A new map shows exactly which block faces in Philadelphia require the pittance of $35/year to keep a car on them. The terms of parking politics in this city may never be the same.
Lauren Ancona’s previous magnum opus was a map showing the boundaries of the PPA parking permit districts, a work that landed her a job with the city’s Open Data Office. She’s now followed that up with the next level of detail, a block-by-block accounting of where permits are actually required. Permits aren’t the only tool of parking management in use, of course. Ancona’s map does not (yet?) show which blocks are metered or otherwise have limited parking, so that results in odd blank spaces where those are in use, including most of Center City and Old City.
But the main thing that jumps out at the viewer, as Friend of the Blog Jon Geeting writes pointedly in his analysis at PlanPhilly, is that many neighborhoods that are the most obsessed with parking supply are doing Jack Squat about managing parking demand. In many cases, only a small minority of blocks require permits; some neighborhoods can count their permit blocks on the fingers of one hand.
Basically: a lot of people, in a lot of neighborhoods, who have used parking as a rallying cry for NIMBYism of all stripes, have just been called on their bullshit. If you can’t be bothered to get the actual resident-parkers of your block to agree to pay the PPA $35/year to chase away the people who don’t live on your block, then you shouldn’t get to cry “Parking!” to prevent new residents from coming to your neighborhood.
Geeting specifically calls out Pennsport and its four blocks of permitted parking, which is entirely fair given that neighborhood’s reputation as being full of parking zombies. But Manayunk, and Fishtown north of Columbia, are no better.
Given the high rate of car ownership and easy access to the El in Northern Liberties, one might expect more permitting there than not, but no.
Now, there are neighborhoods that are doing a good job at requiring permits. They should be encouraged, even if that means, in the case of Graduate Hospital, splitting its parking district off from Center City West’s.
And there are other neighborhoods where a high concentration of people with cars registered out of state (i.e. students) makes the current process for establishing a permit block politically impossible. But for once, our system of Councilmanic Prerogative offers an opportunity for good progressive urbanism. A progressive District Councillor can short-circuit the process by creating permit blocks, by legislation, where they will do the most good: immediately adjacent to commercial streets with temporary parking only, and within a block of Subway and El stations to reduce the amount of parking arbitrage available in those areas. While I would like to see entire neighborhoods with some type or another of curb parking control, I am willing to take this one step at a time, and push the higher priority locations first.
This is not just a one-way street, politically. With more permitting comes more data; if those who today we can easily dismiss as parking zombies who only have anecdotes backing them up, could instead show up to RCO zoning presentations and show data that more cars have permits than there are curb parking spots in the district, that is powerful evidence that new development should include off-street parking (unbundled and market-rate, of course), which can be used to convince parking supply skeptics like me. This actually just happened this week with the story about Graduate Hospital’s permits, which brought me around to support of structured parking at new development along Washington Avenue, where previously I was hardline against. Hopefully this can open up wider discussions of car ownership, land use, and parking arbitrage. (As a hypothetical, land-poor Manayunk may want to build its structured parking at Ivy Ridge, or in an auto-oriented location in Upper Roxborough. If MDC can acquire properly-zoned land for it, why shouldn’t that happen?) But the first step to resolving a deep political difference, is to establish a common reality that all parties agree exists.
Sic Transit Philadelphia 
Cogently argued. Even I, a parking skeptic, am convinced.
Is there data on density of car ownership by neighborhood available? Obviously, the Pennsylvania DMV has this for PA residents (not complete, but still useful), but that’s only helpful if they actually make it available to anyone else.
I’d be curious to compare to, e.g., Somerville, which is the city whose parking politics I have the most familiarity with. (Fun facts: Somerville has 11,600 registered vehicles per square mile, which is a major reason why there is no unrestricted parking and the tickets are punitive.)
This map covered by This Old City reflects commute mode, not car ownership, so it will undercount car ownership. But it does drill down to the Census tract level, which is nice to have.
You can’t make a direct correlation between the number of issued permits and the actual number of cars regularly using permit parking within a district, because like West says it is a pittance for already off-street cars to snatch up a $35 permit for extra convenience. If no car is entitled to a space, certainly no car should be entitled to two spaces. Also, Washington Ave is planned to have on-street spaces increased through the restriping, so people should still be skeptical about excessive structured parking.
Can you explain how any car would be entitled to two spaces? You can only get a permit for your car in the district where your car is registered, and you must also show proof of residence.
“Entitled” was the wrong word to use, but the issue is that, in the example of SOSNA+CCRA Zone 1, the ratio of issued permits vs. available permit spaces is about 2:1. The theory is that the actual unmet demand is far less because of the availability of off-street parking some residents can use, financially or conveniently. It shouldn’t be easy for those residents to also get a permit out of convenience. I don’t know what a healthier ratio would be, but probably around 1.2 – 1.4:1 would be better than now.
I never said we should drop our guard against excessive parking, just that I could be moved to support nonzero accessory parking. I have associated demands with that parking, of course. Unbundling from rent, one curb cut, dedicated carshare spaces, secure bike parking, and of course a demonstration that some kind of parking regulation is in effect on all nearby blocks, would be my checklist.