Local Color
I noticed two things while driving around my local area this holiday weekend. The first was funny. The second made me think that economics should never take a holiday. First, the funny:
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| From CGG |
It's worth noting that the costume (perhaps along with organ donations) would be severely compromised if New Hampshire had a mandatory helmet law.
Second, my otherwise delightfully governed town has this practice of putting bags over the parking meters around the holiday shopping season. I associate it with the downtown merchants, since the meters north of downtown (say, near my office) remain operational. I can't figure this one out.
- If you believe that the meters are there to regulate access to the town's scarce resource of parking spaces, then you need that regulation even more, not less, during the busy holiday season.
- If you believe that the meters are there to raise money for the town, then your best opportunity to get that money is when you know demand will be high, like during the busy holiday season.
Presumably, the reason the town does this is to accommodate a request from the downtown merchants. But why do they perceive this to be in their self-interest? Why does "free (but scarce) parking" attract people to drive to town? Wouldn't the better marketing approach be "still cheap but available parking," given that the cost of the parking (about $1 an hour) is still small relative to the cost of whatever the visitors are going to buy?
If it were me, I'd raise the fees during the holiday season (and lower some other local tax). Yet another reason why I will never be town manager ...
parking regulation - Chicago
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/10/daley-cutting-240-city-jobs.html
Daley considering tax hikes on parking, ballgame tickets
October 10, 2008 at 4:04 PM | Comments (4)
Mayor Richard Daley is considering increased taxes on downtown parking and tickets to ballgames and live shows, more red light cameras to catch traffic scofflaws as he tries to balance an out-of-whack city budget, said an alderman briefed on the ideas Friday.
You can't figure it out
You can't figure it out because you don't know the facts.
Two groups compete for downtown parking: people who work downtown and people who have business downtown (including shoppers). The workers arrive at 8 or 8:30 and stay all day. If parking on the street were free, they would take all the spaces. So the town puts in 2-hour meters to keep the workers' cars off the streets. The time is 2 hours, not because that's what you need to keep turn-over up for the people with business, but because you need to make it inconvenient for workers to come out and feed the meter. If Hanover is like most towns of similar size, there are open metered spaces almost all the time, because the workers' cars are forced into garages.
Even though the meters are there to preserve the spaces for them, most people who come downtown for business don't like them - not because of the cost, but because of parking tickets. People who park on the street a few times a week get used to watching the time, but even they occasionally overstay and get a ticket. People who rarely come downtown worry incesssantly about tickets the whole time they're parked. Not a good mindset for Christmas shopping. And when they do get a ticket - 30 bucks for twenty minutes! - they're very, very angry, and they tell everyone they know that they are never, ever going to go shopping downtown again for as long as they live. Not good publicity for the merchants.
The Christmas moratorium is to ease the minds of these rare downtown parkers, to encourage them to browse the cute little stores without glancing at their watches every ten seconds, and to prevent them from telling everyone at the elementary school pageant about their horrible experience with the meter maid downtown. It has no effect on the availability of parking because most of these shoppers don't stay more than 2 hours anyway, and the two-week moratorium doesn't bring the workers' cars back onto the street because they've already paid for their monthly garage parking stickers.
So you see, the town mothers and fathers do know what they're doing. And you would have known too, if you'd asked them.
The workers arrive at 8 or
The workers arrive at 8 or 8:30 and stay all day. If parking on the street were free, they would take all the spaces
So during the holiday season, they make parking on the street free so that the workers will take all the spaces before the shoppers show up?
I don't think you've thought this through.
Workers vs Shoppers
That is an interesting tradeoff and is likely the reason why parking spaces in downtown are metered. However, regarding the covering of meters during the holiday season, I don't think it is relevant in Hanover (even if it is relevant in other similar towns). Here are my reasons:
First, in Hanover, monthly parking for downtown workers appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Most use either of two options: pay to park on a daily basis in a 10-hour lot close to downtown or park for free in a college/town overflow lot that is much farther from downtown. In both cases, the lots are farther from downtown than the covered meters, and so there would be nothing to stop them (perhaps outside of a request from their employers) from occupying the spaces with the covered meters.
Second, and this is probably the result of the first reason, the meters are covered on the weekends, not the weekdays. A shopper's competitor for a parking space on the weekend is more likely to be another shopper rather than a worker.
So I do think the main consideration is how the downtown merchants want to deal with their customers. Thanks for your comments, and I will look to follow up with the town directly.
Neil, you said: "so during
Neil, you said: "so during the holiday season, they make parking on the street free so that the workers will take all the spaces before the shoppers show up?
I don't think you've thought this through."
But I wrote: "the two-week moratorium doesn't bring the workers' cars back onto the street because they've already paid for their monthly garage parking stickers."
Try reading next time.
Competing with Walmart
Our local downtown has no meters. No paying for parking, ever.
Target and Walmart have massive parking lots and never charge for parking, and that means not ever having to open your purse and scrape for dimes and quarters when it's 12 below zero. And there's no watching the time or worrying about parking tickets.
Downtown merchants have to compete with the big box malls, so it makes sense to cover the meters (or eliminate them completely, as has been done here).
Do employees compete for those spaces? NO. Merchants keep their cars (and employees cars) off the street parking. Most provide parking behind the store or elsewhere. They know what is in their best interest, and they are self-policing when it comes to keeping their cars and those of employees out of the prime customer parking spaces. This is true even at the Walmart. Show up early and check out where employees are allowed to park . . . usually in a side lot or out in the hinterlands. It's part of the job requirements, and they take it seriously. If you've ever been a retail employee you know the drill.
Does anyone go to Hanover for
Does anyone go to Hanover for the shopping? I can't imagine they do -- when I was there, all you could see was students, and we couldn't afford to buy anything in town.
Usually comes from the local merchants's pockets
Directly, instead of indirectly.
Because the last shopper you want to deal with during the peak season is one who just got a $XX parking ticket because she spent too long in your shop--her fifth of the morning; you saw bags from the other four--and your checkout line took five minutes longer than she expected.
People who spend time =comfortably= in a shop spend more; people who are worried about the meters won't be relaxed. If we assume the common cant that 50% of all store revenues are created in December...
Agree with Ken
True.
If you've ever been shopping in a metered town, you're on a clear schedule.