5-1

A report to the Transportation Planning and Air Quality Divisions of the Broward County Department of Planning and Environmental Protection

Continued from 4-1

Creating the Future of Parking in Broward County (Recommendations)
We do not have to sit and wait for the future to arrive. The basic principle of The Center for Creating the Future, Inc., is that we can create our future by understanding what it holds in store for us and by acting now to prepare for it.

Broward County can begin to create the future of parking in a variety of ways which we will present as a menu of policy choices. Most of these choices can be immediately implemented, others have a longer time frame for implementation, whether because the problem is not yet severe enough or the technology, while foreseeable, is not yet available as a practical matter. The first choice, which we strongly reject, is to do nothing.

Doing nothing is a choice just as much as adopting one or more policy choices (Key Point 6). Doing nothing actually means choosing to have a wide variety of public and private decision makers respond on an ad hoc basis to each need or “crisis” as it arises. If the response is inadequate, people will adjust various ways and life will go on (see discussion above about market clearing).

The difficulty with this choice is that it is unnecessarily inefficient. We say unnecessarily because, as will be shown, parking can be improved without massive capital investment and long-term projects. Parking is not so complex a matter that the “invisible hand” of the market will produce a better result as would be the case where the scope of the problem exceeds the grasp of public policy. While parking is not as simple a matter as it appears to most people at first blush, neither does it require the resources needed to put people on the Moon (which, of course, we did).

Better data

Better decisions, public or private, individual or institutional, require better data. As mentioned at the beginning of this report, some parking data is available but changes occur so frequently that any given snapshot is of limited value.

Specific data is important for two uses: planning and consumer information.

Public or private parking decision makers should be able to access not only current parking data but to interact with that data with their own plans and marketing information so that we don’t go from not enough parking in a given situation to too much because three developers built 900 spaces each when there was a demonstrated need for only 1500 spaces.

Further, an accurate Parking Data Bank would become the basis for providing parking availability information to consumers. Initially, this could be done in the form of area parking maps and a web site showing parking locations. This could over time develop into a very sophisticated system – initially with an online or call-in parking availability service, later a radio format with parking information and eventually an interactive Global Positioning system (GPS). The Miami Dade Metropolitan Planning Organization is presently considering a full-time radio-based traffic information system. If accurate parking data were available, it could easily be added to this radio format.

Parking Information Network

To make such data useful, Broward County could create a Parking Information Network (PIN). This Network would, at a minimum, provide parking data to municipal and private parking developers. It could also provide parking availability information to consumers online and through tourist oriented brochures and, as need/demand increased, go to more sophisticated communication methods.

Local parking providers could also make this information available to tenants and customers. At the local level, it is also essential to provide effective, attractive and consistent parking signage for both drivers on the street and within parking structures and lots. Better information is an important first step to reducing parking stress (to say parking rage would be a bit much) and to reducing pollution emitted by parking space hunting. The importance of interior signs should not be minimized. Many parking structures and even surface lots we studied do not clearly show the driver where to go – or not go – and drivers can end up frustrated, wasting gas and generating unnecessary pollution.

Improving communication

A Parking Information Network would serve two very important purposes: to facilitate the most efficient use of existing parking resources, thereby reducing the need for excessive parking structures or lots; it could then become the platform for new consumer information technology as it is developed and needed.

The Downtown Fort Lauderdale Transportation Management Association (DFLTMA) is drafting a proposal (as of November 2001) to develop an inventory of parking spaces. This would be the first step for creating a Parking Information Network. The TMA is the ideal public-private partnership to implement the full PIN as it develops. We consider the network to be the foundation of creating the Future of Parking for Broward County.

Immediate Steps

In addition to the Parking Information Network, there are many specific steps that can be taken by either municipal or private parking facilities to improve the amount and accessibility of parking in Broward County.

With or without a Parking Information Network, municipalities and public and private parking facilities should provide more and better parking information in the form of maps, advertising and the internet. There are several dramatic examples of how careful coordination and better information can significantly improve parking conditions even under very adverse circumstances: the Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea Show, the Winterfest Boat Parade and the Las Olas Art Fairs. The Air and Sea Show and the Boat Parade have demonstrated how offsite parking can work, bringing hundreds of thousands of people to Fort Lauderdale beach from remote parking sites, most on buses but some even on foot. The Air and Sea Show and Boat Parade are, of course, once-a-year events and very strong attractions. Nonetheless, it shows what can be done and what people will do given good planning and information.

