Your podcast catcher not showing in links above (black circle with three dots)? Loads more on PodLink. Show is also on Spotify. and Google Podcasts. NOTE: Show 250 did not get uploaded to Apple Podcasts — this glitch has now been fixed..
The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast
EPISODE 250: In conversation with the rock star of parking, Donald Shoup
Saturday 18th July 2020
SPONSOR: Jenson USA
HOST: Carlton Reid
GUEST: Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning at University of California at Los Angeles, and author of the groundbreaking 2005 booking The High Cost of Free Parking.
MACHINE TRANSCRIPT
Carlton Reid 0:12
Welcome to Episode 250 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Saturday 18th of July 2020.
David Bernstein 0:24
The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/spokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast cycling podcast at www.Fredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast for shownotes links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.
Carlton Reid 1:08
For this, our 250th episode, the spokesmen cycling podcast becomes the spokesmen parking podcast. As you’ll soon here, the storage of cars has much more impact on our lives, including our cycling lives. And most folks imagine. I’m Carlton Reid, and on today’s show, I’m talking to a bottom feeding Yoda who rode through the 1970s American bike boom without knowing it was even happening. Donald Shoup is the distinguished research professor of urban planning at UCLA and author of the groundbreaking 2005 book the high cost of free parking. Now, studying parking may sound a bit dry. But as Donald has shown with his groundbreaking city shaping research, the space we devote to storing big lumps of metal is simply staggering, and often, deeply unfair financially, spatially, and socially. Donald’s many fans — they call themselves the Shoupistas — does know that he isn’t your normal, everyday academic. He’s retired, but he’s still teaching his personal website, his shoupdogg.com. And the connection to rapper Snoop Dogg isn’t just a play on words, both hail from Long Beach, California. And there can’t be many academics that have starred in an animated cartoon, which is how Donald appeared on the Adam Ruins Everything TV series and then America. I spoke with Donald yesterday. Now I didn’t know this beforehand, but he knew all about my home city of Newcastle upon Tyne. He used to live here in the 1960s, working for C.A. Parsons, then one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of turbine generators, which were invented in Newcastle. It’s a long, but fascinating show. So buckle up. Donald, you began your academic career at the University of California at Los Angeles, UCLA in 1968. And that’s a year or two before the bike boom, started. So were you ahead of the curve because you were already cycling to campus, weren’t you?
Donald Shoup 3:50
Yes, I think, you know, most people in universities are used to bicycling and I was intrigued by your your comments on the bike boom, and I really don’t remember all of it.
Donald Shoup 4:10
I guess I’d always been bicycling and I had a bicycle or more than one so no, I I don’t remember the bicycle move at all.
Carlton Reid 4:20
Wow. It passed you by. So I lots of photographs I’ve seen of you. You’ve actually had a bicycle with you. So you’ve code on bicycling by the look of it.
Donald Shoup 4:30
Yes, it was the first bike I remember buying was a Humber. If you remember those. I bought it as a kit. I bought it also one for my fiance. And I put that together. I guess it was one time. That would have been around 1965 I guess. And then later on. I guess it’s 75 Maybe that was during the bike boom. I bought a I bought a Schwinn bicycle. No, no, it was a Raleigh. That’s right. I bought a Raleigh which was a fairly high end one for that day that I remember going to the bike store. They’re very athletic young guy who was selling the things he was showing the rally catalogue and there was a racy buying silver have kickstands for fenders or even brakes for aleinu because that would add too much to the weight. But he kept showing me these bikes that I wasn’t interested in I saw while I said it was flat and he said oh are you to walk out that’s an old bands bike. And it was a Carl that that was a look at it. I think it had a Carlton frame fairly high out but it had the kickstand that generated generator oil for for light. I still have the bike and I still Use it as a bit of antique, I suppose. And I’ve had students looking at it. They didn’t they’d never seen a generator or bicycle wheel. Oh,
Carlton Reid 6:14
you’ve kept on riding. That’s good.
Donald Shoup 6:17
Yes, I think I want more than right now that I always rode my bike to work
because I’m in a hurry. And I retired a night in 2015 but I still go to campus every day. Like I still teach clubs. I’m not as hurried so I walk partly because the exercise is you as you know, bicycling is so efficient your per per mile and you don’t expend much energy because you get there fairly fast, but walking is huge. uses more calories than biking does.
Carlton Reid 7:05
So you’ve spent your your long career linking the parking of cars with congestion, pollution, affordability, even sprawl. And now climate change, of course, and the Wall Street Journal I read, as described you, as I’m quoting here, a parking rock star and the Yoda of urban planning. So how do you turn parking into a rock star topic?
Donald Shoup 7:32
Well, I realised that for a rock star is not the same thing as a real rock star, but I might change my name to shoot dog. And I was certainly flattered that I heard I was the Yoda of urban planning until I remember from Star Wars that yoga was 800 years old. was the lowest status thing you could study the local government that would be parking. So I’ve been a bottom feeder for about 40 years. years. But there was a lot of food down there that people just had been neglecting parking even though it’s the single biggest use of land in almost any city. And it’s essential if you’re going to own a car, you have to have not just one parking space, but quite a few available to you at home at work at school, grocery stores, so many more parking spaces than cars, and, and I’ve estimated the value of all the parking spaces greatly outside exceeds the value of all the cars and maybe even the value of all the roads. But nobody has really been studying. Everybody follows a personal issue and knowledge of an academic or intellectual issue. So it was really pretty easy to make, you know, important discoveries.
Carlton Reid 8:54
So in your research and if to get those important discoveries you found that in some American Cities, the average construction cost not not what it’s worth, but the actual construction cost for an above ground parking space, and I’m gonna put this in English pounds, but it’s about 18,000 pounds. So what’s that 24,000, nearly, nearly nearly getting on for $30,000. And yet, but, but that you’ve also pointed out that that is that is several times the average net worth of an African American family. So what does that say about our society’s
priorities?
Donald Shoup 9:34
Well, that’s a great question. I haven’t heard it phrased exactly that way before but I think I think Yes, certainly the the the cost of one structured parking space and underground parking costs much more. is is you know, maybe maybe 18 2030 And dollars for constructing the structure and then there’s the land as well
as the cities.
