Parking Garage Piratry
Among the many differences between Michigan and Northern Virginia there's one that I personally find refreshing: free parking garages.
In the want-to-be-urban planned-corporate-community called Reston, there are SIX free parking areas. Six. How comparable is that? Think of Royal Joke or Ann Arbor's Main Street district pretty much openning up their garages for free.
It's just simply unheard of to me. Mainly for the reason of "how the fuck do they make their money"? Someone had to have paid for that land and all that concrete, electrical wiring, piping, and painting, right? Maybe the city gave them some sort of deal: erect a new office building and we'll pay you to build your garage? Whatever.
The other reason would be how much of a current demand is there. Right now, anytime I go down there, I never have a hard time finding a spot on the first level on the larger of the northern garages. Sure, you might have to traverse up a few levels to find a spot in the smaller areas but that's still no big deal. But all this means nothing without maths, right?
Hokay, so.. Reston's downtown (or Town Center as these folks like to call it) is an area comparable to downtown Ann Arbor in size and it contains 5,600 spots to A2's (estimated) 2,100 spots. It also contains high-rise business developments, something which the bat-shit-crazy-NIMBY-hippies hate and will not allow in their city. Reston's population is estimated at 60,000 whereas A2's is estimated at 100,000. Doing some very simple math results in the fact that Reston's parking spots-per-person (0.09) is four times higher than A2's (0.02). With this, I start to wonder, where is the ratio at which municipalities or businesses start charging for parking?
Another example of free parking is a hospital. Those of who you have visited Dearborn's Oakwood hospital are aware that there is a parking deck to the rear of the hospital. To my surprise, they charge for parking. Doesn't seem totally right to me, but whatever. Down here went I went to the ER at Reston's hospital, I noticed that their five-level parking deck doesn't charge at all. A refreshing thought.
So what's up with this? We know that southeast Michigan is car-centric but is there really that much demand that medium-sized cities and sururban hospitals need to charge for parking?
In the want-to-be-urban planned-corporate-community called Reston, there are SIX free parking areas. Six. How comparable is that? Think of Royal Joke or Ann Arbor's Main Street district pretty much openning up their garages for free.
It's just simply unheard of to me. Mainly for the reason of "how the fuck do they make their money"? Someone had to have paid for that land and all that concrete, electrical wiring, piping, and painting, right? Maybe the city gave them some sort of deal: erect a new office building and we'll pay you to build your garage? Whatever.
The other reason would be how much of a current demand is there. Right now, anytime I go down there, I never have a hard time finding a spot on the first level on the larger of the northern garages. Sure, you might have to traverse up a few levels to find a spot in the smaller areas but that's still no big deal. But all this means nothing without maths, right?
Hokay, so.. Reston's downtown (or Town Center as these folks like to call it) is an area comparable to downtown Ann Arbor in size and it contains 5,600 spots to A2's (estimated) 2,100 spots. It also contains high-rise business developments, something which the bat-shit-crazy-NIMBY-hippies hate and will not allow in their city. Reston's population is estimated at 60,000 whereas A2's is estimated at 100,000. Doing some very simple math results in the fact that Reston's parking spots-per-person (0.09) is four times higher than A2's (0.02). With this, I start to wonder, where is the ratio at which municipalities or businesses start charging for parking?
Another example of free parking is a hospital. Those of who you have visited Dearborn's Oakwood hospital are aware that there is a parking deck to the rear of the hospital. To my surprise, they charge for parking. Doesn't seem totally right to me, but whatever. Down here went I went to the ER at Reston's hospital, I noticed that their five-level parking deck doesn't charge at all. A refreshing thought.
So what's up with this? We know that southeast Michigan is car-centric but is there really that much demand that medium-sized cities and sururban hospitals need to charge for parking?