Translate[Archived] Question #26: What would be the cost and capacity to have all staff park in city and/or private lots?
Question:
What would be the cost and capacity to have all staff park in city and/or private lots? (Councilman Chapman)
Response:
Based on a survey of City employees in Old Town related to parking conditions around City Hall and the Courthouse, staff estimates that approximately 230 parking spaces would be required to accommodate City employees who currently park on the street in Old Town. The remaining City employees located in Old Town already park in City-owned or other privately-owned parking facilities or carpool or use public transportation.
There are currently 872 total parking spaces across seven (7) City-owned parking facilities. 370 of them accommodate public monthly parking accounts, including 139 spaces in the Courthouse Garage that are leased to the Washington Real Estate Investment Trust (WRIT) associated with their privately-owned/leased offices at the Courthouse complex. 128 parking spaces accommodate City employee monthly parking, and the remaining 374 parking spaces are daily, or transient, parking spaces.
If public monthly parking spaces were converted to City employee parking spaces, it would cost the City $40 per space per month in parking revenue (the difference between the $180 per month public monthly parking rate and the City employee subsidized parking rate of $140 per month), or $480 per space per year. Therefore, the conversion of 230 public monthly parking spaces would result in a loss of approximately $110,000 per year in parking revenue if the employee parking rate remains at $140 per month.
If daily parking spaces were converted to City employee monthly parking spaces, it would cost the City approximately $2,300 per space per year in annual parking revenue (the difference between the approximately $4,000 per space per year in annual daily parking revenue (based on two turns per day per space) and the $1,680 per space per year in annual revenue for City employee monthly parking spaces at the subsidized rate of $140 per month). Therefore, the conversion of 230 daily spaces would result in a loss of approximately $530,000 per year in parking revenue based on the current employee rate of $140 per month.
Possible impacts resulting from the conversion of public monthly spaces or daily spaces in City-owned parking facilities to City employee monthly parking spaces may include: (1) an increase in on-street parking by the public, and (2) a decrease in the number of available parking spaces for visitors, local businesses and private employees.
Alternatively, leasing parking spaces in privately-owned parking garages in Old Town near City Hall and the Courthouse would have significant upfront costs to the City (approximately $30,000 per month for 200 spaces, or $360,000 per year) without any guarantee that employees would fully utilize the parking spaces due to the cost and/or distance to walk or take the bus to their work locations. If none of the spaces were utilized by employees, the City’s cost would be $360,000 per year. If all of the spaces were utilized by employees paying $140/month, then the City’s annual costs would be $24,000 based on the current employee rate of $140 per month. Actual utilization would likely be somewhere in between based on utilization rates. Privately-owned parking garages that have capacity for City employee monthly parking are generally at least a mile away from City Hall and the Courthouse which would require staff to either walk or take public transportation or for the City to provide a shuttle option.
Based on previous employee surveys, employees who park on the street generally park there because they can find free spaces; these employees are highly likely to be unwilling to pay the additional cost of paid employee parking no matter where it is (i.e. City-owned garages or private garages). In addition, many employees park on the street because it is more convenient to City Hall and the Courthouse; parking at Union Station or some other off-site location requires employees to utilize DASH or some other shuttle or trolley that some employees consider too inconvenient and too time consuming to be a viable option for getting to their work place. This behavior (low utilization of free employee parking due to off-site location) was observed when free employee parking was located at Jones Point and a City operated shuttle was made available. This behavior is also currently being observed at the free employee lot at Union Station (There are currently 85 spaces available at Union Station’s gravel lot). The implementation of the options above could either cost these employees money and/or be deemed inconvenient by the affected employees. However, the 139 employees currently on the waiting list for employee parking in the City-owned parking facilities would more than likely take advantage of additional paid parking options if offered, which would cost $67,000 (This is a revenue loss of $40 for each of the 139 privately held spaces per month) by converting 139 private spaces into employee monthly spaces or $320,000 from converting daily spaces to employee spaces.
These parking options will not completely resolve the employee parking issue since some of the employees that currently park on the street would not be willing to pay the subsidized parking rate and would continue to park on the street for free and move their car every few hours if required.