Not so much in Britain, but certainly the United States and many other countries require parking spaces for any new development. If you’re going to build a new apartment building in the US, it has to have two off street parking spaces per dwelling unit. Well, that raises the cost of all housing and then when you’re thinking of all the parking requirements, shopping centres, grocery stores, movie theatres, nobody knows how many parking spaces there are, but there are at least at very least three or four parking spaces for every car. So that might be about you know, $100,000 for the park per car, am I That is a huge amount of money. The especially now that we’re so focused on the the economic problems, low income people save the average net wealth, which means the all your assets minus your liabilities for Black household all over the United States is brown $17,000, which is less than the cost of one parking space. And yeah, planners have been recommended several parking spaces for free car for every family. And I think this cost has been shifted into the higher prices for everything that whenever you go to a store or if you park in their parking lot, just a little bit of everything you spend gets syphoned off to pay for the park and it’s a it’s hidden. That’s right. It’s a very hidden costs and most people think that well Parker couldn’t call must provide because you usually pay nothing for it. And even in Britain I think so they just can’t imagine that parking could be that expensive, but we won’t let anything happen to the states unless it comes with all the required parking and that required parking is often greater than as you pointed out the net wealth of a low income family say the median net wealth yes a half above and half below for black families is about seven feet or $80,000. So to think of the the parking spaces are more than the entire net wealth of half of all black and young whenever they they go they want to park for you just like I do, and you do and everybody you know last depart free. So it seems like we’ve we’ve I think by mistake created the fool’s paradise is in the city wherever money happily pays for everybody else’s free parking. We’re just concealing and huge costs that we’ve imposed on ourselves. And I think since the car owners pay for the parking indirectly through higher prices for housing, groceries and everything else they buy the the car owners are paying for the parking, but they just don’t know it. And it really is that these parking requirements are a subsidy not for car owners, but for cars. So we have we have greatly subsidised cars. And of course that’s led to over use of them. Cars are wonderful, but we way over use them.
Carlton Reid 13:59
You mentioned They’re about it’s the motorist is paying. But then not everybody is a motorist. So there are plenty of people who are going to those stores you’re talking about buying their goods and still paying for the parking,
even though they didn’t they’re not parking.
Donald Shoup 14:14
Exactly. That’s one of the most offensive parts about it is the even people who are either too poor to own a car, or they have chosen not to have a car that doesn’t produce their payments for Park still pay in any way even though they don’t have a car so obviously it’s totally wildly inefficient. It’s it’s hugely unfair. It’s really indirect tax on everybody including low income people
to subsidise people who
who have a car and need a parking space. And many people think that you know, the park is almost like oxygen You can’t charge for parking that that’s absolutely necessary is necessary for cars errors for human. And the car owners obviously think that way. I think that the changes that I think London was the head of most cities, it used to have rather high parking requirements. Even though the famous British planner, column Buchanan, and he wrote the 1960s yield committee wrote that was called the Buchanan report that has had a big impact on urban planners, but he was one of the first people who said that minimum parking requirements shifts the cost of parking away from where it belongs. the right person to pay for parking is the is the driver. And he pointed out a long time ago that this was a bad idea, but It’s taken
64 how long
56 years that it’s finally coming around and London’s shifted from having minimum parking requirements to maximum parking limits in the early 90s, the leader I guess, in the 90s or 2000s, that, that they shifted to maximum parking limits with the new limits lower than the previous requirements, you know, can you think of a bigger admission of a huge mistake that you think that oh, well, we know how much there should be. And suddenly, instead of requiring, we prohibit it, and so there have been studies about the effects we’re after London, shifted from minimum parking reformer up to a maximum parking limit that almost nothing None of the new developers ever provided as much as the maximum allowed. They thought the limit was important. But what was important was getting rid of the minimum. And it showed that when the new developers had about half of the amount of parking that was previously required, so that means about half of all the parking that was previously required was was just not worth it. You know, the developers would not have put it in unless the government had forced them to do it. So I think we, as we all know, we’ve been in our personal lives and our collective life made a lot of mistakes. And I think that parking is one of these mistakes, and I know that you’re a great bicyclists, but it certainly has harmed bicycling more than just about anything else because bicycles. They conserve a road of space so they certainly can conserve on parking space. So I think we’ve we’ve we’ve systematically diverted people away from every off their own two feet into cars. And now I think that the people are picking up on this. And cities around the world are. I hope we’re getting to remove Wall Street Parker Brothers just last week, Edmonton in Calgary, Canada, removed all its parking, repurpose it. It’s such an easy thing to do. You know, so many cities say oh, well cut it in half for low income housing or something like that. They make a big fuss over one little change, but just maybe one big change, but you don’t have to decide what the new partner require, but it is or the new maximum is you just get rid of it entirely.
Carlton Reid 18:47
The rationale presumably was because if you make this parking requirement, you’ve got the building, you’re going to have to have people in their cars to get there. But if you don’t have the minimum, people, then don’t They call us to that building because well, they just know where to park so they’ll get there in other
Donald Shoup 19:04
way. Well, I think that’s a bit extreme way of saying it just because there isn’t enough of a parquet floor doesn’t mean there won’t be parking. The most developers will not build a shopping centre without any parking. But the government shouldn’t tell them how much to provide. And I think that the developers will provide some, I hope it will be paid for that. The drivers should should pay for the parking. And just the way we expect to pay for everything else, the gasoline and the tires and everything else about the cars, individual pay for the insurance, repairs, all those things is only parking that is is is a big part of the cost, but it’s been shifted elsewhere in the economy. So I think that there will still be parking for a long time because there’s already This huge overhang of unneeded parking. So I think what some cities are doing is once the parking requirement is gone that they they can now have infill development all the all the former on the parking lots, the new urbanists, they’re called, we’re trying to reclaim some of the better parts of old urbanism. They talked about having lighter buildings in the parking lot. So I’m a big fan of that, that once you get rid of the parking requirements, you can build a housing or anything else on the perimeter of the parking lot. So when you walk down the sidewalk, it looks like a real Street. But inside is a parking lot and then the the office building or whatever it was, it’s rather like I’m sure you’ve been to New Town and Edinburgh or that you look up walk around and looks like they’re sort of mansions. Great big houses, of course they’re condominiums. But inside it was all when they were built. It was all gardens. And you from the air down using Google Earth down to Edinburgh, you see to all of these interior guards have been converted to parking lots. And so I say the city’s to get rid of Park blots, pirates, will allow the developers to create a new kind of city right or on the periphery of their existing parking lots
Carlton Reid 21:42
in my home city of Newcastle which is not too far from Edinburgh about 100 miles from Edinburgh. The my old University Newcastle University, they had lots of parking lots for this, the academic staff and and their students and then they just Had this light bulb moment. Very often it came from plein air proposals. They got rid of the parking, and then they suddenly were able to build some very nice buildings where previously they’d been parking. And now you go to Newcastle University, and this is wonderful new build buildings. And previously that was just flat space was doing nothing, encouraging people to park and now they just say, Well, no, the academics have got to get to the university a different way and they just removed all the parking just overnight. And it’s radically made that transform that that university it’s a much nicer campus. Yes,
Donald Shoup 22:39
I can remember I was a exchange student in when I was an undergraduate as an electrical engineer, and I went to Newcastle work for C.A. Parsons. I could remember the city very well. I loved it. I saw a really encouraging thing recently on is the famous curving street that in Newcastle that goes down the hill Grey Street
Carlton Reid 23:07
Grey Street, yes
Donald Shoup 23:09
that’s right and it was like any other street in the old days it was very grand street historically wonderful buildings on it. But it was heavy traffic and parking on both sides of the street and now they have wonderful a proposal for Grey Street to get rid of all the on street parking and some of the I think the traffic lights and make it a really handsome street that is matches the handsome most of the buildings all on each side.
