If the City of Sacramento General Plan 2040 update is approved, with its very weak language about parking management, it is almost guaranteed that the objectives of the entire plan will fail, because parking is such a key aspect of how our transportation system and built environment look and function. Parking must be reformed, and the reform must be transformative and immediate. Vague language about what might happen in the future, in the 16 years of the plan, is pretty much a guarantee that not much of anything will happen. The city has strongly resisted proactively managing parking, and the General Plan would continue this resistance. [Since I refer to the Mobility Element of the General Plan so much, I have extracted those 30 pages here. However, to really understand how a lack of parking reform will harm everything else, you will have to refer to the rest of the plan.]

The goals and policies Mobility element is the place where most language about parking resides. Curb management, items M-2.10 through M-2.13 (page 8-17), and Parking Management M-2.14 through M-2.19 (pages 8-17 to 8-18) are worth a read. I have previously written about M-2.17 Parking Management Strategy. This item says that the city will ‘continue’ its parking management strategy. The city has no parking management strategy, at least none ever shared with the public. So ‘continue’ means it is likely that nothing will change. The most important words in the item, however, are ‘could include’. Not will include, not will include on a deadline, but ‘could’. Can you imaging any more wishy-washy wording?

Item M-2.13 of Curb Management says: “Curb and Mobility Use Data. The City may implement technologies for inventory and curb usage data to monitor the effectiveness of curbside management guidelines and provide evidence to support or make changes to curb space designations and/or management strategies.” Item M-2.18 of Parking Management says: “Technology to Optimize Parking Utilization. The City shall invest in new technologies that facilitate the efficient management and turnover of parking supply, including solutions that facilitate payments and provide real-time information on the location of available spaces in City on-street and off-street parking inventory.” The city is in the process of repaving six streets in the central city. Did the city put in sensors to determine if spots were occupied, which would allow them to implement the technology and policies to ensure open spaces on every block? No, they did not.

Item M-2.11 of Curb Management says: “Passenger Pick-Up/Drop-Off. The City shall plan and price accordingly passenger pick-up/drop-off locations within the public right-of-way for transit, autonomous vehicles, transportation network companies, and micro-transit to limit traffic disruptions, congestion and increase safety by identifying and designating specific locations for safer pick-ups and drop-offs.” Has the city designated any of the newly created parking spots along the separated bikeways on 21st St, 19th St, P St and Q St as drop-off/pick-up? No, they have not.

Item M-2.12 of Curb Management says: “Innovative Mobility Solutions and Curb of the Future. The City shall establish and maintain standards for prioritizing the use of the curb and shall pilot new projects and adopt new technology to facilitate mobile solutions of the future.” It might be assumed that this item is about managing delivery vehicles, though the phrase ‘delivery vehicles’ only occurs once in the entire document (page 8-15), and not in any goals or policies. The city’s current policy is to ignore the illegal parking and blocking of bike facilities by delivery vehicles. I have never seen a delivery vehicle driver ticketed, no matter what hazard they have created for other users of the roadway. Nothing in the General Plan indicates that this will change.

Item M-2.19 of Parking Management says: “Optimizing Residential Utilization. The City shall update the Residential Permit Parking Program to ensure that any request for the issuance of residential permits shall be considered only after a determination that priority was first given to the use or availability of existing onsite parking for single-unit and duplex-dwellings residences such as garages, carports, and driveway space for personal vehicles to increase the availability of on-street parking.” Sounds good, but what it doesn’t say is more important. It does not say that all future parking will be unbundled (so that people who don’t own vehicles are not subsidizing those who do), and all existing parking will be unbundled over time. Studies in many different cities indicate that provided on-site parking increases the cost of condos and the price of rent by 10-35%. It does not say that residential parking permits for the street will be charged at market rates. Below market rate residential permits are a subsidy to vehicle owners which all taxpayers pay for.

I could go on about how weak the Curb Management and Parking Management sections are, and about how much they don’t even mention, that any real parking management plan would address, but on to the main topic: how lack of serious parking reform will kill off the rest of the General Plan.

Yes, I am currently reading Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains The World, by Henry Graber. The book does a good job of explaining how a dedication to free and easily available parking has killed off our cities, but there is nothing here that I was not already aware of. Anyone who follows parking is all too aware of the damage our addiction to parking does. One of Graber’s arguments is that our unsafe and unsustainable transportation network did not create the need for almost unlimited parking, but rather the desire for almost unlimited parking has driven the creation of an unsafe and unsustainable transportation network, and sprawl development pattern.

A second reference point is that I live in the central city of Sacramento. The midtown area, in particular, but even downtown to a lesser degree, has blossomed since I moved here. There is new housing popping up everywhere, from single lot duplexes to ADUs to large developments. Most retail businesses are thriving because there are an increasing number of people who live in the central city, and who walk and bicycle to businesses. Sure, there are issues: too little of the housing is affordable, so many residents are either people just hanging on, or higher income people who have moved from the suburbs or Bay Area seeking a vibrant place. Why has this blossoming taken place? I believe the number one reason is that parking requirements (mandates) in the central city were removed about ten years ago. It is not that this new housing is being built without parking, but rather, with much less parking than was formerly required. The city, under the General Plan, proposes removing parking mandates around light rail stations, but almost nowhere else. Elsewhere, they will remain, for now, perhaps forever. Essentially, the city is denying the remainder of the city the opportunity to blossom.