A Case Study: Las Olas Art Fair

The most recent Las Olas Art Fair was studied closely as another example of what can be done with intelligent effort. Like the Air and Sea Show, the circumstances are out of the ordinary: an art fair on a street which is a main route to the beach, running through residential areas sensitive to the impact of the traffic and parking generated by the Fair. In addition, some of the merchants on the street are ambivalent about the impact of the crowds on their particular businesses. All together, a difficult set of problems requiring good planning and great diplomacy. It was a very instructive case study.
To lessen the impact on the residential streets, fair attendees were not allowed access to the area. Instead, signs directed them to fair parking at the City Park Garage and free shuttle buses took them to Las Olas. The program was generally successful.

Lessons learned from the Las Olas Art Fair:
Properly informed and motivated people will accept remote parking;
Bigger and better signs would have helped (see graphics);
Coordinate with other area parking facilities;
If we do it again, it will work even better.
(collected from responses by observers and participants in the new parking arrangements associated with the Las Olas Art Fair.)

Remote Parking
Remote parking is one of the most frequently mentioned “solutions” to parking and congestion problems. Attempts have been made in Broward County using the Tri-Rail parking lot at Broward and I-95, and the City of Fort Lauderdale experimented using the Arts and Science District Garage for employees. Presently, a TMAX community bus route from State Road 7 and Oakland Park Boulevard to downtown Fort Lauderdale is operated by the Transportation Management Association (TMA).

This program could be called a success with 8 round trips (4 in the morning, 4 in the afternoon) with an average of 57 riders at rush hour each day. Until the crunch is severe, those solutions will work best which require the least change of behavior by consumers. (Key Point 7.)

Staggered Work Hours
Another example of an idea which requires behavioral changes is staggered work hours. There is no real reason in many work situations why people need to arrive and leave work between 8:00-8:30 a.m. and 5:00-5:30 p.m. A survey we conducted for this study shows some individuals are willing to do this (some may already be doing so without a program), but for many employers, the response is simply “we’ve never done it that way.”

Live-work arrangements
Live-work arrangements are another way to stagger hours – one need not work every hour at home – do your e-mail at home and then drive to work or to a meeting. Again, this is more a congestion than parking matter, but as more people do some, if not all, work at home, the demands at peak times will decline.

Price mechanisms
Price mechanisms can be an effective way to modify behavior. As we have shown in the market-clearing” discussion, incentives and disincentives of various kinds can make people change their behavior. Requiring all parking to be paid by the consumer – no “free” parking for public or private employees -- and raising the prices for parking would certainly reduce demand and both traffic and parking congestion. What sounds good to the planner or economist may not sound so good to the individual. Most Americans consider free parking from their employer virtually a God-given right. Students at the downtown campus of Florida Atlantic University and Broward Community College feel the same way. They are willing to have a portion of their student activity fees used to pay for parking, but do not want to pay directly.

Like off-site parking, increasing the direct cost to the consumer can be effective where there is sufficient motivation. People happily pay parking fees in New York in amounts that would not be tolerated in Broward County. Even within the county, boosting fees in downtown Fort Lauderdale could lead to chasing businesses to other locations in the County or in other counties, which would not only impact downtown businesses but encourage and exacerbate sprawl.
Other techniques, some low-tech which can be implemented immediately, and others which are higher-tech and higher cost, are available.

Valet Parking
Valet parking, while requiring higher personnel costs, can dramatically increase the capacity of any parking facility and is easily done in surface lots. It also reduces parking time and stress for the consumer. Most commonly found at restaurants as a consumer service, it can be much more widely applied. There are a few office buildings presently using it due to severe shortage of parking spaces. Valet parking does not work as well where everyone arrives or leaves at the same time as do most employees, but it does work well for in-and-out and client parking needs.

Robotic Parking
At the high-tech end (see graphic), robotic parking can also increase capacity and reduce consumer time and stress. A robotic facility uses a pallet storage system for each car, reducing pollution at the parking site and increasing the capacity of any given land footprint. Presently, one cannot build a robotic facility in Broward County since parking structure construction codes require ramps. Fort Lauderdale is presently modifying its ordinances to allow robotic parking facilities. Like valet parking, robotic parking is not effective where everyone arrives or leaves at the same time. However, office building developers should be encouraged to put a percentage of their parking into robotic parking for client parking.

Mixed Surface Lots
On surface lots where peak time demand is infrequent, for example churches, codes should allow/require a portion of the peak load parking to be on a mixed surface of hard material and grass. This accomplishes many positive environmental benefits. First, it is more attractive and, in our climate, possible the entire year. It naturally absorbs and filters storm water and it absorbs heat rather than holding it on the surface and reflecting it back into the air. The projected volumes of use for commercial surface lots should be analyzed to allow/require these surfaces.