Carlton Reid 23:40
Donold, I’m very pleased to be able to tell you I wrote that article. So that article on Newcastle on grey street went viral on Forbes.com
and and I wrote that
article so I’m very pleased that it it got through to you because yes, they’ve removed parking space or they’re going to it hasn’t actually happened yet. It’s it’s happening. In about two weeks time, but that will transform a beautiful, beautiful street into a beautiful street again because it’s quite ugly now because you’ve got a huge proportion of it is taken over by
car parking.
Donald Shoup 24:13
And I would say it will be a beacon to other cities or other parts of Newcastle’s here’s what can be done and the United States is, is unfortunately that has that is the cause of all these reforms but the pandemic has caused us to be so socially distance from each other when we’re going to restaurants or anything else. And so many cities of the United States have temporarily removed the off street parking requirements for restaurants so they could now have outdoor restaurants in their parking lots say it was absolutely prohibited in the past because the department was required for that. indoor restaurant and you couldn’t use it for anything else because it was required. And when they relaxed stuff, they discovered how much better it is. And they’ve also removed on the street partner, many streets and turn that into outdoor cafes and some whole streets are vacated for cars, they’re all outdoor restaurants. So I think that we need more good examples like grey streets of Newcastle. And I think of course not every street we’ll look as good as grape street well when we perform the parking, but I think even even lesser streets can greatly benefit
Carlton Reid 25:48
when even if it’s just to eat as you say, never mind just making it look good. Just actually having space to to eat it’s got to be a good thing to do. Yes, I especially just
Donald Shoup 25:57
sick of the economics of it. Many people will Would previous they say, Oh, well, that will remove all our custody or the nobody will come here. There’s no curb parking. But of course, when they do studies and say, Well, where do your customers come from only a tiny percentage of that can come from the partial car parking space in front of the restaurant. It’s observed to say that that’s an important thing for the restaurant. So I think that when they get rid of the often free parking and say, well, we’re going to have outdoor restaurants or there that will employ many more people and pay much more in taxes and satisfy many more people. The one stored car, one empty car, how we felt that empty cars are much more important than people in the past, but I think that that will be changing and of course it has huge impacts further on how much free will we can To men, how many people are killed in automobile accidents, all the way up to global warming, that there are so many benefits of these reforms. There’s so much more competition for the curve now than there was. In the past we have Uber and Lyft want to have loading zones and delivery. vans want loading so on so some people want bicycle lanes and the curb lane. Some people want bus lanes. There’s so many alternatives that storing empty cars. Of course there can be restaurants as well or little parks. So I think that there’s a lot of competition for the curb plane now and is extremely valuable land you think and how valuable the land is on race street on shore or in any city. That to think that that’s his main uses his story. Empty cars for free. And we’ve made a huge mistake. I think New York is the city that makes the biggest mistake that they estimate that there are 3 million curb spaces in New York City. It’s about the size of London has about the same number of spaces are about 3 million in new york city that only 3% of them are retired. So 97% of them are free. So that makes parking a nightmare, because they’re always cruising. You know, you. You don’t want to, you don’t want to drive if you have a carpark space, you don’t want to leave it because you won’t get it when you come back.
Carlton Reid 28:46
So you’ve you’ve you’ve worked out that about 30% of the traffic in Manhattan is basically people cruising for parking.
Donald Shoup 28:55
Well in some areas, I’m sure it’s 100% and in many areas Probably zero percent. I mean that 30% as a meme. The it’s the Some people think that 30% of all traffic is cruising for parking because I found that as the result of a number of studies, but when we study cruising worth happening, most of the areas those not happening at all, but I estimate the New York City if they charge, just $5 and 50 cents a day for all the street parking, which is the price of a roundtrip on the subway for 550 a day in New York, some of the most valuable land on earth just 550 a day for a parking space, that would be $6 billion a year. And that is equal to the total fare payments are all public transit of New York does include a subsidy for cars is equal to everything that all the transit riders pay. So I think that if we if we begin to realise that the current space has many alternatives, other than storing empty cars Well, the world won’t be looking more like but I hope ratio will start looking like that will raise street looks like now.
Carlton Reid 30:26
So get keeping on that kind of topic of the pressure on the curb. The modern Ford Mustang is 61% larger than the original Ford Mustang. It’s the same for the Mini Cooper the Range Rover cars are getting longer and longer, fatter and fatter. Will there come a time do you think when some cars and I’m especially thinking about SUVs here, just get too big to park in cities or where you’re going to have to just expand these, you know the markings for for where people can park you After you make them bigger because the modern car is just getting massive,
Donald Shoup 31:04
well, that’s happened over slowly over a long time. And as you say that the weather parking works not just the number of spaces you have and how wide they have to be and how long they have to be. And the sizes of the parking spaces have been growing. So they’re still all free. So I mean, this usual thing is if you’re gaining weight that you buy a bigger pounds, but the cities have said they’re just forcing the everybody to provide a bigger wardrobe for all of these cars that the drivers pay nothing on extra parking, except it does happen in some places, I think certainly above them and some places in Switzerland is that the measuring the length of the car as it comes in there with laser beams the measure the length of the car then tell you direct you to the space that’s appropriate for the size of your car. You know if your car is very long that follow these these lines and if you’re a small car fall in love on the big cars people so I think it is only sensible for bigger cars to pay for higher prices because they’re usually more land. So that’s the kind of technology that is now available. That you know why should a
tiny car
pay as much as as one with the example I used and you can do this for curb parking as well. The the length of your car determines how much you will pay for parking at the curb.
