This video is sponsored by Brilliant.
Have you ever thought about how many people park
in one parking spot over the course of a day?
Or how many people stay longer than they should
and potentially get a parking ticket?
Believe it or not, the answer to these questions
can have a major impact on street design,
which is why we conducted a study to find out.
I say "we" because I hired a team of student assistants
to count the number of parked cars in these 40 spaces
in downtown San Louis Obispo.
Here's a roll call of all the students who helped me out.
Hi, I'm Sabrina.
Hello, I'm Tiffany.
Hi, my name is Isabelle.
Hi, I'm Hannah.
Hi, I'm Colin.
Thanks, team!
They each took a two hour shift
from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM on a Friday,
the entire length of time the city charges
for on street parking.
What did we find?
Well, first of all, the number of cars parking
in an on street space depends on how long people
are allowed to park there.
This isn't a big surprise.
We tracked parked cars in 10 spaces with a 10 hour limit.
On average, four to five cars parked
in each space over the 12 hour period.
Most of the spaces we tracked had a two-hour limit.
Those spaces, on average, hosted seven cars
over the course of the day.
Some counts were far higher, like for this spot here.
13 cars parked in that spot, which makes sense,
as the library was hosting its annual book sale
and it was busy all day.
We also tracked two spaces that had a 30 minute limit
and the average number of cars hosted per space was six,
one less than the average two hour spot.
Why?
Well, one of those spots had 11 cars parked in 12 hours.
The other spot had one car parked there all day.
12 hours of parking in a 30 minute spot.
That's a bold move.
But that car wasn't the only one overstaying their welcome.
While nobody overstayed in the 10 hour spaces,
34 cars in the two hour spaces did.
That's just over 15% of all cars parking in those spaces.
I don't know about you, but that's higher than I expected.
I do wanna give this study one big caveat.
We studied a few dozen spaces over one 12 hour period.
This is not a study worthy of a journal article
or even a city internal parking study,
and they do do those, by the way.
But this is a true account of what happened
in those 12 hours on a Friday night in San Luis Obispo
and we did notice that there were a significant number
of people who could have potentially
gotten a parking ticket.
Now, a couple of minutes ago, I mentioned
that these parking studies have something to do
with street design and city planning,
and I'll explain after the bike bell.
(bike bell rings)
Street space is a limited resource,
particularly in busy downtown areas.
Streets as narrow as 60 to 80 feet need
to accommodate the needs of drivers, cyclists, pedestrians,
delivery trucks, transit, and car parking.
Street design is a representation
of a community's transportation priorities.
Some cities wanna move cars through town as fast
as possible and design streets with lots of car lanes.
Others prioritize transit and have transit only lanes,
or entire transit only streets.
Each city is doing a form of cost benefit analysis.
Is it better to have parking, a bike lane, bus lane,
or more car lanes?
That's what this parking study is all about.
I wanted to understand how many people
actually use on street parking.
If it's less than, say, the number of people
who use a bike lane, maybe a bike lane
is a better use of that space.
Now, the parking survey we did didn't count people,
it counted cars.
We're gonna have to use a multiplier
to estimate the number of people who benefited
from those 40 spaces in the 12 hour period.
The easiest way is to simply assume
that there's only one person per car.
The vast majority of cars on the road
have exactly one occupant, the driver.
But some people do carpools, so the average occupancy used
by planners is somewhere between 1.25
and 1.7 occupants per vehicle.
Let's use 1.5 as a nice middle number.
If that's the case, about 417 people benefited
from those parking spaces in that 12 hour period.
Let's compare that to how many people drove, walked,
and biked and let's focus on Palm Street, right here.
On that street, an estimated 176 people
used those parking spaces.
According to a city traffic study, on average,
just over 4,000 cars pass through that segment,
as well as 1200 pedestrians and 78 bikes.
At face value, it looks like those parking spaces serve
more people than people on bikes.
It's a reasonably good use of space as the car lanes
and sidewalks are not over capacity.
But it's important to note here
that there are no bike lanes.
If the parking spaces were replaced by bike lanes,
more people would bike.
One study found that installing bike lanes
on a street increased the number of cyclists
by 75% in the first year.
This would mean that there would be 137 cyclists
on Palm Street, still less than the number
of people benefiting from those parking spaces.
But that's only within the first year.
