreadsheets we shared outside our group were messed with and false conclusions sent to City staff attaching those spreadsheets with file names suggesting they came from Davis Bicycles! It is time to end this by letting everyone in town with a pencil and a calculator play with the numbers.
We want to thank the Vanguard for giving the community this opportunity. Here are a few comments to explain what you will see in the data:
- Each garage is covered by a separate spreadsheet, to facilitate sorting the data by vacancy rate, time of day, or whatever you like.
- They are posted in the order the counts were taken, beginning in early March and ending two weeks ago.
- The F Street structure is counted as a single category, with just the total number of vacant spaces given.
- The 4th Street garage counts are in two categories: vacant parking spaces in the USDA and other tenant reserved area, and total vacant spaces in the entire structure.
- Some of those counts early on have “na” instead of a number, because there was a bit of confusion among those of us doing the counts about the exact boundary of the tenant reserved area. The total vacant space number is still accurate.
- All this excludes the 83 parking spots on the roof of the 4th Street structure, behind the gate in the USDA reserved area. The fence is more a security measure than a contractual barrier.
- At the bottom of each spreadsheet is the average number of vacant spaces in each structure, and the average occupancy rate that calculates out to.
- The next line gives the vacant space and occupancy rate information for the other sheet, so a glance at the bottom of either sheet gives you the whole picture.
- The last line on each sheet adds in the 53 vacant spaces behind the security fence in the 4th Street structure.
- The third spreadsheet has day of week and time of day information about the counts, and bar charts that show the distribution.
So much for the raw data, now to the shading:
- The counts with blue shading at the far left of the row are paired up. That means each of these counts has a “partner” count that was taken in the other structure near the same time on the same day. Claims have been made that these inventories are somehow corrupted because very few of our counts are paired. In fact, 70 out of the 100 counts are paired up, but that has no bearing at all on medians, means, or the quality of our data.
- Counts with exactly the same time are coded that way because I counted one garage, wrote down the numbers and the time, then proceeded directly to the other garage and took that inventory. So you may view those as being within 5 or 10 minutes of each other. I have no idea which structure was counted first.
- The green shading means those counts were taken on a weekend, or after 5 pm on a weekday. The contract between the City of Davis and the owner of the 4th Street parking structure specifies that all the tenant and monthly permit spaces are open for public parking except during “normal business hours” on weekdays, which the signs indicate is 6:30 am to 5 pm. Bright green marks counts done on weekends, olive green marks weekday evening counts.
- The yellow shading indicates inventories that meet the occupancy rate of 85% that is generally accepted to be the best utilization of a parking supply. Well-occupied, but still a few spaces available for people seeking a parking spot. This standard was met only 4 times in the 100 counts.
- Finally, because we were accused of cheating by counting vacant spaces in the summer, we have broken the data out into subsets. March to mid-June is in lavender on each sheet, and summer counts are in pink.
- Yes, those spring inventories yielded a higher occupancy rate. If you want to make a case that these structures are well-utilized when UC Davis is in session, we’ve done the math for you below.
The best possible interpretation that can come from this data – disregarding lower demand times in the summer or zero demand in the middle of the night – is that during our typical Davis day these two very expensive structures we already have are only 44% full. Play with the figures as you will, there is no escaping the fact that we have a lot of wasted value sitting empty.
Like it or not, this has to be a factor as the community discusses whether it is a good idea to use all the remaining bond funding to build a third structure BEFORE we adopt, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive downtown parking and access plan.
To view raw data, click the link below:
Excellent work, those that want to push this unneeded garage hate the facts and in turn feel they must attack the messenger because they can’t deal with the truth.
I agree with Rusty here that this data looks very useful and is consistent with my (limited) experience with these parking garages.
The average occupancy rate of these garages is very low–around 29-36% and even during the peak Friday afternoon period there appear to be spaces. This is in stark contrast to me experience at many San Francisco garages where its hard to find parking much of the time.
I would suggest the group continue collecting data now that students are back though I think the overall conclusion will not change.
I think the idea of directing people to the parking garages could serve as a good measure to avoid the need to construct a new one
Davisites have this notion that they should be able to park on the block where they are going. In a lot of places, people simply learn to go to the parking garage and walk a block or two to their location. What is the big deal with walking a couple of blocks to the parking garage. Instead of two hour street parking, we could go to 20 minutes street parking with longer term shoppers directed to the parking garages. Just a thought.