Carlton Reid 32:57
It makes sense because when you buy more food in the shop, you’re paying more money. So anything that you can see more of you obviously always pay more. So if you’re consuming more space, then of course you should pay more.
Donald Shoup 33:12
Yes, yeah. And that will encourage you to to buy a shorter car
length is very strongly correlated with
Carlton Reid 33:24
width. So it’s just kind of like the window the window tax of like the 18th century and that’s why people break their windows up because what they do pay less tax so if you charge people more money for that parking, they will do what you’ve just said they will get a smaller car, I think so
Donald Shoup 33:41
much more fuel efficient car because I think there’s this extra long Rolls Royce going eight miles to the gallon. Elvis smart car got 50 miles to the gallon or something like that. And, of course then the emissions are also Related to that as well. So I think it has I think we have short circuited the price system when it comes to Parker, you know, we expect to pay for just about everything that we buy it seems so natural, but it also seems natural to park fruit, you know, because we’ve been doing your personal wall and therefore is it’s hard to figure out how would you create political support for these charges and I think one way to do it is to have these discounts for city city residents after all the city residents are already paying taxes to the city. And I think that it will, yes, it will encourage people to shopping closer to home.
People in Newcastle, they’re shopping Newcastle.
I think that
the reason why I think I so I’m in a bottom feeder Because we do so many things so wrong about parking, it’s very easy to think of new ideas and get them implemented. I mean, a lot of reforms are happening around the world that many cities are performing. So Mexico City recently went from minimum parking requirements to maximum parking limits. With an interesting, Chris that if you anything above half of the maximum that you provide, you have to pay a fee to the city to pay to subsidise public transit. So it so it’s a soft maximum up to 50% of the maximum you’d you could build up above 50% of the maximum you have to pay a fee and then when you get to the maximum you can’t
Carlton Reid 35:49
provide any more. Well, you mentioned money there and how expensive things are so talking about money at this podcast is paid for by a show sponsor. So I’d now like to go across it David, my colleague and he’ll give us a short commercial interlude.
David Bernstein 36:04
Hey, Carlton, thanks so much. And it’s it’s always my pleasure to talk about our advertiser. This is a longtime loyal advertiser, you all know who I’m talking about. It’s Jensen USA at Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. I’ve been telling you for years now years, that Jenson is the place where you can get a great selection of every kind of product that you need for your cycling lifestyle at amazing prices and what really sets them apart. Because of course, there’s lots of online retailers out there, but what really sets them apart is their unbelievable support. When you call and you’ve got a question about something, you’ll end up talking to one of their gear advisors and these are cyclists. I’ve been there I’ve seen it. These are folks who who ride their bikes to and from work. These are folks who ride at lunch who go out on group rides after work because they just enjoy cycling so much. And and so you know that When you call, you’ll be talking to somebody who has knowledge of the products that you’re calling about. If you’re looking for a new bike, whether it’s a mountain bike, a road bike, a gravel bike, a fat bike, what are you looking for? Go ahead and check them out. Jenson USA. They are the place where you will find everything you need for your cycling lifestyle. It’s Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. We thank them so much for their support. And we thank you for supporting Jenson USA. All right, Carlton, let’s get back to the show.
Carlton Reid 37:31
So thanks, David, and we’re back with Episode 250. It’s a special episode Episode 250 of the spokesmen podcast, and I’m talking with the legendary urban economist, Donald Shoup, Donald and we’ve been talking about minimums that cities have been imposing down the years. Now famously Walmart, car parks. I don’t know if it’s in the UK, but certainly in the US, they’re built to accommodate the parking that’ll occur on say, Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve, and then never meant to be that for the rest of the year. It’s just on those peak periods. So is that something that tweaking planning codes those parking minimums Can Can Can that be fixed by sent by local government?
Donald Shoup 38:23
Yes, it can be fixed. My stop shooting yourself in the foot is the cities that are basing these require us most most? Walmart’s things like that they provide what the city requires. And if the city stopped requiring that Walmart could could expand their, their, their their buildings if they want, or they could provide, what they what they sometimes do is they have auxiliary things on the periphery of the law because that’s where nobody wants to park and we’re the longest walk from the From the from your car to the, to the to the Walmart or anything like the Walmart if they allow them to have restaurants around the periphery or housing around the periphery or something else. Now they cannot do that it’s not Walmart’s fault. It’s the city’s fault. They’re the ones who say you cannot open a store in this town unless you have five spaces per thousand square feet. That’s the typical requirement for something like a Walmart which means that the parking lot is bigger than the Walmart
Carlton Reid 39:36
because quite apart from the fact that it encourages motoring when you you have lots of free parking just the very fact there’s all this massive square footage of asphalt is bad for runoff that for all sorts of different things. So all of this there’s so much asphalt around is bad for the planet.
