RALEIGH – If it pays for itself, it’s really none of my business.
That’s a useful rule for assessing much of what state or local government does, or at least tries to do. It comes to mind because I just finished reading a story in the Asheville Citizen Times about a debate on the city council regarding transportation assets.
By a 5-2 vote, the council authorized the construction of a new $21 million parking deck in downtown Asheville. The two dissenters, Brownie Newman and Holly Jones, argued that the city paid too much attention to accommodating motorists and not enough to those who might use transit, bike paths, or walkways instead of cars to get around town. “Parking should not be our transportation strategy,” Newman said. “We need to create some kind of local, multi-modal transportation funding source so we can also invest in a pedestrian environment and in transit to make that a more efficient tool for people who commute downtown to work.”
The problem here is agency. As the story explains, city parking decks are funded by fees and parking tickets. They do not receive operating subsidies from general taxpayers, and thus aren’t really subsidized by those who don’t drive much into downtown. When Newman says that “we can invest in a pedestrian environment and in transit,” what he apparently means is that motorists paying to park should have some of their fees go to cross-subsidize infrastructure used by citizens who pay little or nothing of the actual cost.
In my ideal world, cities wouldn’t even build parking decks. If municipal debt was rationally priced in the market – that is, if it was fully taxable – then there would really be no legitimate reason for cities to get involved in the business. Entrepreneurs would estimate the demand for parking, given the level of employment and business in an area, and then purchase sufficient land to pave for a paid lot. If local employers or retailers wanted to reduce the apparent price to motorists, so as to increase traffic into the area, they would band together to invest in lots or share the cost in some way. Unlike cars using city streets, which is difficult to price in any precise manner, a parked car either uses a particular parking space or it does not. Pricing the good is a straightforward process. Thus user pays is the right rule.
I realize that, for now, governments might continue to be in the parking business. But at least the user-pays rule remains applicable and workable for city-owned parking lots and garages. So if you want a “multi-modal transportation system” rather than one reliant on cars, just figure out a way for non-motorists to pay for what they use and you’ll get little argument from me.
Yeah, I know. Not gonna happen.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.