Indiana

No Parking, Part One

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

I?m in the middle of a gentlemanly debate over the City of Indianapolis? proposed public-private partnership regarding the parking meters in downtown and Broadripple.  My friend opposes it.   He?s a downtown merchant, so I can understand where he?s coming from, but my fall back position is stuff has to be paid for.

The deal is pretty simple, in exchange for taking over the city parking meters, Dallas-based ACS will pay the city $35 million in cash and the city will collect $400 million in revenue over the next 50 years.  Parking would be modernized so that an individual could pay with a credit card and meter rates are also expected to increase.  Rates would go up to $1 in 2011 and $1.50 in 2012 for some meters. After that, rate increases would be based on inflation.

Critics have raised a number of objections, including opposition to privatization as well the increases in fees.  I’ll address the privatization part in a subsequent post, but lets address the fees for now.

Parking rates haven?t changed since the M*A*S*H and Sandford and Son were in their early years on network TV.  That means in 1974 parking was 75 cents an hour.  In 2010 terms parking should cost at least $3.25 when adjusted for inflation.   Revenue from the parking meters, by law, has to go for infrastructure repair.  So over the last 35 years, infrastructure costs have risen while one of the revenue streams to pay for them has stayed flat.  In addition,  the city collects about $ 4 million annually from the meters and after costs and overhead are taken out only $ 800,000 ends up going to  infrastructure.    Therefore that puts more pressure on the property taxpayer since the revenue for the upkeep would have to come from general funds.

As I told my friend, using that logic, the general property taxpayer is subsidizing the low parking rates of the downtown and Broadripple consumer.  So you have to ask yourself is it fair for someone who goes downtown for dinner and drinks to have part of their tab paid by someone who doesn?t?

And in an era of tax caps and reassessments and a general shift away from property taxes a way to pay for government, my question for critics is what plan do you bring to the table to as an alternative?   They brought no alternative to the Citizens Gas proposal so I really shouldn?t expect them to do the same here either.   It would be a nice change of pace, though, so I’ll gladly re-post reasonable alternatives

And the end of the day,  I have a hard time believing a quarter or 50 cents is going to stop someone from using a parking meter.  If you’re going downtown or to Broadripple, you’re probably going to spend at least $30 on your evening out.  And if 50 cents is going to make or break you, maybe you should stay home and get your finances in order.

As I mentioned earlier, I have another post coming regarding the privatization aspect of all this.   Meanwhile you can read Urbanophile’s criticism of the deal and the city’s response is below.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on September 11, 2010 (boomark / email).