Donald Shoup 39:59
Yeah, for Requirements make parking better, but they make everything else worse. There’s no good that comes from parking requirements other than the fact that people can park free all the day before Christmas, or they’re in the week before Christmas. And say, say speaking about churches, you don’t build your church for Easter Sunday. That would be just so absurd to think that what we have to have space where everybody wants to come on Easter Sunday, you shouldn’t know your parking lots that way either. Except that cities now require no parking for any church and you cannot open a church unless you have them. Oh, required parking. You can’t do anything without the requirement for it. You know, one way to say it is that the the first the developer has to build the parking and then they say let’s build something to finance The park used to be an architecture they say that form follows function or Form follows. Fashion or Form follows finance really Form follows parking requirements. If they so twisted the city’s out of any reasonable shape that will be getting rid of the parking requirements will do a lot of work. And it’s been very controversial in parts of Britain as well, but certainly the United States. I mean, it is half like safe, I think. Let’s see if I get the the chronology right at the high cost of free parking was published in 2005. It was the introduced by the American Planning Association at their annual conference in San Francisco. They had a big event for
and at that time
you have supplied a professional Time is crazy. And the other half though I was daydreaming because I said I have these three ideas. One is charge the right price for on street parking to produce one or two open spaces on every block so that nobody could say there’s a shortage of parking let’s say she charges the lowest price they could charge and still have one or two open spaces because that’s what drivers want to see is your policy space waiting for you. And then if you do that, you can remove the Osprey parking requirements just nobody could say there’s a shortage of parking because they see open spaces wherever they go. And to make that politically popular you should spend the money on public services on the metre districts so the some service will they have started charging for parking like put up sighs all the meteor say Yo your Meteor Money makes a difference or charging small phase into big changes it goes for for sidewalks, street trees and so things things you could see that people To know that the parking metres are paying for cleaning the sidewalks every night repair I remember getting rid of graffiti overnight to the park Monday can easily pay for that. So those are the three things that I recommended. And this seemed kind of, you know, utopian to them. But the American Planning Association went back to San Francisco last year. This is what I guess. 14 years later. They have their convention they also have another event for the high cost for free parking. During those 14 years San Francisco have totally removed all parking requirements. It has started charging market price price for curb parking variable by time of day and from Wall Street to deal there was it seemed crazier utopia in 2005 was already being done in 2019. And nobody really noticed I think that the it is it won’t lead to a big change right away. That, I think but it will lead to a huge change over time. If cities adopt these three policies
Carlton Reid 44:15
Wasn’t Pasadena, one of the first cities to take up one of your ideas and then charge for parking? And then yeah, and then made there’s their city that the old part of the city much nicer?
Donald Shoup 44:27
Yes, I think is the poster child parking benefit district where should they buy gave to charging for parking? Yes, spending the money of the neighbourhoods to the there was a
Pasadena was a very
upscale fashionable town in the 19th century and early 20th century that people came from all over the country to join the climate there. I’ve built a lot of Buys Houses. So it was a beautiful downtown. But then The depression came. And then World War Two had nothing had been built that after the World War Two that the people can buy cars and old Pasadena which was a beautiful downtown was not fashionable because it didn’t have enough parking. There were there were stores on all the lots, very little parking. And it really became you know, really, it was in the depths for a city. People thought we would never recover. But they has ambitious visionary people said well, this is well rounded like grey street in Newcastle that the this the street could be wonderful, but we don’t have the money for it. They want to rebuild all of the sidewalks. They want to convert all of the alleys in To pedestrian ways and kind of street trees that have historic street furniture and streetlights and things like that. They really knew what they wanted. And they have wonderful buildings in terrible condition. And they didn’t have any way to pay for them made the case that if we put in parking metres, that it’ll pay for all the things that you want, but rebuild all of your sidewalks, clean all of the alleys and plant street trees and put the wires underground. And it transformed the area from a commercial slum into one of the most popular places in Southern California. 200,000 people just come on a weekend we’re walking around to enjoy a place that nobody would go to 30 or 40 years ago. So when I say the you know, these three reforms taken together is that allowing restaurants to Without any Parker, charger, right prices occur but spending the money wisely can improve many cities, many cities, but I think that if you put the meagre money into the general fund, it just goes straight to the city. Nobody. That’s like sending them money to Mars, or paying for the war in Afghanistan. You know, nobody will say, Oh, I see Park parking metres are good. Because it won’t make a difference on the street except it will reduce the cruising air pollution and things like that. But I think I don’t think that these three ideas taken together are appealing to people that I mean, here. I’m being interviewed by somebody from Newcastle. Here I am in Los Angeles. And I think if it if these ideas weren’t catching on, I don’t think you’d be
Carlton Reid 48:00
Because
that what I know about Pasadena and I’ve written about it before, even though I’m from Newcastle, you’re from Los Angeles is, I don’t know if you’ve seen this before, but the California cycleway. So the the elevated wooden cycleway that was built in Pasadena was meant to go from Pasadena, down through the Arroyo Seco to Los Angeles. And they only build one part of it, and it didn’t really go anywhere. So eventually it was just brought down and just made into a trolley line and then eventually into the Arroyo Seco Parkway took over that particular route, but that was when Pasadena was a very popular place to go and be and then obviously, it’s had a long time where it’s not such a nice place, but then by making your reform parking reforms, they’ve made it into a nice place.
Donald Shoup 48:51
Again, not just a nice place, but a spectacular place. Of course, not every not every neighbourhood could do this because they have one villains that were early 20th century. And I think what I have recommended what I would recommend for that part of the world I think maybe it would help it along the parts of older parts of Newcastle, other English cities is to have a permanent Park, I’m sure you’d like to have in London, but a different kind of from the moment is that you would only sell purpose equal to the number of spaces available, very strict and you would charge the market price for them. So that and you would spend that money to fix up the neighbourhood that you would improve the the the old road behind the houses and would provide a lot of money and I think it’s fair that what we do now, of course, London is famous for its perfect parking. I will try to take pictures of all the Bentley’s Rolls Royces and the Jaguars with purpose on them. And so you’re giving some of the most valuable land on earth in London to people who have permits. So they paid like maybe 100 pounds a year is next to nothing. For what it’s really worth, so I think that if you bother or other big cities, they say, Well, yes, I’d like this idea of a permit system. But we have to allocate it. Not just administratively, not through a waiting list or not through if there’s a waiting list. Some people are always going to get pull your political support and they’ll get to the head of the queue. said if you just said that, that will charge the market price so that anybody who wants a permit can buy one but that money has to improve the neighbourhood. I’ve estimated For San Francisco, that you could give every resident of the neighbourhood a free transit pass if you charge market prices for the curb parking spaces. So I think if it city were a downtown area where there are a lot of people and not that many curb spaces, charging for the curb spaces could pay for a free transit pass for everybody in the neighbourhood, and that would that would be a different thing to offer residents, you say would you like to have this? And if a majority of people don’t have a car, I think they will say I like that. The minority of people who have a car with some of them would like it because it would guarantee that MySpace and some of them wouldn’t want to pay. But if the if you could give something to the majority and show them that this is what will happen if we charge market prices recur wherever this is what your neighbourhood will have, then I think people would chase. People who don’t think about parking at all will say, well, this, this is a good idea. In fact, I remember I was speaking once in Boston that they have a day long conventional Park again, I spoke in the morning, and they they have a luncheon speaker who this smart politician, but she didn’t know anything about parking. And she’s very astute things. She said, if you want to have parking reforms, don’t mention Park. Just ask people what they would like to have. And then say, Well, here’s a way to pay for it. It’s up to you. And so when they do that, I think it’s happened in Pittsburgh is you find out what people want. And they say, Well, here’s a way to pay for so and then it also changed with the historic fabric. I mean, think of Jerome or well as Newcastle. The number of curved spaces is so tiny compared to of the number of people who live there. It would be like taxing the rich in a sense to pay for an equal public service for everybody subsidies give free Wi Fi to everybody in the neighbourhood. If you if in the rest of the world, free Wi Fi, the parking metres were identified with free Wi Fi. I’m sure that a lots of India or Nigeria that people will say Hmm.
