Donald Shoup didn’t title his new book “Aparkalypse Now,” but he considered it–anything to get across his thesis that the U.S. has too much parking and it’s too cheap. He went for the oxymoron over the pun and called it The High Cost of Free Parking instead.
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Shoup teaches city planning at UCLA but thinks like an economist. He argues that just as there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there’s no such thing as a free parking space: the cost just gets added to the price tag of other things. If you get free parking at work, then something else has to be cut, most likely your paycheck. Your Jewel has free parking? Not really–you pay for it with every cucumber. This is known as bundling, and it’s arguably unfair (those who walk or bike to the store have to pay parking-enhanced prices for their cukes) and inefficient (people would drive less if they paid what it cost to park).
But who’s to say how much parking is an overdose? Here Shoup plays a stronger hand than most liberal reformers: if cities charge what parking actually costs, drivers will decide.
Donald Shoup
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