In this episode Professor Stephen Goldsmith interviews Peter Little, executive director of the Baltimore Parking Authority about his work on demand-based parking rates.
In this episode Professor Stephen Goldsmith and Executive Director of Baltimore's Parking Authority Peter Little discuss how he manages occupancy, parking rates, and open spaces in the city. As part of Baltimore's innovation work, Little is pioneering demand-based parking rates that help manage city spaces, provide more accurate costs for drivers, and offer options for parking costs.
Music credit: Summer-Man by Ketsa
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Betsy Gardner:
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Steve Goldsmith:
Welcome back. This is Steve Goldsmith, professor of urban policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. And today we're talking with Peter Little, who is the executive director of the city of Baltimore Parking Authority, widely known as one of the most creative, innovative parking directors, if not the most in the country. Welcome, Peter.
Peter Little:
Thank you.
Steve Goldsmith:
We have a lot of questions for you about how you're conceptualizing your role, that is your agency's role and the role of parking. But before we get there, tell us a little bit about yourself and the authority, would you please?
Peter Little:
Sure. Well, I've been at the Parking Authority for a little over a 17 years now, since 2004. Prior to that, I was in private parking management, so I've been in the business for, I guess, almost 30 years now, altogether a little over 30 years. Parking Authority was formed in 2000 by the City of Baltimore. Prior to the Parking Authority's formation, the city's department of transportation oversaw the city's on-street and off-street parking assets that then Mayor Martin O'Malley recognized the need for more professional management of those assets. So he was key in helping to form the Parking Authority. And I came on board three years after.
We've succeeded in doing exactly that. We manage 13 city-owned parking garages that are spread throughout the city, focused mostly downtown and in the neighborhoods immediately surrounding downtown, two dozen parking lots, and about 12,000 metered parking spaces throughout the city. So manage the city's residential permit parking programs, residential reserved disabled parking program. We've also lately become more involved in publicly accessible electric vehicle charging.
Steve Goldsmith:
That's quite a list. Just one other organizational question that I have some questions about policy, so if you're an authority, are you a separate quasi-government authority? And if so, where do your net revenues go?
Peter Little:
Yeah, we are a nonprofit 501(c)(3) quasi-governmental, however, unlike many other parking authorities, almost all of the revenue that we collect goes to the city, in order to satisfy bond debt, a parking enterprise fund that was formed by the city. However, out of that fund is serviced our operations also through an administrative grant from the city. And of course, a portion goes to debt service. Some other operating expenses get paid out of that. And then all of the net revenue then, after those expenses, go to the city's general fund. So we also do through the city budget for capital improvements, but it's through the city's capital program.
Steve Goldsmith:
Peter, you've been there a long time. That's a compliment, not...that's a compliment.
Peter Little:
Thanks!
Steve Goldsmith:
And how do you think about the purpose of your job? So when you started, we didn't have... Let's think about the commercial downtown area. Let's just start with that. We'll get back to the other neighborhoods later. But you didn't have scooters. You didn't have open-air dining in the street, or whatever the right phrase is in Baltimore. You didn't have quite so many bike shares taking space. So as you think about curb, sidewalks, and parking, what's your goal? I want to understand your pricing, but let's start first with what are you trying to accomplish?
Peter Little:
Well, when I started, and I think the goal is still the same now, is to make parking work for the city and the various stakeholders that need parking. Our mission kind of speaks to it directly. Our mission is simply to find or create parking solutions and implement them and to be the resource on all things parking in the city. So number one, it's to make sure that on-street parking works. Parking needs to be managed through parking meters to make sure that they do their job, which is to create availability of parking in those commercial districts. If it's in residential areas, that need some restrictions on parking, is to make sure that the residential permit programs work for the city. For off-street parking, it's been to make sure that we maintain those assets, so they retain their parking value, but also at the end of the day, to make sure we see the highest return on investment in those facilities for the city, but then also to leverage them in order to help with development or redevelopment within the city.
Those are the overarching goals. So for instance, the city's installed a lot of bike facilities, a lot of bike lanes. And frankly, we encourage that too. And we encourage biking, because it is another parking solution. If more people feel like they can use a bicycle instead of their own car in order to get around the city, that means that, in their particular neighborhood in which they live, there's more parking than available for those residents who have to own a car. So we've encouraged it. We also have though gone into those neighborhoods where they're looking to install bike lanes or bus lanes to determine, if these assets do get installed, is there going to be then sufficient other parking there for those folks, who do need still own a car? And so we'll come in to do parking studies in conjunction with department of transportation, in order to make that assessment.
But at the end of the day, like I even tell my own team members, department of transportation determines where parking can happen. And then, it's our job to go in to determine whether parking needs to be managed there, whether through parking meters or residential permit parking or some other regulations. So we work hand-in-hand with them, when it comes to those sorts of solutions. But we are big proponents...as a matter of fact, the Charm City Circulator, the free bus service in the city, was actually our idea at the Parking Authority. We came up with a primary funding source, which was to simplify and then increase a little bit the parking tax in the city, in order to fund that service, recognizing that it was also a parking solution. Not only did it offer up an alternative to people owning their own cars, but it also helped to marry up parking supply that was on the outskirts of downtown with parking demand that was in the center of town. So it helped to spread that parking demand, so that there wasn't a call for additional structures to be built right in the center of downtown.