Carlton Reid 53:29
Newcastle we’ve actually got some parts of Newcastle car ownership or people who don’t have cars is running to like 50% of the population in some places. So you know, not everybody has got a car. So not everybody
Donald Shoup 53:46
is many people do have car have off street parking. So when you when you look at the number of parking spaces in a neighbourhood, it couldn’t possibly serve most of the people in your neighbourhood. at a very low density, the streets are so wide, that we have minimum street widths now so that you could have cars marked on both sides. There’s plenty of parking. So it wouldn’t work there. But older areas for high density, narrower streets, that the the you really have to charge for parking to allocate it properly.
Carlton Reid 54:24
So the concept of you mentioned there about, you know, the revenues from parking being used for a public good, that that’s basically Georgian. That’s a Georgian concept. So that’s a basically the ideas of Henry George and his flat tax ideas. So tell us a little bit about that and how you’re a Georgian?
Donald Shoup 54:47
Well, I think Henry George was a 19th century economist, reformer early 20th century columns these are all taxes should be on land because Land is not going to move away to tax the land rents are really not earned income. And I think it appeals to a lot of economists because it’s better than other taxes. It doesn’t discourage enterprise.
And it encourages people to
develop empty lab. You wouldn’t leave sites empty if you were paying high taxes on it. And if you build a building on your taxes wouldn’t go off. So he thought that they would really completely alive in the economy because the landowners that he and other people said who were rich have their sleep would within Stan think, well, how can I make better use of my land Can I remember this from our gas from a gas station into an apartment building or a parking lot into apartment building? But he his idea so I’ve never really succeeded that politically. So, what what is difference between my idea of full bore Henri Georges is that he thought that all the money should go to the the general government, it really disappeared and be in general the government the paper education, the public transportation and things like that, but it really would disappear from the neighbourhood. So, I think that if you say that we charge for the land and make it very clear to the residents, if you adopt this policy or charging for the land you will get more for your neighbourhood. So, try to appeal to individuals self interest that they they could see that our neighbourhood can be better we can all get free Wi Fi, we all get free transit passes or we can get one wider sidewalks or whatever we bought, it shouldn’t come from top down, it should come from bottom up, you should ask them what what does the neighbourhood walk? So I think that would be the land would be producing revenue and that’s it wouldn’t be all land obviously. But the curb lane in the United States is about oh 8% of all the land inside the block. If you look at if you look at a block before science that typically that the curb the land in the in the curb lane is about 8% of the land either side of the block. So it would be putting you’re putting your toe into the ocean of Henri Georges. I’m just saying, well, let’s try and see how I’m charging for parking work. It’s not a tax. Henry George recommended the tax all the value of well, if you’ve charged a driver for borrowing that stuff, attached. That’s a user fee just like if you if you eat in a restaurant, the bill you get in the restaurant is not a tax. It’s a user fee. So I think that the difference people I’m proposing but Henry Jones, North proposed that he wants to tax all land and he wanted the money to go to the general government. So I say, well, let’s start with the tax or the most easily observed land and it’s it’s so easy to set the right price. It’s hard to assess land value, but it’s very easy to say, Well, what is the right price for parking? There’s parking operators do that all the time and private parking operators, they know how to charge the right price for parking. And I think yes, that is not the easiest thing in the world to do is to charge market price for parking. But it’s a lot easier than assessing land values or assessing property taxes or income tax. taxes have been just like how much evasion there is with most taxes with income taxes and specifically, there wouldn’t be much way to evade parking fees
Carlton Reid 59:13
that work at employers in the city of Nottingham. In England, they certainly can’t avoid it because they play. I know you said it’s not attack. It’s more of a user fee, but they pay what’s called and I’m sure you know about the workplace parking Levy, and that’s paid for general goods. So that’s paid for cycleways that pays for street trolleys. So that’s pretty Georgian? Pretty Shoupian, yeah. Nottingham doing it right?
Donald Shoup 59:39
Yes, it is certainly better than nothing, but I think there’s some I recommend something better. I think the nawic have charged it’s called parking cash out is a porter paid parking in the United States is the most common fringe benefit for that employers give to their employees as a tax exempt. fringe benefit. So if you give the employee a free parking space at work, it doesn’t count those as as income for taxation. So it makes it almost inevitable that employers will say, Well, yes, we’ll give you free parking at work, because it’s it’s cheaper than giving them higher wages because the people will have to pay income tax on the higher wages and the employers have to pay employment taxes, Social Security, taxes and things like that. So you avoid a lot of taxes if you pay somebody with a parking space, then with income. So when I proposed that became law in California, now, Washington DC, is if an employer rents parking spaces from a third party to offer free to an employee and this is a common way of doing it. And so this because employers and office buildings or shops and things like that they don’t own the parking, they rent for the employee and they They pay the rent to the parking owner and give it free for the employee. That’s very common. So as the law says, Now, if you offer an employee free parking, you have to offer the employee the option to take the cash value. If you don’t take the Parker, it’s very fair because it means if you’re given for parking, it goes only to people who drive to work. And people who walk to work or bike to work, they get nothing. So the most employers say, I’ll offer you free parking or nothing. They don’t say that. But they say oh, a few free parking. So now they by law, they have to say, and if you don’t take the parking, you could have the cash. So I studied firms that did this. And it led to something like a 17% decrease in so we’re driving just by broadening the offer, saying that we’re not going to employ to subside, just parking. We’re going to subsidise if you take the bus to work or ice skate to work or whatever you want, however you want to get here. And of course, reduce vehicle miles travelled, air pollution and all the rest. Plus, all the employees said, Well, this is great sort of the people who drove to work lost nothing. And the people who who didn’t drive to work nowadays they have extra income to spend, and the employers themselves that it was a great idea because they use it as a recruiting tool so that if you if you work there, it will give you a new partner or if you don’t, we’ll give you cash. And I interviewed a number of firms. They said the employees felt better about an employer, even if they drove to work because they thought the employer was trying to be part of the solution rather than just part of the problem. They’re most most of us would say we’re environmentalist, and many of them are really our dedicated environmentalist. The environmentalist Especially if they didn’t drive to work. They thought it was a great idea. So they pour salt.