“Instead of two hour street parking, we could go to 20 minutes street parking with longer term shoppers directed to the parking garages. Just a thought.”
No offense David but that’s a terrible idea. Keep it as it is but how about forcing downtown employees to park in the garages with some kind of system where they buy/get 8 hr. parking badges?
This is part of the problem, people want to be able to park on the street. So we have these convoluted no reparking laws, there is not enough street parking and thus people want to build more parking. More parking is not going to solve that problem because street parking is finite and in short supply.
I just think 20 minutes would be way too short of a time. For instance, if I go to Starbucks or Posh Bagels I often just want to sit and enjoy the surroundings for more time than that. I can’t imagine going to a parking garage to just enjoy a cup of coffee and a bagel. I think the current 2 hr. limit is just about right. I’ve been ticketed twice for street parking while at movies, totally my fault as the garages were right there. Amazing how they can time those movies to getcha.
What about an hour? I was thinking in terms of if I am going down to deposit a check in the bank, I don’t want to park and walk, but I would be to watch a movie or go to Bistro or something that would be a more considerable length of time.
I see problems with cutting it to an hour. Breakfast or lunch can often take more than an hour by the time you’re seated and served so restaurants like for example Hunan that are farther away from the garages would be hurt.
Employee parking as an issue goes back even farther than my experience, which was serving as Chair on the downtown Davis Specific Plan Task Force in the early ’90s. At that time the Police Department conducted a very thorough study and concluded something close to half of the on-street parking downtown was taken up by employees.
A mid-’90s Planning Department study concluded employee parking was something we needed to address. A year 2000 Economic Development study came to the same conclusion. As did the 2007 Downtown Parking study done again by Planning. Among the recommendations of that study was an item calling for a “Downtown Parking Management Plan” which seems to be what is finally being started. All these studies over the years, and the solutions have not worked.
I would suggest leaving it at 2 hours. Let people enjoy a movie, or a slow lunch. But eliminate all the reparking signs and rules, and form a district with very broad boundaries. The tracks to B or C, 1st to 4th. Then fix our broken automated license plate reader trucks and set them back in motion. If your plate turns up anywhere inside that district boundary more than two hours from the time the system first “read” that plate number, you get the ticket. The first one’s a warning, the second one won’t break the bank, but the penalties ramp up sharply after that.
Other communities in California use an approach like this, to get long-term parking out of the curbside spaces and into the lots or structures. We sure know we have room for them. The Council should fund a fairly low-cost consultant contract to show us examples where long-term parking by employees or visitors (for example near stadiums or beach areas) have been encouraged by the district approach and the availability of off-street parking to go elsewhere. It’s been done, and it’s simple.
I believe the proposal to reduce the time limits from 2 hours to 90 minutes is a pointless incremental step that will only have employees rushing out of the shops more often, not less, to drive around in circles moving their cars.
I did a scientific study of my own driving and parking tendencies and came to the following conclusions:
1. I look for the closest parking space near the location of the venue(s) I am planning to shop. If my planned purchases are large, I will spend a bit of time looking for the closest parking… but only a bit.
2. I prefer street parking and/or parking in an open lot rather than a parking garage because of the greater convenience. The two existing parking garages are difficult to enter, park and exit, and attract door dents, because they are sized for Toyota Priuses only. However, if the new garage was large enough, I would prefer to park inside where there is shade and protection from bird droppings.
3. I hate wasting time looking for parking. Many times I have driven to downtown from service-purgatory West Davis and then left town to shop in Woodland over frustration not being able to find a truck-sized space near enough Davis Ace. In addition to the time wasted finding a spot, when the downtown is busy, frustration also builds as many other drivers cruise the streets slowly waiting for a spot to open up.
My vision for downtown is as a specialty and boutique service area with C Street and/or B street being converted to a pedestrian promenade. With this, and a large enough parking garage, I think we would see it utilized. However products like: trees, compost, rocks, plywood, furniture and mattresses require easy access loading and unloading zones.
That’s why parking , shopping and purchasing and then taking the vehicle to where you made the purchase and loading it, works well, and does not necessitate a new garage when we have half-empty garages. Perhaps they should be restriped for some larger spaces if your problem is as stated.