The General Plan has a section on ‘Incentivizing Infill’ (pages 3-27 to 3-28), with five admirable goals and policies. But it won’t work unless parking is reformed.

Parking Reform

Necessary parking reform includes details beyond the scope of this post. You can search for previous posts that are mostly about parking, but much of what I write includes concerns about parking. The city is proposing in the General Plan 1) a much simplified zoning map and plan; 2) a minimum floor-area-ratio (FAR) of 1.0, and increases in many some zones; and 3) an overall emphasis throughout the plan in shifting from the existing pattern of greenfield development at the edges to infill development in the center. However:

1. Unless parking is reformed, so that parking can be removed from streets where this pavement is needed for higher uses such as bicycle facilities, bus lanes, wider sidewalks, and sidewalk buffers for trees, it will be a major fight with drivers over every lost parking spot. I am in no way opposed to on-street parking, as it has a traffic calming effect and meets a real need in mixed use areas, but when there is a higher use, parking is always a lower use.
2. Unless parking is reformed, developments proposed in areas allowing a higher FAR will always be opposed by NIMBY neighbors, who are concerned about the loss of ‘their’ parking spot, and underneath, are most concerned about lower income and people of color being allowed into their neighborhood. Unless the General Plan and city policy states that parking concerns will not be used to block or delay developments that otherwise comply with city standards, every project will be fought. Most developments do eventually get approved, usually with reduced housing and increased parking, but it is the delay created by and intended by NIMBYs that kills off many otherwise viable projects.
3. Unless parking is reformed, with vast areas of the city offering free parking and even denser areas offering below-market-rate parking, will be subsidized by people living in denser environments and people without motor vehicles. It costs money to build and maintain parking areas on streets, as well as to administer parking. Free areas are subsidized by the rest of us. The solution is to charge for parking everywhere in the city. Residential permits should reflect the cost of providing curb parking in neighborhoods. Of course it is impractical with current technology to charge per spot in lower demand areas, we would not be installing parking meters everywhere, but we must recover actual costs.
4. Unless parking is reformed, there will continue to be a demand for parking garages to be built, especially where there is a perceived shortage of parking. Curb parking costs roughly $10K per spot, while structured (garage or parking deck) costs roughly $40K per spot, and upwards of $100K for underground parking. Why would the city, or any private entity, build structured parking when street parking is so much less expensive, for both the the city and the user? Under pandemic work from home, parking garages in the central city are mostly empty most of the time, including city garages, state garages, and private garages. I don’t know to what degree that will change over time, but if the current pattern continues, we need fewer garages, not more.
5. Unless parking is reformed, we will continue to have parking lots on some of the most valuable real estate in the city, in the central city. Surface parking lots are the lowest possible value land use, even worse than empty parcels because at least the empty parcels are not generating pollution and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). In part, property taxes must be reformed so as to assess property at the value of what the parking lot erased, but this requires county and perhaps state action. However, the city can charge high fees and require special use permits for this unproductive land use, and should.
6. Unless parking is reformed, adaptive reuse of historical buildings will be slowed or stopped. The Historic and Cultural Resources Element, which promotes protection of historic buildings and patterns, does not mention parking once. Yet neighborhood enforced parking requirements often kill off adaptive reuse. Should we be tearing down one historic building in order to allow parking for another historic building? No.
7. Unless parking is reformed, the city will continue to have ‘executive’ office parks surrounding by seas of free parking. Many of these office parks are essentially empty now, and either candidates for reuse or teardown. The city should develop ordinances that prohibit building management and employers from providing free parking to employees. The city should also report instances of failure to offer parking pay-out (reimbursement for people who do not drive to work) to the proper state and federal authorities.
8. Unless parking is reformed, the goals and policies in the Environmental Resources and Constrains Element cannot be met. The city wants to reduce water pollution from non-point source runoff, yet doesn’t mention that parking lots are a primary source of such pollution. The city wants to increase tree canopy, particularly in areas without sufficient canopy (the disinvested neighborhoods, primarily), but doesn’t mention that parking is taking the space that could otherwise be used to plant trees in the majority of the city that was built without sidewalk buffers. The plan does at least recognize that parking lot shading is important. In the Air Quality section, the plan fails to note (though it is elsewhere) that transportation is 57% of carbon emissions and the majority of other air pollutants, and that parking induces driving.

I could go on, but I’m getting depressed just writing this list. If you find the time to review parts of the plan for yourself, you will find many other instances where parking and transportation could have been addressed, but where not.

The city will continue to allow comments on the General Plan draft update through sometime in August. There are two city council meetings that will address the plan, August 8 and 15 (tentative). The plan will then be revised and brought back to council sometime in 2024.