Economics for Dummies

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that most BART (regional commuter rail) stations are reserving a portion of their parking spaces for paid monthly permit holders. This has sparked a storm of complaints among some BART riders, because parking has previously been "free". But demand for parking spots exceeds supply, and there are only so many ways to allocate a scarce resource (namely pricing, queuing and lottery). In the case of BART, parking spots have been allocated by queueing, i.e. first-come, first-serve, meaning you're not likely to find a parking spot after say, 8am. Does it make sense to give away all the parking spots to people who happen to go to work early, or who don't place a monetary value on their time? It does if you're a member of both of the above

Kathleen Crawford, who lives in Oakland and works for the state in San Francisco's Civic Center area, already has to arrive at the MacArthur Station by 7:20 a.m. if she wants to find a parking place. When she goes to Lake Merritt Station, she has to be there by 7 a.m.

"If they block off three, four, five rows of parking, who knows how early I'm going to have to get there," Crawford said. "I hope it's not a success, because I'll have to get there earlier and earlier and earlier

The highways in the Bay Area are overcrowded, and BART has excess capacity that could be used. But people will only opt for BART if it is convenient and time-efficient. The sanest solution would simply be to build more parking spots, and charge by the hour for all of them. But transit agencies tend to be run by a combination of people who hate cars altogether ("let them take the bus or ride a bike to the BART station!"), redistributionists ("BART should be free!") and the economically illiterate. So the half-assed solution of reserving a portion of the parking spots means that a few people will pay for reserved spots but probably won't use their spot all the time, meaning there will always be some unused parking capacity. At the same time, more of the occasional riders will fail to find parking, and will probably avoid BART altogether, and just drive all the way to their destination. Where they may have to pay for parking anyway.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 01, 2002 10:09 AM