[quote]Many times I have driven to downtown from service-purgatory West Davis and then left town to shop in Woodland …[/quote]
UCLA professor Donald Shoup’s point in his “performance pricing” strategy is that there is a (small) price that could be charged for on-street parking ensuring there are nearly always a couple of free spots on each block, near where you need/want to be. His book, “The high cost of free parking,” is available for $23 at Amazon and a mini-lecture on the topic is at
[url]www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8vkbfz8PU8[/url]
“Free parking” distorts the marketplace. A small charge for on-street parking would also discourage employees from parking all day in these valuable on-street spaces and encourage them to use the (maybe free) spaces in the garages.
Would you be willing to pay $0.50 to park in the block adjacent to Ace Hardware for 30 minutes, or would this price cause you to choose to drive to Woodland? I would pay.
One thing that would free up a lot more parking spaces in the downtown would be if we had direct bus service into the downtown from all parts of Davis. The City of Davis is paying almost all of the cost for the Unitrans service. But every bus (save a couple designated school routes) goes to one of the two hubs on campus.
Even worse, we have no one on the City Council who gives a damn about how badly Unitrans serves most Davis residents. They all buy into the false logic that Unitrans is designed exclusively to pull healthy 18 and 19 year olds, most of whom do not own cars, out of their cars and place them on buses as they commute to UCD from 1/2 to 2 miles away.
It’s a real shame that the activists in Davis Bicycles! have never fought this bogus argument from the Unitrans managers (namely Geoff Straw). My sense is that the Davis Bicycles! activists are in bed with Mr. Straw’s ideology.
The fact is most UCD kids, who are forced to buy a bus pass and thereafter ride free, would ride a bike to school (as everyone did before Unitrans). What able-bodied junior in college cannot ride a couple of miles to school? I rode 2.5 miles each way to junior high school, even on rainy days. How many UCD students, paying more and more to matriculate at the university and a fortune to rent an apartment in Davis, are going to spend $480 on a C-Permit, when they can park their bikes on campus for free?
If older folks or those who are not able to ride bikes or those who don’t want to ride a bike on a rainy day who live in Stonegate or Westwood or University Farms or Wildhorse or El Macero Vista or Northstar or Evergreen or Mace Ranch could get a direct bus from their neighborhood to the Farmer’s Market or to the Regal Theaters or to Village Pizza or to the SP Depot, a great number would ride the bus and not drive and many parking places would be freed up. After all, it is these residents whose taxes are paying about 80% of the cost of the Unitrans system. Yet all of the routes (but the one which goes to DHS and the other which goes to Harper Junior High) terminate on campus. So people in Davis going downtown mostly never consider riding the bus, unless they happen to be lucky enough to live near one of the two routes which cuts through a part of downtown on its way to UCD.
[quote]Again, all we wanted to do was provide data so the community could have an informed discussion about the proposed garage.[/quote]
Thanks for the collection of the data – it is greatly appreciated.
To Mont: I am of the same opinion you are, and Mayor Krovoza said much the same thing. Charge for on-street parking, and then “encourage” employees and perhaps some customers to park in the “free” garages. It makes logical sense to me…
Judging by the data, simply increasing the number of spaces is of dubious benefit. Occupancy rates peak at 80-90% at F Street, and 40-50% at 4th Street. It looks like there are plenty of spaces, but people don’t like to park at the structure further from central downtown, Farmer’s market, etc.
It would seem to be very important to understand people’s behavior around parking before building an expensive structure that potentially could stand mostly empty, or imposing parking rules that frustrate shoppers and drive them somewhere else.
For my part, I find that circling around in a parking structure without knowing whether there’s a space available is usually more trouble than it’s worth. Limiting street parking to less than two hours or forcing me to purchase a ticket at a machine would probably make me shop and eat downtown less frequently.
[i]”Would you be willing to pay $0.50 to park in the block adjacent to Ace Hardware for 30 minutes”[/i]
Here’s the deal… it is not so much the cost (within reason) as it is the convenience. For me, time is money. I only have so many hours available for shopping and for home projects that I need to shop for. If the parking and shopping situation takes me more time, but there are alternatives that take me less time, I will be attracted to the less time consuming of the two options.