Cross-easements
Another device for increasing the productivity of existing parking is cross-easements for adjacent uses where the times of use do not overlap. Some cities allow this now but much more could be done. In most areas, office building parking, structure and surface, is empty, while nearby restaurant and bar lots overflow. If the County establishes a Parking Information Network, these overlapping uses could be negotiated and increased, to everyone’s benefit.

Fine-tuning parking requirements
The City of Weston has modified its codes to allow fine-tuning of parking requirements based on the actual anticipated use of a commercial or industrial property, rather than using a one-size fits-all formula based on the square footage of the building. With today's technology a very large warehouse transshipping facility can operate with very few employees and few customers coming to the site requiring very little parking. An electronics assembly plant might require more than the formula amount. Allowing the parking requirements to be adjusted to the actual need benefits the property owner and the community by not wasting space with unnecessary asphalt.

Similarly, planning codes should recognize the differences created by demographics and economics in residential parking requirements. Presently, parking codes require apartments or condos to have X number of parking spaces per unit. Some might modify that based on the number of bedrooms per unit. None of this acknowledges that many upscale units in Broward County are second or third homes. Even if it is a primary residence for someone who has other residences or who travels a great deal, they are not parking there every day, every week. Generally, the larger and more expensive the unit, the more likely this is to be true. To cite a dramatic but by no means unique example, a very prominent professional athlete (who is not with a local team) owns a large unit in a prominent Fort Lauderdale beach condominium. He is not there every day; he does not drive to work every morning. Parking and traffic regulations should reflect these demographic variations.

Trips Rates
The "Trip Rates by Purpose" data sheet, dated July 7, 1998, is distributed by Broward County's Planning Department to assist developers and planners in predicting the number of trips that a new development could place on the neighboring road system. Under the residential category of "High Rise," each dwelling unit is predicted to create 0.74 trips per day from "home-based work," nearly 1 trip for "home-based shopping," two trips for "home-based other trips" and 0.42 "non-home-based trips."

Using these numbers, we could observe 100 high-rise units and expect 74 trips generated by home businesses, 96 trips for shopping, 207 other trips and 42 other trips that are not home-based. In total, there are 419 predicted trips. Yet, the unit owned by the professional athlete is outside this model. If many of his friends join him in the building as second-home owners, the 100 units might generate fewer than 200 trips per day.

As long as the increase in residential units continues to be at the high end, economically, many new owners will not be the full-time residents who enter traffic 50 weeks out of the year. The full-time population of Fort Lauderdale might not increase significantly, and certainly a lot less than the 40% growth anticipated in the entire county from 2000 to 2015.

In short, the demographics of the residents of a particular building ought to have some influence on how the Trip Rates schedule and parking requirements are interpreted.

Car sharing
There are a number of sophisticated car pooling or car sharing ideas in various stages of development. These eventually involve using technology to facilitate sharing of vehicles in several ways. Another way of looking at these concepts is to expand the car rental at an airport model to other situations and locations. For example, you could take public transportation to work but if you needed a car during the day, even on short notice, one would be available either in your building or in the area. Larger corporations and local governments presently use such arrangements (providing a vehicle pool for use by employees) but it would not be a difficult step to make it more widespread, reducing inbound and outbound rush-hour traffic as well as parking loads.

Taxicabs
Another very old "technology" exists for avoiding local trips in urban areas - taxicabs. In some very dense urban areas - New York City and Washington, D.C., for example -- they are widely used by many people who wouldn't dream of using their car to drive from place to place in the city. In Broward County, cabs are used largely by tourists, the disabled, and by those who cannot afford a car. Even with the free downtown TMAX Shuttle in place, people do not hesitate to drive from one side of the river to the other. It's very easy. Were it to get more difficult, taxis, even water taxis, might begin to be used for that purpose. Should that need arise, taxis can be encouraged by setting aside pick-up/drop-off spaces for them. There are a few but, by and large, there are no cabs cruising or waiting to be hailed. That we are not using cabs in that fashion is an indicator that during the day, it is easy to get around and park throughout our urban areas, even downtown Fort Lauderdale.

On-street parking

Until very recently, the trend of urban planning has been to remove as much on-street parking as possible. This was due to traffic engineers wanting to move cars more quickly. Wider lanes and fewer distractions -- people parking, opening doors, just being there -- allow greater speed. Also, many urban planners would like to keep cars away and out of sight. More recently, however, this conventional wisdom has been challenged. Fort Lauderdale has had spectacular results from its decision to return on-street parking to Las Olas Boulevard, proposed by Center founder Jack Latona when he served on the Fort Lauderdale City Commission. It significantly increased pedestrian activity and a sense of sophisticated urban ambience, as well as increased property values and parking revenue. The reasons for this overnight change are many: on-street parking increases parking capacity and the perception of increased parking availability. It provides a buffer for pedestrians and outdoor diners, an important consideration for a through street like Las Olas. It increases the amount of visual stimulation for pedestrians - people need constant visual change to keep them interested as they walk. Long, empty vistas discourage walking. Also, Americans, in particular, like to see where their car is, if possible.

