LA Times recently spoke to Donald Shoup, "UCLA's parking guru" on how Los Angeles should be managing its parking meters and on parking politics as LA has more parking spaces than any other (down)town on the planet.
One of the problems, according to Shoup, is that LA is managing an extremely valuable resource without any use of a price system.
The three idea's Shoup comes up with are:
- Charge a fair market price for parking
- Use the revenue on public services
- Remove all parking requirements for (private) businesses
Also the price-difference between on- and off-street parking is way too high as are the parking fines. A good idea, according to Shoup, would be progressive fines so repeat violators feel the need to follow the rules and one-time offenders don't get charged so much.
Of course, Donald Shoup has more to say about 'parking management', so feel free to read the full article.