I worked for two years in downtown Sacramento and the only parking lot that had capacity was Lot X (across Capital and across from Old Sacramento next to the Capital Bridge and I5). The monthly fee was $125, but I had to walk 8 blocks (15-20 minutes) to my job site. There were other closer lots (1-3 blocks away and a 5-7 minute walk) where the cost was $35-50/month more. I would have paid the $35-50 extra if I could have . Apparently there were enough people that agreed with me on this since the closer lots we full with a waiting list.
Just do the math… considering I would work 20 days a month, saving 12 minutes of a walking time equals 240 extra minutes (4 hours) per month. At my time billing/value rate paying another $50 per month for parking was/is chump change.
The problem though is that $50 per month is a very big deal for many people. This is where our egalitarian impulses prevent us from implementing useful market-based systems. For example, what if we reserved blocks of parking spaces for people willing to pay for them like Sacramento does? Parking dollars would flow to city coffers and those with the means could pay a premium for the extra convenience afforded them. How would that type of scenario play out in the City Of All Things Right and Relevant?
Whoa Mr Rifkin…
[quote]It’s a real shame that the activists in Davis Bicycles! have never fought this bogus argument from the Unitrans managers (namely Geoff Straw). My sense is that the Davis Bicycles! activists are in bed with Mr. Straw’s ideology.[/quote]
I assume you are being facetious (I hope so). Davis Bicycles! has a great deal on its plate. As I have noted in previous post comments, our very public engagement concerning the garage issue should not obscure the fact that a great deal of our work–and time–goes into school programs to support safe riding and safer routes to school. In these efforts we are now working closely with the Davis PD to support school rodeos. We have also been working on key safety issues such as the problem of green waste in bike lanes and street design that uses the best practices to encourage more people to bike. We promote BICYCLING of all kinds and that is where our efforts and time go.
We have never engaged Mr Straw or his staff in a discussion about bus transit issues. As a DB! member and as a member of the Bicycle Advisory Commission I have worked hard (and continue to work) on encouraging the City to partner with the University and groups such as DB! to do a rigorous “mode share study” to assess not only bicycle mode share (for which the City has a 25% of all trips goal), but the mode share of all forms of transportation in this city. My reasons are clear: without a proper mode share analysis we have no basis for setting policy goals related to transportation.
All this to say, DB! is not in bed with Mr Straw but would welcome Unitrans’ participation in a mode share study.
Robb Davis
RICH: [i]”It’s a real shame that the activists in Davis Bicycles! have never fought this bogus argument from the Unitrans managers (namely Geoff Straw).”[/i]
ROBB: [i]”We have never engaged Mr Straw or his staff in a discussion about bus transit issues.”[/i]
ROBB: [i]”I assume you are being facetious (I hope so).”[/i]
I am not being facetious. I am taking you at your word, Robb, that your group has “never engaged Mr Straw or his staff in a discussion about bus transit issues.”
In that the Unitrans ideology* is taking hundreds, perhaps thousands of kids who live off campus off of their bikes and placing them in buses that the City of Davis (and largely not the University) is paying for, I find it strange that you have “never engaged Mr Straw or his staff in a discussion about bus transit issues.”
*Why do I call it an ideology? Because it is based on an idea — that kids who ride the bus would drive cars and pay nearly $500 for parking but for the bus — which runs counter to common sense, common observation and life experience. This summer, the Enterprise columnist John Mott Smith summarized that ideology: “The more than 3 million (Unitrans) passengers a year represents a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and this is a thank you and shout out to neighbor Geoff Straw, general Manager of Unitrans, for the community service this bus line provides.” But this, of course, is bogus. A great percentage — probably a substantial majority — of those 3 million passengers would be walking or riding bikes or ride-sharing if they were not forced to buy a bus pass and if they had to pay $480 for a parking permit.
I am old enough to remember when nearly 100% of UCD undergrads rode a bike to school. Even those who lived far from campus — north of Covell along Alvarado, near Mace Boulevard in El Macero Vista, and along Lake Boulevard in Stonegate — rode to school every day, regardless of the weather. I think it is a great shame that Unitrans has subsequently taken so many kids off of bikes and Davis Bicycles, according to Robb’s words, has never fought against this.