This is a very
fair way to treat our employees.
Carlton Reid 1:03:13
It’s an annual thing or could you do that? Like if you if you didn’t drive in for say three months of the year, we’ll give you you know this amount of money or is it something that has to be an annual thing?
Donald Shoup 1:03:27
Well, I think I looked at one firm in England. They did it every day. I think that when you came to work, I think you paid
you were charged two pounds. For Parking.
Habit every people had to use their ID card to get into the builder. So every time you went into the building in the morning, on the day you work there, you got a payment of two pounds, so that you break free If you drove it to work, or you pay two pounds for parking, and you got two pounds for being there, but if you didn’t drive to work, you get two pounds. So it’s a daily choice. So every day, when you roll out of bed you have to say, well, should I bike to work or should I don’t feel well today? Maybe I’ll drive or have to be there earlier I blade or something like that every day people have this choice. Do I want to have cash or do I want to have free pumpkin? And I think it’s a very sensible, said I don’t think the Nottingham chars has those effects. It’s a fixed annual fees just attacks on the employer and the employer can still give free parking to the employee without the cash option. So So I think it’s not a tax on the employer. The employer saves on parking when somebody doesn’t Park Hmm.
Carlton Reid 1:04:59
So hearing the UK we’ve got all political parties, arguing that NHS staff should get free parking at hospitals. Yet there’s no demand that NHS staff should be given money to spend on bus fares, or to be gifted with free bicycles. So why do you think parking at your place of work is almost seen as a human? Right? It’s something that you’ve got to be given as it’s just the human right?
Donald Shoup 1:05:28
Well is more foreign policies are based on a more emotional facts or, or theories. So I would say that if we’re going to give free parked people, anywhere, but especially NHS, as you can say, yes, you could have free parking, but if you don’t take it, we’ll give you the cash value. And that will treat everybody who works for the NHS equally. One of the things that happened With the with the, this would probably happen at any chance. So what happened was firms who had to abate with obey the law. They had to offer people. The law just says if I employ if I’m an employer and I pay you with a park, I give you a free parking space it cost me $100 I have to offer you $100 if you don’t take it and if I don’t offer you the free parking, I don’t worry or anything. But it turns out in many firms, especially law firm survery, higher Oracle’s that they would have, the executive officers would have parking in the garage underground, and it would be dedicated to their name and the lower wage employers would park outside the block away in the parking lot and then the lowest beta pours we get nothing when it came and that’s that’s the parking cash out. Oh, With the fact that you can still go the best spaces to the to the highest paid people if you wanted to, but when it was when the subsidy became expressed in cash, they realised it was not fair to give a lot of money to the highest paid person and nothing to the lowest paid person, so they switched to a uniform fee for cash out for everybody that everybody got the same amount of money as the high income people if they wanted to buy more exclusive parking space they didn’t have to pay for it just was elementary is what’s fair. And so I think in the NHS if they offered everybody free parking or or the cash value that nom the nada HS employees would have to pay see because if if an NHS employee takes a space it’s not available for a visitor The that you have to offer them the cash value that that space water. And I’m sure you would find huge differences in the, in the value of spaces giving to the top people at the hospital until the lowest paid people at the hospital. I think what I suspect
Carlton Reid 1:08:21
now so what they think they found in Scotland where they had free parking for NHS was the carpark would just fill up with people who weren’t actually NHS. So we’re just using it for shopping because it’s free all of a sudden. So it’s fantastic. So it wasn’t actually going to the people it’s meant to benefit anyway.
Donald Shoup 1:08:39
Oh, yes. If it’s just free for everybody. That’s ridiculous. But it could be free just to the employees. Or but I think it would be fair if it was a you could have the cash value and I suspect I suspect that those hospitals in Scotland, the top executives have reserved spaces for themselves. They didn’t they probably do. didn’t have to compete with everybody else for a space in an oversubscribed blob. It’s just natural. The the higher paid people get the best parking spaces. But when Canada I think when they I think the Canadian government used to give free parking to everybody. And then they switched to a policy of making everybody pay for 70 I think it was 70% of the market cost of the parking space and then after that more women began driving to work now why do you think more women they would begin driving to work in a government office if they started charging for parking? Hmm?
No.
Well is because there wasn’t enough parking available for everybody. So naturally, the best parking spaces when Down the hierarchy, all the top people began to say, well, maybe I don’t need to pay, you know, $100 a month, maybe I could get to work some other way. And those phases then became available to women who were willing to pay. When it’s given away free, it has to be administered. And if you administer it, it is normal for the top civil service to get the best spaces. Well, if you if you say, but anybody can happen if they’re willing to pay for some of these top civil servants who live you know, a few blocks away would say, Well, I’d rather take the cash. And in Canada, two male boys began I escaped into work. I think that administrative distribution of support always favours the the well heeled, the well position and the lowest paid people get the short end of the stick. So I think that if NHS is wanting to do free parking, it ought to be on a parking cash out basis that they can they can that the people who don’t drive would be treated just as well as the people who do drive and that will some of the people would say, Well, yes, I’d rather carpool I’d rather bicycle now we have electric bicycles that they’re
there. Have you written an electric bicycle?
Carlton Reid 1:11:31
Yes. My wife. My wife is a doctor and she drives cycles to, to hospital on her electric bike. So
Donald Shoup 1:11:39
well, that’s right. I think a lot. I think electric bikes are terrific. I would if I had liked to do over again. I would have been riding an electric bike. They’re the ones I’ve written. They’re they’re really good bikes. I say, normally, I was like, No, I’m gonna risk my life on a bike. I want to get some exercise, but if I’m thinking But as a as a as a commuter strategy, I think electric bikes are, are really a way to reduce our demand for for parking, especially if you have to pay for. So I say I hope that the NHS would give free parking to everybody, not just the doctors and the nurses but also the people who emptied the bedpans and if they don’t take it they should get
Carlton Reid 1:12:34
cash. I think the problem with NHS parking is because it’s this thing called the public finance initiative where they actually sold the hospitals don’t own the parking lots. The parking lots are owned by private companies who are just make money. So hospitals and the government even can’t demand hospitals make their their, their car box for free because they don’t own them, you know, they long ago they sold them off to the highest bidder. You just can’t actually physically do anything with most car parks because they’re not owned.
