Early on, there were some pretty vocal naysayers that said the Phoenix light rail boondoggle was too big of a gamble. Today, as the METRO light rail ridership numbers continue to exceed expectations, METRO seems to be a pretty sure bet.
From the looks of the recent September light rail boardings, they we not far off from the April 2010 numbers that were the largest on record. Nearly two years after the supposed “Disneyland Effect” the popularity of the Phoenix light rail system appears to be doing pretty well.
One of the ace’s that METRO has up their sleeve is the huge number of ASU students riding the light rail to and from campus. The Park and Ride lot at McClintock and Apache has approximately 300 parking spaces and is VERY popular with many riders. The fact that it offers covered parking certainly helps attract people, but the proximity to ASU is likely a huge factor as well.
I noticed this “LOT FULL” sign at McClintock last week but was able to sneak into a spot on the third level of the parking garage. I bet this sign continues to get a lot of play in the future…
If a parking lot ever gets full, it means the price is too low for that particular time of day and day of the week. And therefore, whoever owns the parking lot (us, in this case) is losing money from both parking revenue and customers.
Mismanaged parking isn’t such a good thing.
Since all of the park and ride lots are free morning, noon and night, I guess you could say they are losing some potential revenue. I have a feeling that charging for the lots would keep many of the recreational riders in their cars.
Thanks so much for stopping by, I bet this topic could make a really good blog post. 🙂
If ridership is the main goal, then charging for parking when it’s easy to find a space would be as self-defeating as not charging for parking when it’s difficult to find a space.
Nobel Prize laureate William Vickrey argues that the price should be set on the basis of clearing the market. See item 8 at: http://www.vtpi.org/vickrey.htm
Dr. Donald Shoup of UCLA says the price should be set to achieve a target utilization of 85%: http://www.streetfilms.org/dr-shoup-parking-guru/
To summarize, the price of parking should be raised when it’s difficult to find a space, and lowered when it’s easy to find a space. This solves a number of problems as Dr. Shoup explains.