Rich – Take me at my word. Though I must admit that I have not been at EVERY meeting ever held by DB!, this issue has not come up at any time I have been involved. DB! made a strong commitment from its founding to focus on bicycling. Though that may seem too narrow to some, we felt it was what we needed to do (we still feel that way). To deal with broader issues we willingly partner with others but our overwhelming focus is on bicycling.
[quote]I am old enough to remember when nearly 100% of UCD undergrads rode a bike to school. [/quote]Yes… I was one of them… even with a NM scholarship & my summer earnings, it was tough for my parents & I to afford room & board, books, etc., so a car wasn’t even on the radar. Much less the parking fees the University charge, even then.
To Rich Rifkin: Rather than address your points about Unitrans one by one, I’m just going to make a general statement, which is my personal view. Unitrans is one of the most unique and well run programs in the country, IMO. It serves many purposes, by employing only students to run it; provides a safe and convenient method for students to get to UCD without using a car, including junior and senior high students; allows both UCD students and citizens of Davis to use it, with senior citizens of Davis using it for free; and is the envy of many communities, especially locally. Ask Woodland, Winters and West Sac senior citizens in particular. Geoff Straw is one of the most remarkable managers of a one-of-a-kind program like no other.
I had 3 children graduate from UCD, and all three used Unitrans almost exclusively – after they had their bikes stolen numerous times, or tried to deal with the crazy cyclists on campus, and to avoid being arrested by a bicycle cop for some minor infraction (my youngest had to go to court alongside major criminals for failure to wear a bike helmet one time). One of my children worked her way through college as a Unitrans employee. I, for one, am very grateful for Unitrans, and the wonderful service it provides. Many thanks to Geoff Straw, who the city of Davis is very, very lucky to have running this outstanding service.
On this particular issue, Mr. Rifkin, we will have to agree to disagree:-)
“(my youngest had to go to court alongside major criminals for failure to wear a bike helmet one time).”
ERM, that’s so funny. My daughter got a ticket in Davis while on her bike for not making a full stop at a stop sign. She said it was like the movie “Men at Work” where they have the bicycle cops in shorts pull up behind her with the “ring, ring” sound. We jokingly chastised her for giving her real name when she received the ticket because you aren’t required to have ID while on a bike. She somehow forgot to pay the $50 ticket then next thing she knows she’s summoned to court for a $300 fine. She said “here I am in court, with all kinds of criminals, I have to go before the judge and explain why I was there and the judge just laughed”. He ended up cutting her ticket back down to $50.
Lessen learned.
“As we approached tonight’s Council hearing, the attacks on our data, our motives, and our integrity have heated up. Spreadsheets we shared outside our group were messed with and false conclusions sent to City staff attaching those spreadsheets with file names suggesting they came from Davis Bicycles! It is time to end this by letting everyone in town with a pencil and a calculator play with the numbers.”
Pointing out that the majority of the paired counts were during the summer months is not an attack, it’s an observation. It says nothing about your motives or your integrity. Steve, you appear overly sensitive about your motives and integrity. Taking someone’s spreadsheet, making some comments, and then yellow-highlighting the comments so that the reader can distinguish between the original work and the later comments, is not “messed with”, it’s commented on.
This is conspiracy paranoia run amok.
DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez, Chief Messer Wither aka Too Lazy Too Create Own Spreadsheet)
For those of you owning a direct historical perspective biking in this town, is it more or less safe today for the average biker? Or, do you see it as being about the same.
The reason I ask… When I bike to and from work downtown from West Davis, it feels quite a bit more dangerous IMO than driving or taking the bus. Several times I was saved from collision only by some very quick reflexes. These are the same reflexes hampered by the short attention span of youth, and being put on notice as I age.
I think there is alot more auto traffic today, and the percentage of bad drivers is also up there. I certain would feel a bit more secure knowing my son or daugher attending college was using a bus rather than riding a bike to get to class. Not because I would not trust my kid’s ability to ride, but more because of the amount of traffic combined with a higher number of poor drivers in this town.
[quote]The problem though is that $50 per month is a very big deal for many people. This is where our egalitarian impulses prevent us from implementing useful market-based systems.[/quote]
Jeff;
But we’re not talking about $50/month. My question was “would you feel it was a good deal to be able to pay fifty CENTS to park near Ace when you need to?” I believe it would be. And I believe that it also would be a good, market-based solution to the employee parking problem that would play even here in Davis. Nothing else has solved it. If we’re thinking about paying $14 million for a new parking structure it can’t be too expensive to pay 50 cents to park for half an hour, can it? Especially if you can even park for free less than three blocks away.