Steve Goldsmith:
So I'm interested in how you're using data. So let's start with maybe a case study, in quotation marks. You've been thinking more in doing more on dynamic pricing than anyone. So what are you trying to accomplish with dynamic pricing? And how are you using data to accomplish that?
Peter Little:
Yep. Well, we've now expanded our demand-based parking meter rate setting to three neighborhoods in the city. And we're about to go to a fourth and a fifth neighborhood in the city. We started in the downtown core, which is where we've got 40% of our metered parking spaces in the city. And that started in 2017, is when we started downtown. The formulas we use, pretty simple. We go out and we do occupancy counts, and they are currently manual counts. Although we are looking at technology solutions that will allow us to collect the data more easily, more quickly. But we go out to do occupancy counts on every block phase throughout downtown every six months. And if the occupancy is higher than 85% on a given block, that would be the two opposing block faces, then we increase that rate by 25 cents every six months, until that availability gets to between 15 and 25%.
On the blocks where occupancy is lower than 75%, we lower the rate by 25 cents every six months, until that occupancy gets to 75% or above. And we followed that criteria strictly and have let the city know that we're going to do it. So with each occupancy count that we do in each of these neighborhoods every six months, we see some blocks decreasing in rates, others increasing in rates. And then we get the word out there about it through signage at the meters and through other means that we have to spread the word. And we've actually seen it then help to spread parking demand and, more importantly, create availability in those higher-demand parking areas of downtown. We've since spread this to the Harbor East neighborhood, immediately adjacent to downtown to the east. We've spread it to Mount Vernon, the large area that's just at the north of downtown. Soon, we'll be implementing it in Federal Hill, which is a little bit further to the south from downtown and to Fell's Point, another big commercial area.
Steve Goldsmith:
So in the transition areas that are closer to neighborhoods, are those rates coming down more in the commercial zones, and the center of city going up? Is that a fair generalization?
Peter Little:
It is, although in some of those neighborhoods that are a little further from downtown, we started at rates that were lower than what we started at downtown. And so we've seen a mix still of increases and decreases, but, yes, more blocks have decreased than have increased in those areas outside of downtown. But we find that they stabilize pretty quickly.
Steve Goldsmith:
Do I have to pay more to go to an Orioles game, if I want to park on the street?
Peter Little:
Oh, strictly for an Orioles game? No. We haven't done that with event-based parking rates yet. We are considering that for Orioles games or for Ravens games. Because of where the stadiums are situated, there isn't a whole lot of on street parking that's immediately accessible to the stadiums anyway. So a lot of folks are parking in off-street facilities.
Steve Goldsmith:
So something you're considering, but you haven't done yet.
Peter Little:
Right.
Steve Goldsmith:
So you have allocated, in a way, increased parking availability by kind of smoothing it out a little bit. Theoretically, I think you probably have reduced the number of cars cruising looking for a parking space, at least to some extent. You know that famous book, The High Cost of Free Parking, what else do you think you've accomplished with data-informed parking rates and any comments about how it's affected lower-income drivers?
Peter Little:
Yeah, we've considered that, because the city's got an equity policy. And even downtown, where generally the rates have gone higher through our demand-based parking meter rate setting, there are blocks where the rate has consistently gone down as well, too, that are within blocks of the major attractions, like the aquarium or the Inner Harbor. And so for those folks who are looking for a bargain, they can easily find it just a few blocks away. And so it becomes more affordable, the short-term parking does anyway, for folks who are looking to pay a little bit less. And we found that to be the case in other neighborhoods as well. And a lot of our focus in terms of trying to get these rates out is to help people to identify blocks that are less expensive than those highest-demand blocks, so that then they have that choice, "Am I willing to walk maybe one, two, or three blocks to park for half the price or less than half the price, than I would if I were to park immediately in front of that venue that I'm looking to go to?"
All of our metered parking, still, we accept cash at all of them still. So 17% of Baltimore residents are unbanked. We recognize that and have to continue to offer options for cash payments. And we will for the foreseeable future.
Steve Goldsmith:
So Peter, you've been an innovator for a long time. What's your next great parking innovation you have in mind?
Peter Little:
Well, we really getting involved, like I mentioned earlier in electric vehicle charging. And as we all know, the major manufacturers are moving more and more of their production to electric vehicles. It presents a real problem for urban areas, especially row home neighborhoods in cities like Baltimore, where people don't have off-street parking at which they can charge their own vehicle. And there are also lots of businesses that don't have their own parking. So we've really gotten involved, in conjunction with some of the other city agencies, in figuring out ways to make available more publicly accessible electric vehicle charging. And so, we're becoming very involved in that. And then our other big project is converting our residential permit parking program from decal- and placard-based system to virtual-permit parking and all the benefits that provides, not only to residents, but to the city, and in terms of the efficiency of enforcement of those restrictions.
Steve Goldsmith:
Well, that is long overdue in most American cities, so that'll be fun to watch that.
Peter Little:
Yeah it is, yes.
Steve Goldsmith:
Well, this is Steve Goldsmith with Peter Little, the innovative parking director in the City of Baltimore. Thank you very much for your time, Pete.
Peter Little:
Thank you, Stephen.
Betsy Gardner:
If you liked this podcast, please visit our us at datasmartcities.org, or follow us @datasmartcities on Twitter. And remember to subscribe at the new Data-Smart City Podcast channel on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. This podcast was produced by me, Betsy Gardner, and hosted by Professor Steve Goldsmith. We're proud to be the central resource for cities interested in the intersection of government, data, and innovation. Thanks for listening.