It is practical for Decatur to help people who live near busy commercial districts by banning non-resident parking on certain residential streets. I just want the city to price exclusive parking rights fairly.
The city is proposing charging residents on busy streets $25/year for exclusive rights to park on a street near their home. Is that a fair price?
Let’s compare $25 for a year of parking to what Decatur charges for the private use of other public spaces.
Reserving a public tennis court in Decatur costs $5 per hour. All-day admission to a swimming pool costs $6. All-day rental of the picnic pavilion at Oakhurst Park costs $180.
- Picnics: $180
- Swimming: $6
- Tennis: $5
- Car: $.068
Is it fair or reasonable to charge a city resident 73x more to play tennis on a public tennis court than a resident is charged to leave a private vehicle on a public right of way? Two of the six pillars of Decatur’s Destination 2030 plan are “Climate Action” and “Safe Mobility”? Does charging less than 7 cents per day to park support either of those pillars?
Another method of determining a fair price would be to consider property taxes. My back-of-the-envelope match suggests 150 square feet (roughly the amount of space a Kia Telluride takes up when parked on the street) taxed at the city’s millage rate would be about $283/year. That’s 11x what the city is proposing charging for parking.
If you prefer an apples-to-apples, or parking-to-parking comparison, the cheapest parking deck in Decatur I can think of is the $6/day courthouse deck. A year of weekday parking there at $6/day is $1,560. If you think that’s a lot, I paid $1.35 the other day for 30 minutes of metered parking.
Am I suggesting a parking permit should cost $65,700, the annualized price of a picnic table in Oakhurst Park? No. That would be absurd. But less absurd than giving away a public resource for a tiny fraction of its value, and in opposition to our stated climate and mobility goals.
Charge a fair price for parking and use the money on projects that reduce Decatur’s car dependency. Fewer of us would need to park on the street to go to Taqueria Del Sol if there were protected bike/scooter paths leading in and out of downtown from our neighborhoods.
I’m not anti-car. I own 3 of them. I just don’t think it’s anyone’s duty to subsidize my car ownership, or vice versa.