And to address the waitress who serves me lunch and then, literally, runs out to re-park her car returning to the restaurant only 7 minutes later to ask me if everything is fine with my meal; OK, she works hard for her tips and I don’t feel great about taking them with parking fees. But that would be her choice. And if there is free parking in a garage less than a 3.5 minute walk away, I feel fine, not like paid street parking is class warfare against the poor (if that was your point). In fact, we probably wouldn’t take her money because she’d walk from the structure when it is free to park there but not free on the street. And the paying customers (you and I) who are the the merchants’ lifeblood would find it easier to support the downtown establishments with our business rather than deciding to drive to Woodland, I suspect.
I have biked in Davis for 38 years and my perception is it’s less safe (i.e. there’s more risk) now because there are more people, more bikers and more cars. More of everything in largely the same space.
[quote]…the City of Davis (and largely not the University) is paying for…[/quote]
Mr. Rifkin;
What is the split between the City’s and the University’s shares of Unitrans’ operating budget?
Andrew T.
Good points.
I cannot speak for my left-leaning friends, but that has not stopped me from trying, so here I go again.
I was perplexed about this until I recognized that egalitarianism drives the liberal viewpoint more than does labor-versus-business. I think their issue has to do with the unfairness of firefighter compensation and benefits… especially when teachers are laid off and are under-paid (in their opinion).
Basically, the firefighters have achieved a too high economic status and in doing so they have entered the class war at the wrong end of the liberal agenda.
Conservatives and liberals are somewhat united, for different reasons, in their dislike of the firefighter pay and benefits levels. It is very interesting to me that even with this rare agreement between us polar opposite ideologies, these public sector employees still manage to maintain their gravy train.
I’m not sure if liberals are hypocrites for the reasons I point out; however, there certainly is a lot of irony in the fact that they voted in Jerry Brown and other very union-friendly politicians (including Not See Pelosky who is bought and paid for by unions even as she runs her winery without union labor), and now complain that some union employees are making too much.
Building another parking structure is not about the need for more parking spaces. This is obvious because Davis is building a parking structure when there is capacity in the other parking structures. The “need” for a parking structure is driven by the “need” for what is called “in-lieu” parking. This is parking capacity that is paid for by developers of nearby high-density projects “in-lieu” of their providing the parking on their own land. Parking structures are extremely expensive. The cost of an individual parking space created by a parking structure is an astronomical number. The loss to a developer by creating parking on their property along with their project is extremely expensive. The developer has to have open parking which prohibits structures above, or provide floors of parking, or dig a basement for parking. All of these options are a massive loss to the developer relative to being able to fully build out their property with revenue-generating space. Instead, the developer may pay in-lieu fees for the parking spaces their project will require under city zoning laws. The cost of X number of in-lieu parking spaces paid for by the developer for their required number of zoned parking spaces is almost always, if not always, a small fraction of the loss they would incur by including those spaces in their project. However, in order to use in-lieu parking, there has to be an inventory of unclaimed excess parking. Excess parking is not created from thin air, but from thick concrete. Owners of downtown lots may pressure the city to build parking structures because they allow in-lieu parking which allows the developer to fully build out their property thus realizing higher economic gain. The developer pays less, the city raises the capital and the city takes over a portion of the risk.
However, the actual behavior of people parking in downtown areas is that a high percentage will not go to parking structures and a high percentage will only go after circling many times nearer their destination. Therefore, the development will increase the parking challenges at street level, while the parking structure itself will remain far under capacity. This is because the parking space is available, but not desirable to many looking to park. This circles back to the original point. Parking structures are not about parking, they are about providing in-lieu parking spaces. Whether the spaces are occupied or not is not the primary purpose of that space, only that it is available for use. Thus, in-lieu parking policies create under-utilized parking structures. This is due to market forces. If in-lieu parking fees were structured at rates in line with the loss developers experience by having to provide parking on site, developers would provide parking on-site, or projects would only be built when they penciled out at market rates and developers were able to pay market rates for in-lieu parking. The argument may be made that reduced-rate in-lieu parking encourages densification of downtown and public funds may be used to that end if that is a city goal. As well, with parking for residences, in-lieu parking allows one to park a car off-site for longer trips if the resident tends to walk, bike, or use public transit. I am not an expert on in-lieu parking, so I may have some details incorrect and I welcome additional input on the subject. However, any discussion of downtown parking structures that does not include in-lieu parking completely misses the purpose, usage and economics of the proposed parking structure.
