I bought my first car, a second-hand Ambassador, when I was 30; since then, I have had a car most of the time. But just now I live within walking distance from a mall where I get everything from fruit to footwear. The distance gives me useful exercise, so I have dispensed with a car for now. But the mall itself has a car park which covers as much area as the mall; yet, when I went there on the morning of New Year’s day, attendants were turning away cars saying the car park was full.

Streets are necessary for cars, but streets came into existence much before the advent of cars, as soon in fact as humans decided to live in communities. They admitted animals to their communities, and chose some of the animals for carrying them. Some, such as sheep and reindeer, were hardy enough to live in the open; the rest were provided shelter at night, but were otherwise parked in the street. Thus streets came to serve the dual purpose of movement and parking. The main ones were made wide enough to permit movement as well as kerb parking.

How much parking is required depends on how many vehicles hang around at a time. A lot of them are parked all day in places where people go to work or shop; they would clutter up the streets if parking were freely allowed. The same thing could happen in multi-story residential areas at night. So there, municipal authorities require builders to provide sufficient off-street parking. It takes space, which costs money; so do built-up car parks. But as long as there is free parking on the streets, car parks cannot be a profitable business; a car park can never fetch such a high rent as an office or a residence. So private builders never provide for more than the minimum parking required by building regulations. The rest of the cars spill out on the streets; if they are not to clog up streets, municipalities have to build public car parks.
 
As countries got richer, car ownership also went up, and so did the demand for parking space. Public authorities have coped with it in various ways. In some places, parking attendants collect money. That becomes unaffordable when countries become richer; then they install parking meters. Beyond that, countries have gone in one of two directions. European countries and Japan have built urban transport systems of trains and buses, often subsidised, to make it unnecessary to drive one’s own car; North America has made property owners provide sufficient off-street parking.

That created enormous car parks which were very sparsely used, increased the distances cars had to drive, and increased traffic on the roads; in the US, car drivers spend a lot of time cruising just to find parking space. The more parking space is created, the greater the distances that have to be travelled, and the greater the traffic. That is why Donald Shoup, an economist who devoted himself to studying parking, came to the conclusion that it was wrong to make property owners provide off-street parking space. In his view, regulations requiring it should be abolished; instead, public authorities should charge such fees for street parking as would equate demand and supply, and pass on the collected fees to the neighbourhood residents. Market clearing parking fees would be very high and would yield considerable revenue; communities would be very happy to get the revenue from them, which could be used to improve the neighbourhoods. They would have to vary with demand; they would be higher during office or shopping time than during off hours.

In India, high parking fees should be accompanied by three things: a higher tax on car ownership, higher fuel taxes, and decontrol of public transport. Car owners are richer than the rest; in equity they should pay higher taxes. Public transport in any form – car, bus, minibus, SUV, motor cycle — should be allowed, and fares should be decontrolled. All public transport reduces the demand for private transport, and the more passengers are carried by public transport, the bigger the profit it makes per trip. So public transporters will charge nothing more than the traffic would bear; they should be allowed to charge what they like, provided they publicly declare the charges. If they can charge what they like, they will provide the level of convenience or luxury their passengers want; instead of going about in their own cars, people will have access to equally comfortable public transport, without the hassle of parking. The current policy of keeping bus and train fares low only leads to inadequate and uncomfortable transport, and puts off everyone who can afford his own car, cycle or motor cycle.

The author is Consultant Editor of Businessworld.

ashok(dot)desai(at)gmail(dot)com

(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 23-01-2012)