[Hipster Duck]

Not sure if this belongs in Transportation or Toronto issues...

I've been thinking about ways to reduce car reliance and use in Toronto and also to move away from mandating developers to build X number of parking spaces in a condo or office development.

Similar to cap and trade, but more easy to quantify, the system would involve the city designating a certain maximum (but no minimum) threshold for parking spaces in a new condo or office development that would be far lower than the status quo. Developers who feel the need to build more than this set quota would then buy the rights to more parking from developers who build less than the maximum spaces in the parking quota. The City would play no role except to set the quota and regulate the transaction; all the earnings would go directly to developers who choose to build less parking and sell their remaining rights. This is a measure that can be taken that reduces car use in the city without resorting to a government-imposed punitive action. Since it opens up a new way of legitimately earning money, it's not something that developers will balk at and, even if the city doesn't earn a red cent, it saves money in the long run from not having to build an infrastructure that caters to as many cars.

 

[kettal]

Not that I ever fully understood pollution cap-and-trade schemes... but wouldn't this kind of initiative applied to future developments take a generation or two to have an effect?

 

[Hipster Duck]

Well, of course the long-term effects to the city and society is reduced car use in the core and its effects would only take place once a sufficient number of new developments are built in this way. However, this sort of measure would benefit condo developers almost immediately because it releases them from the burden of providing extensive parking garages. If we look at the power dynamics of such a policy, we see that few "powerful" stakeholders get screwed and one of the most powerful ones - private real estate developers - actually stands to benefit in the short term.

It's the "carrot" approach to reducing car use, whereas something like reducing Jarvis to four lanes is more of a "stick".

 

[Chuck]

I'd put Jarvis in the same basket as a parking cap and trade scheme because in both cases, you're discouraging car use rather than encouraging alternatives. The city will only see decreased car usage once the TTC is brought up to par by providing additional subway lines, including downtown.

I didn't sell my car for streetcars and buses, nor because the Miller plate tax and $1.30/L gas prices came into effect around that time. I gave up my car because above all else, living next to a subway station meant that I could save money without sacrificing my mobility.

 

[valkoholic]

Interesting thought. This 'cap and trade' is kind of happening now with the large number of informal parking leases in the City. For example, a lot of the downtown apartment buildings have way too much parking, so they lease out the surplus to people who work in under-parked commercial buildings. The City does have informal caps on the amount of parking you can provide for employement uses (i.e. around one space per 10 employees for office use and no new stand-alone parking garages).

An intersting sidenote to this is the City's new by-law proposes a fairly large increase in the amount of parking required for new office buildings in the core. Given that limiting parking supply is one of the best single ways to discourage single-occupancy auto commuting, it's an odd move on their part. For example, a 1 million square foot office building today requires about 300 spaces (minimum). With the new by-law that will jump to 400 spaces. Go figure.

 

[mpd618]

The problem I see with such a system is that it encourages the entire overall maximum amount of parking to be built, at least somewhere. I don't see what's wrong with just removing minimum parking requirements and setting maximum ones. Developers who want to build more can't -- which is the point. Developers who choose to build less already have plenty of incentive in reduced construction and maintenance costs and/or the ability to sell or lease more space.

I can see that maybe, possibly, you could successfully set a lower maximum with this approach than without it. But I don't know whether you would actually see less parking built overall, since without trading not everyone would build to the maximum. I suspect the added complexity of this system is not worth it. Interesting idea, though.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Thanks for the feedback, valkoholic. It's interesting that the city would mandate greater parking requirements, not less, when the prevailing mood around city hall - or at least among downtown politicians - is to limit car use. It shows that there is very little coordination between city departments and also that we should not pay too much attention to political rhetoric that fails to achieve desired results.

What the city is currently doing - expending resources to raise parking requirements while expending resources to fight a supposed war on cars - reminds me of setting mouse traps around your house while leaving moudly cheese lying around kitchen tables.

 

[Hipster Duck]

The problem I see with such a system is that it encourages the entire overall maximum amount of parking to be built, at least somewhere. I don't see what's wrong with just removing minimum parking requirements and setting maximum ones. Developers who want to build more can't -- which is the point. Developers who choose to build less already have plenty of incentive in reduced construction and maintenance costs and/or the ability to sell or lease more space.

I can see that maybe, possibly, you could successfully set a lower maximum with this approach than without it. But I don't know whether you would actually see less parking built overall, since without trading not everyone would build to the maximum. I suspect the added complexity of this system is not worth it. Interesting idea, though.

The problem with mandating developers to limit parking with no concessions is that it will encounter a lot of political resistance; these sorts of tactics that are 100% punitive often end up dead because powerful developer or business interests successfully lobby against it. The whole point of a cap and trade is that developers who build less parking would be rewarded by selling their rights to others. Of course, we would set a parking quota that is far lower than the current requirement, and set the value of a parking space at a higher value than what it commands in our somewhat subsidized system.

 

[mpd618]

The problem with mandating developers to limit parking with no concessions is that it will encounter a lot of political resistance; these sorts of tactics that are 100% punitive often end up dead because powerful developer or business interests successfully lobby against it.

Well, this is why I'd say that removing minimum parking requirements is step one. When it is clear that some developers are willing and able to successfully build without much parking, it should be politically feasible to set maxima without any concessions to those who aren't willing to build with an urban mindset.

Now that I think about it, removing minimum requirements and setting maxima equal to the current minima in one go should be a reasonable carrot to many developers. Presumably many build strictly to the minimum, right? In which case they'd find benefit in being able to build less. As the market learns the benefits of building less parking, you can reduce the maxima.

 

[valkoholic]

Residential parking is a bit odd downtown these days. City by-law minimum is about 0.7 spaces per unit. The city requests developers build around 0.8 per unit (minimum) because they don't belive their own by-law. Developers frequently want to build less than 0.7 or 0.8 per unit with mixed results from City staff. Devlopers rarely want to build more than 0.9 per unit because parking is expensive and each level of parking takes a couple of months to build. For downtown I'd actually like to see a minimum of say 0.1 per unit (for carshare and handicap parking) with no maximum (it's just not required, nobody is building tons of residential parking). Let the market decide how much parking is built, my guess is you'd see around 0.5 per unit.

The new by-law is similar to the old, with a minimum of around 0.7 and a maximum of 0.9 per unit. It's not the most progressive document ever written. The City didn't assign it's brightest generals to this front of the war on the car.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^I suppose that downtown it's not so much of a problem and due to the high infrastructural cost of providing underground parking, and the low demand, developers would just rather not build it.

Cap and trade would probably be most effective for suburban office park locations with their huge surface lots.