Alan – Thanks for this. I think one problem we have discussing the in-lieu parking point is there are many in this town that don’t see a need to give developers a break. However, you bring up another good point. Would a parking structure allow us to increase the density of redevelopment downtown? I think so for the reasons you mention… since parking requirements would tend to limit the size of the project, in-lieu parking would provide an alternative to make larger projects pencil out.
Can we see a day when people enjoy their drink or meal from a second story balcony above the boutique stores below?
[i]”Mr. Rifkin; What is the split between the City’s and the University’s shares of Unitrans’ operating budget?”[/i]
I honestly don’t know right now. I probably have that figure somewhere in my files, but I am not sure where. However, because the bus service is highly capital intensive, isolating the cost of the operating budget from the overall budget is beside the point. That is to say, most of the money Unitrans spends is buying those giant red buses and building its bus facilities and the infrastructure at its bus stops.
For what it’s worth … I just found an Excel spreadsheet given to me by the City following a public records request, which shows that in an average year, the City gives Unitrans [b]2,861,668.51. [/b]
I should be clear that most of that is our share of the gas tax money, and it has to go to public transportation. I have no problem at all giving all of it to Unitrans. I am not anti-Unitrans.
What I object to is that we give all that money to Unitrans and we don’t ask for direct bus routes to the downtown or a downtown hub station. UC Davis could still have its main hub at Hickey Gym. The buses could still pick up riders whose destination is the campus and drop them off there directly. My notion of using Unitrans to serve downtown Davis will not cause the ruin of Unitrans. It is largely just a slight adjustment in most of the current routes, so all Davis residents can get on a bus in their neighborhood and ride directly to a movie or restaurant or the Farmer’s Market. Is that so much to ask when we are paying almost $3 million a year in an average year?
I should note this … Woodland does not have its own bus system. Woodland gets about 75% of the gas tax money for public transportation that we in Davis get. What the Woodland City Council has done is to give that money to YoloBus, but they give it with strings attached.
They tell the operator of YoloBus (Veolia Transit, as it happens) that in exchange for all that money, we would like you to provide this route, that route, the other route, and so on from this point in Woodland to that point in Woodland. And Yolo Bus gladly obliges them.
As a result, Woodland has four local, extensive and winding routes inside Woodland and three more inter-city routes with YoloBus.
In Davis, we give a small amount to YoloBus, too. But it’s too small to make any demands. So we get no point-to-point service in Davis with YoloBus. Our only two routes are 42, the one which circles from Davis to Woodland to the Airport to downtown Sac to West Sac and back to Davis plus its reverse and the express runs, and 220, which goes to Vacaville by way of Winters. And that is good enough, in that we have Unitrans. We simply need Unitrans to make direct runs to downtown from all parts of Davis.
“… which shows that in an average year, the City gives Unitrans $2,861,668.51.”
Fixed.
“Taking someone’s spreadsheet, making some comments, and then yellow-highlighting the comments so that the reader can distinguish between the original work and the later comments, is not “messed with”, it’s commented on.”
Excuse me, Michael. But making some comments is not exactly what happened to our spreadsheet. It was significantly altered with a lot of new calculations that indicate parking utilization numbers from over 70% to almost 100% based on an “estimated occupancy rate” that come from no identifiable source and has nothing to do with our data. Then that was forwarded to City staff with “DB! Parking Garage Counts August 22 2011” as the file name. That is messing with our data. If someone wants to draw their own conclusions out of thin air they should make sure the source is identified in the data and in the file name and not set it up to pretend it came from Davis Bicycles! or from our data.
“This is conspiracy paranoia run amok.” is how our response was characterized. Once again, we have tried to have a civil conversation based on facts and numbers as we collected the data. The conclusion that inevitably comes from that data may not be popular with everyone, but it is a fact that we have a lot of excess unused capacity in the parking garages that are already sitting downtown. Name calling won’t change that.