And some protected bicycle lanes see double
or triple the number of cyclists,
which would put the number of cyclists
at or above the number of people
using parking on Palm Street.
But it's not that simple.
Drivers aren't the only ones who benefit
from on street parking.
Nearby businesses prefer having parking right
in front of their shops.
And when we drive, there's this expectation
that there will always be a relatively convenient place
for us to park.
And we get annoyed when this isn't the case.
Business owners don't want it to be a hassle
for customers to get to their store.
But is on-street parking actually better
for businesses than, say, a bike lane?
Maybe not.
One study of this street in Toronto
found no negative economic impacts associated
with removing 137 parking spaces and replacing them
with these bike lanes.
Monthly consumer spending and the number of customers served
both increased after the lanes were installed.
They proved this by surveying merchants and shoppers
before and after the street redesign, and by comparing it
to a comparable street that didn't remove parking.
Another study of a corridor in Seattle found sales increased
when a bike lane replaced on street parking.
I'm not cherry picking studies that agree with me either.
The most common impact of bike lanes on businesses
is positive, and the most rigorous studies
of bike lanes replacing parking are consistent.
But there's another group that doesn't wanna see
on street parking disappear, local governments.
Parking revenue is not an insignificant source of revenue.
The city of Los Angeles makes $57 million a year
from its parking meters.
This is why many cities have been reluctant
to keep the COVID-era parklets that have been synonymous
with outdoor dining and urban areas.
That parking space is now earning money
for the restaurant and not the city government.
Some cities are now asking business owners to pay
for the spaces to help the city recoup its lost revenue.
Greedy, greedy government, right?
Well, there are actually some benefits
to charging for parking.
As we've established, street space is valuable,
and if you wanna store your private vehicle there,
you better be willing to pay up.
Free or low cost parking encourages drivers
to stay in one parking spot for a longer time
and leads to less available parking spots.
Those who get lucky enough to find a parking spot closer
to the destination benefit from this,
but everyone else will need to continue driving
around for a spot that is farther away.
This causes the unintended effect of cruising for parking,
where drivers end up using more gas, emitting more carbon,
and causing more traffic ingestion
while they search for a parking spot.
To avoid cruising for parking, a street parking vacancy
of 15% is needed, which is more easily done
when parking costs are higher.
You probably don't want to hear that,
but it's important to remember that, essentially,
all other aspects of car ownership aren't free either
and offering free or under priced parking
disproportionately shifts part of the cost
of car ownership to everyone,
regardless of if they own a car or not.
Even parking fines make sense as they discourage people
from staying too long in this space.
Overstays can reduce the number of customers
a nearby business can conveniently serve
and decreases the odds of you finding a space.
Overstays also reduce the total number
of people who can use the space throughout the day,
which again makes parking seem like a bad use
of road space compared to, say, a bike lane.
There are other ways to optimize on street parking
besides just eliminating it and replacing it
with a bike lane or charging higher fines and fees.
Cities could turn curb parking spaces
into pickup and drop off zones.
This would be a particularly useful option
if rideshare continues to be in demand,
or if autonomous vehicles become widespread in the future.
Some studies on this topic believe there could be
an 85% reduction in needed curb parking spaces
if autonomous vehicles and public transit
become main forms of transportation.
Another option would be to convert 10 hour
and two hour spaces to 30 minute spaces,
which could help delivery trucks.
In my video on that topic,
I pointed out that many drivers illegally park
in commercial loading zones,
forcing trucks to block the roadway.
But adding more 30 minute spots instead mean
that there are more options for delivery drivers
and cars alike, and it could increase parking turnover,
which increases the number of people using a parking space.
I'm not arguing that on street parking
is never the right use of street space,
but providing parking incentivizes driving,
which leads to more traffic and carbon emissions.
So cities need to think critically about when they offer
on street parking and be willing to evaluate alternatives.
Understanding the true cost
and benefits of on street parking is certainly more complex
than it appears on the surface and requires a skill set
that includes logic, critical thinking, and reasoning.
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all of which could help you redesign your local street.
But you could also learn calculus, chemistry,
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to a career that pays more than your earning now,
which means you'll be able to afford
those higher parking fees.
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If you wanna maximize your creative problem solving
and support this channel,
head over to brilliant.org/citybeautiful
to start learning today.
I'll post a link on screen too.
Thank you so much for your support.