On-street parking is being considered anew for low-density residential areas as well. Long considered a traffic hazard and a sign of low-income status (older homes, i.e. pre-1940, frequently did not have larger driveways and garages), on-street parking is now being seen as having some positive aspects. First, it slows down traffic, a good thing in residential areas. Second, as in commercial areas, it provides a buffer for pedestrians and visual interest. Third, it increases parking flexibility where the number of cars in a household increases, usually when the children begin to drive. Fort Lauderdale has examined various rules for parking in swales where there are no sidewalks: for example, no tires on the swale, two tires on the swale or all tires on the swale. There are arguments to be made for each format and their applicability varies from neighborhood to neighborhood, depending on the width of streets and depth of setbacks to the front of the house.

Parking Meters

On-street parking in commercial areas raises the issue of parking meters. Meters serve two purposes, one obvious - revenue - the other not so obvious but also important - turnover. Turnover means new visitors can have some expectation of finding a space. No turnover, probably the result of employees parking in front of the store, does not encourage people to stop and shop. While people can find parking meters and parking tickets an annoyance, they not only fill municipal coffers but serve the public as well by keeping alive at least the hope of achieving the American dream: an empty parking space right in front of my destination. It just won't be free. There is a large body of information and technology concerning the placement, design and monitoring of meters as well as an entire business of collecting parking tickets. We feel that is outside the scope of this study.

All of the above parking strategies can be implemented with existing low-tech methods. High-tech parking can be seen in our future as well, however.

Siemens Traffic Guidance Systems

As we have stated, changing people's behavior is difficult. Giving them the information they need to get to their destination, that is, a specific open parking space, can make their lives easier, reduce congestion, and improve our environment. As described above, Miami-Dade County is considering a full-time traffic information radio station, much like those now in service near large airports. Parking information could easily be made available over this same station. Siemens has developed a system that enables parking structures to measure incoming vehicles and to direct them to spaces according to size, thus increasing the capacity of the structure. They also have developed traffic guidance systems for traffic control which could be connected to the Parking Information Network and direct drivers to available parking. Other techniques for enhancing parking structures are available. Presently, it is possible to put traffic and parking information on the Internet. Soon, it will be possible to get real time information about available parking and reserve your space before you leave home! More and more cars are coming equipped with Global Positioning Systems (GPS) either as options or, in some cases, standard.

G P S

While presently a one-way system - you can find out where you are - soon it will be possible to create an interactive system. (Some vehicles also have a cell phone-based emergency system that might be adapted to a parking information system.)

This is the perfect example of creating the future: the technology exists or is foreseeable. A chip in each parking space will communicate to the Parking Information Network that it is empty; you will ask your GPS to identify a parking space closest to your destination; the screen will show you the exact location, not just the parking facility, but the space in it. You will then reserve the space by paying for it with a credit card and go directly to the space, saving time, reducing stress, and reducing pollution. As the cost of making this technology available comes down, the need/demand will increase and at that intersection, the future of parking will be created.

Bicycles

When discussing parking, most people think only of automobiles. However, bicycles should also be given some attention. Broward County and the Florida Department of Transportation have been quite aggressive in developing bike lanes so that increasingly one can bike, either for recreation or commuting, throughout much of the County. Less attention has been paid to safely and conveniently parking bicycles (or motor bikes of one sort of another). Municipalities can provide more parking for bikes and begin to require it from office and commercial developers. There are two good reasons for such a policy. First, there are people who prefer to ride their bikes and they are entitled to accommodation just as automobile drivers are. Second, the more bike riding is facilitated, the more of it will occur. This is good for both the bike riders and non-riders. Bikes are healthy for the rider, take up much less space on the road or for parking and do not pollute. (Even motor bikes take up less space and produce fewer pollutants.) In other parts of the world, bicycles are very important part of the transportation system, usually because they are so much cheaper. However, particularly given our climate, there is no reason that more travel in Broward County could not take place on bikes.

Like walking, riding a bike necessitates dressing differently than most business people presently do. We need to get away from suits, ties, high heels and panty hose as the business person's uniform. In addition to reducing our traffic and parking burdens, this would also enable us to set our office thermostats higher, saving energy and reducing pollution. Further, we would then require less cooling as we drive home and after we arrive there.

Most traffic-policy reduction programs involve getting people out of their cars more - that will not happen in South Florida until we "dress light." (Key Point 8.)