Rich: The City give nearly $3 million per year to mostly take healthy students off their bikes? Rich, did I read you correctly?
As one of the few students here, I’d just like to throw in a couple of cents worth of thoughts…
1. We are entirely caught up with the wrong question. Instead of “should we build a parking garage (because we have redevelopment dollars that at one point seemed perilous)”, we should be asking, how can we best increase the quality of life for not only our downtown but our community as a whole in regards to mobility. Granted, that’s a far more complex question, but if we are investing $14 million, we probably should think about this in a broader context as a community. Is there really anybody who actually enjoys trying to find parking, whether it’s in a garage or not? What if we invested those dollars in developing additional infrastructure to support expanded Yolobus or Unitrans services? What if a parking garage allowed us to convert some of our surface parking lots into pocket parks, with picnic benches and additional food options (parking lot or Farmer’s Market, tough choice right?) There are thousands of additional ideas, bike sharing, new financing mechanisms for mobility, increased public space, etc., but we aren’t allowing ourselves to collaboratively think of these alternatives. Instead we’re just whining and bickering with each other. That’s no way to be happy.
2. Regarding the whole Unitrans commentary, which I hesitate to say anything because it is ridiculous to ridicule Unitrans, probably the best bus service I have ever enjoyed (not to mention the whole student jobs, and training aspect of it). Anyways, students still DO ride to UCD in large numbers (around 50%), there are just so many more students than their used to be that simply not everybody is going to ride a bike. You think a parking permit is expensive? So is replacing your stolen bike for the 3rd time, when you have severe doubts that you will ever ride it again after leaving Davis. If you look at the numbers (http://pubs.its.ucdavis.edu/publication_detail.php?id=1476), it’s the faculty and staff that are driving to campus, and that probably has to do with the even greater issue- the inability of people to live and work in Davis.
3. However, the idea of expanding Unitrans to serve the greater Davis community has always seemed to be a good idea- it’s just going to take a tremendous effort by the greater Davis community to do so. For better or worse, the system is designed to transport students to and from campus- that is what the undergrads pay for each year, and in return we get great service in this regard. Small attempts to serve the greater community (P/Q) line simply are not utilized enough to justify expansion, but are not expanded enough to encourage ridership. A catch 22. Not to mention that Unitrans has enough trouble as it is maintaining enough drivers for its routes, that an expansion would require a new workforce, which would somehow have to be done through the student gov’t, or Unitrans would have to change its model. There are definitely ways to do this, but saying Unitrans is against them on principle is ridiculous, and not helpful in anyways. Please don’t be an old curmudgeon. If you don’t have something nice to say (or useful), than please keep those thoughts in your diary.
3. As a last thought, it is sad to see such heated bickering, with clearly a lot of time invested in these comment sections. Imagine if we instead utilized all this energy together to think of ways to make it work for everybody. It is possible, but only if we try.
A very thoughtful comment, wpk2200. Thanks for posting. I hope you’ll continue to contribute here.
[quote]What I object to is that we give all that money to Unitrans and we don’t ask for direct bus routes to the downtown or a downtown hub station. UC Davis could still have its main hub at Hickey Gym. The buses could still pick up riders whose destination is the campus and drop them off there directly. My notion of using Unitrans to serve downtown Davis will not cause the ruin of Unitrans. It is largely just a slight adjustment in most of the current routes, so all Davis residents can get on a bus in their neighborhood and ride directly to a movie or restaurant or the Farmer’s Market. Is that so much to ask when we are paying almost $3 million a year in an average year? [/quote]
Have you ever been to a Unitrans meeting (I have) to make these suggestions, so that you can better understand why your ideas might be problematic? The comments of wpk2000 are very instructive, especially …
[quote]3. However, the idea of expanding Unitrans to serve the greater Davis community has always seemed to be a good idea- it’s just going to take a tremendous effort by the greater Davis community to do so. For better or worse, the system is designed to transport students to and from campus- that is what the undergrads pay for each year, and in return we get great service in this regard. Small attempts to serve the greater community (P/Q) line simply are not utilized enough to justify expansion, but are not expanded enough to encourage ridership. A catch 22. Not to mention that Unitrans has enough trouble as it is maintaining enough drivers for its routes, that an expansion would require a new workforce, which would somehow have to be done through the student gov’t, or Unitrans would have to change its model…[/quote]