I Pay For Your Free Parking

I wanted to point out something related to my recent post on the Renew Lehigh Valley blog. I mentioned some numbers toward the end of the entry, and I want to discuss the implications of those numbers. I wrote:

“Though many of us recognize the benefits of TOD, it will probably take quite an epiphany for banks to begin to buck the industry standard of about 1 parking space for every 250 square feet of building space (which works out to about 15% more parking lot surface area than floor area at a cost of $30,000 per parking space [or about $50,000 per for structure parking], a cost that banks have no problem financing).”

As I said, this cost is financed as part of the overhead of the development. The new Walmart in your neighborhood must not only pay for the costs of its building, but it must also pay a great deal more to construct its massive parking lot. Now, since retailers, such as Walmart, see their profits as dependent on the customer’s convenience, parking (the ultimate convenience in suburbia) is most often “free.” Of course, when I say “free,” I mean that the costs of parking are added to the retail prices of the products that are sold. We pay for the parking one way or the other, and in the case of retail establishments that offer free parking, the cost is distributed evenly throughout their products.

This arrangement works out well for people who drive to these retailers. Motorists get the psychological benefit of thinking that they are parking for free. Plus, they are likely paying a lot less through the added prices of their food purchases than they would have if they had to insert coins into meters, because retailers who offer “free” parking pass on the costs to all consumers, even those who don’t drive. So, every time I walk to the Giant grocery store in Bethlehem to buy food, I am partially subsidizing the parking of almost everyone else in the store. And my reward for subsidizing those wealthy enough to afford a car? A few honks and several dirty looks as I inconveniently (for them and for me) walk across the parking lot that I am paying for them to use. I would rather they smile, wave, and say “thank you very much!” But most of them have no clue that their “free” parking has made my groceries more expensive than they should be, and that, through the wonders of trickle-up economics (which is more prevalent than we want to admit), they are benefiting from my car-lessness.

Many people would call this small and frivolous because, when the costs are spread out, the resulting price increases are small. But in light of the healthcare debate, why don’t people think about spreading the costs of covering the uninsured as small and frivolous? Despite the fact that healthcare premiums would likely decrease if everyone was covered, why are people not willing to pay a little extra so that everyone can be covered? I do it so that you can park at the store for “free,” so why can’t you do it so that Joe Uninsured can be healthy? Instead, healthcare for all is called “socialism.” Well, if that is your idea of socialism, then you better start screaming at town hall meetings about “free” parking too (along with Social Security, Medicare, the U.S. Postal Service, urban taxing for extraordinarily costly suburban infrastructure, etc.), because it is exactly the same thing.