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<br /> 23 <br /> <br />Case Study #1: Downtown Pasadena, California <br />During the 1970s Old Pasadena’s downtown had become run-down, with many derelict and abandoned <br />buildings and few customers, in part due to the limited parking available to customers. Curb parking was <br />restricted to two-hour duration but many employees simply parked in the most convenient, on-street <br />spaces and moved their vehicles several times each day. The city proposed pricing on-street parking as a <br />way to increase turnover and make parking available to customers. Many local merchants originally <br />opposed the idea. As a compromise, city officials agreed to dedicate all revenues to public improvements <br />that make the downtown more attractive. A Parking Meter Zone (PMZ) was established within which <br />parking was priced and revenues were invested. <br />This approach of connecting parking revenues directly to added public services and keeping it under local <br />control helped guarantee the program’s success. With this proviso, the merchants agreed to the proposal. <br />They began to see parking meters as a way to fund the projects and services that directly benefit their <br />customers and businesses. The city formed a PMZ advisory board consisting of business and property <br />owners, which recommended parking policies and set spending priorities for the meter revenues. <br />Investments included new street furniture and trees, more police patrols, better street lighting, more <br />street and sidewalk cleaning, pedestrian improvements, and marketing (including production of maps <br />showing local attractions and parking facilities). To highlight these benefits to motorists, each parking <br />meter has a small sticker which reads “Your Meter Money Will Make A Difference: Signage, Lighting, <br />Benches, Paving.” <br />This created a ‘virtuous cycle’ in which parking revenue funded community improvements that attracted <br />more visitors, which increased the parking revenue, allowing further improvements. This resulted in <br />extensive redevelopment of buildings, new businesses and residential development. Parking is no longer a <br />problem for customers, who can almost always find a convenient space. Local sales tax revenues have <br />increased far faster than in other shopping districts with lower parking rates, and nearby malls that offer <br />free customer parking. This indicates that charging market rate parking (i.e., prices that result in 85-90% <br />peak-period utilization rates) with revenues dedicated to local improvements can be an effective way to <br />support urban redevelopment. <br /> “Old Pasadena is now a place where everyone wants to be, rather than merely another place where <br />everyone can park free.” – Kolozsvari and Shoup <br />Source: adapted from Victoria Transport Policy Institute – Online TDM Encyclopedia http://www.vtpi.org/ <br />tdm/tdm72.htm. VTPI was in turn quoting from this article: Douglas Kolozsvari and Donald Shoup, ‘Turning Small <br />Change Into Big Changes’, in Access, No. 23 (Fall 2003) pp. 2-7 – University of California Transportation Center, <br />www.uctc.net/access/access23lite.pdf, <br />