Donald Shoup 1:13:10
Well, that that makes parking cash out even easier because if they have to pay a third party for every Park, they know exactly how much the subsidy goes. They know exactly how much they should offer to that person. If they don’t take the park.
Carlton Reid 1:13:28
Yeah, good point. I say retailers I’m gonna get into retail now. And this is one of my final question. So retailers the world over. always complain when parking spaces outside their shops are taken away for whatever reasons, and they assume that most of their custom comes from motorists. I know you’ve touched upon this in an earlier part of the show, but it’s often not the case. So what can what can livability advocates, what can they say to those shop owners that’ll help allay their fears.
Donald Shoup 1:14:05
Well, if they were a planner, they would point to all the surveys that shows the most of their customers do not park on the street. I mean, just physically look at it. Most people could not possibly Park all the street for all the people that are in the restaurants in the stores and things like that that many more people come on foot. But I would say that rather than make it free and I know that there’s you know, there are people in Britain say that the that it should be free on the name is free. I say well, what it should be is the rough price of Mara the lowest prices that it can charge at one or two open spaces. So nobody could say that. Oh, I never go to a shop in Newcastle because there’s no place to park that if they set the price so that there are one or two open spaces Wherever you bought, nobody would say, I won’t go there. That’s right. And I think I was making this argument in a town in northern California. Lovely is a small town Santa Santa Rosa, that was it that
it was like
I’m travelling around the world giving same talk about what we’re talking about now. And I gave my talk I had dinner with the mayor and city council beforehand and I thought they were all in favour what I was going to say, and I had a big adios of an amphitheatre, like city halls, rake seats.
I gave my talk and I thought more very well a little
guy as soon as of the guy on the top row jumped up. He’s shot out of a seat. I don’t think of a foam coming out of his mouth, but certainly Spit some people recording programme. He said, If this city because running the parking metres in the evening, I will never eat in a restaurant downtown again. There was no class settle the question, you know that that’s there’s nothing more to say. And the city council member couldn’t exactly tell her Shut up. But I told him I said, Well, if you will come down to home, somebody who isn’t willing to pay for parking will come down for a shot if they can easily find the parking space. And who do you think will leave a bigger tip in a restaurant, somebody won’t come downtown. Unless they could drive around for 20 minutes holding for an empty space or somebody who’s willing to pay for parking if they can park right in front of on the block of the restaurant. And if you don’t want to come downtown, maybe you’d be better off of the food core of a shopping mall in the suburbs and the whole audio begins sharing Cuz they were the green show though. Usually the greens are the ones who invited me. And I will say that the politicians are so envious. I can do that. I mean, there’s really insult the guy and make fun of it. But I think that if you were getting back to your question, if you were a merchant downtown, who do you think would be a better customer, somebody would come downtown to Main Street only if they could park free after they drove around for 10 minutes hunting for some space being vacated, or somebody was willing to pay for parking if they could easily Park though, that downtown who’s going to pay spend more in your shop, and actually, you wouldn’t be losing many parts of cars because you’re gonna have to wander to open spaces on every block. So wouldn’t reduce the amount of parked cars by more than one or two cars. And but it was make your your your main street available to anybody. is really to pay for parking. If if you’re three or four people in a car going to a restaurant, you know the cost of parking is negligible per person.
Carlton Reid 1:18:10
But isn’t this isn’t this? Isn’t this just you know, again, you’re you’re helping rich people because rich people don’t have to worry about parking. It’s, it’s it’s poor people who won’t be able to afford the parking. So Aren’t you discriminating against them?
Donald Shoup 1:18:25
Well, let’s suppose that I disagree with that. But suppose it were true. And you were advising the merchants on what’s good for them? What would you say them?
Carlton Reid 1:18:39
Personally, I would say to them, get rid of the parking places completely and make them a
little bit just a choice, just a choice or free or market price, which would be better for the merchants.
Donald Shoup 1:18:50
Well, the merchants would say free because then we get everybody to come whereas if we make people come
Well, not
the I think it’s what was if you were in the Stockholm Syndrome room, the kidnapping syndrome, some Stockholm Syndrome as a bank in Stockholm, is that you begin to sympathise with your oppressor. And I think that when people start saying, well, we can’t charge for parking because it hurts the poor, you’re sympathising with the oppressor. The really poor people don’t have cars. If you’re talking about people who are really poor, they don’t know a car. And richer people, obviously own cars and more than one that I see if you were going to be an effective advocate for low income people. I don’t think free parking is the right way to do it because most of the parking will be taken all the parking ticket like car owners. A lot of levels, car owners are not poor. So you’re saying let’s have a bankfoot for everybody. A few poor people will get the Chrome’s I think that arguing for free parking on Main Street is a way to help poor people is ridiculous. And as a way to help merchants is also ridiculous. If you think the alternative is one or two open spaces and the prices needed for that, because it won’t get rid of all apartment it’d be two cars on a block. And that’s that that isn’t going to greatly reduce the number of cars that are parked and they’ll probably park for shorter times if they if you have to pay by the minute you’ll you’ll you you’re probably leave when you’re finished your business. If it’s free, people can park all day long, or they can park as long as there’s a time limit is though I don’t think the idea of free parking on Main Street helps the merchant was able to get help or helps the customers because the customers Either they won’t come because they, every time they pride them on the street, they see no empty spaces. And often this is what happened in Pasadena. The the they did
have time limits
to our time limit, but the employees would go out and move their car every two hours just to evade the time limit. The merchants knew that they just told their employees not to park in front of my store. But I think that having a pre is an invitation to miss yours.
Carlton Reid 1:21:42
Donald, that’s all been fascinating and you’ve certainly your your long career as the good the Yoda of planning has proven this. You’ve opened lots of people’s eyes to the craziness of free parking and parking. In general so thank you ever so much for for being on the show and it does sound like you need to get you an electric bike.
Donald Shoup 1:22:07
Well
thanks for finding the good fight. Keep me posted.
Carlton Reid 1:22:14
Thanks to Donald Shoup for being on today’s show, the 250th episode. Thanks also to you for listening. Now please make sure to subscribe and tell your friends and colleagues about this spokesmen parking, the spokesmen cycling podcast. Show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com. I’m off to Switzerland tomorrow to check out the parcours for the UCI Road World Championships due to be staged — COVID flare up willing — in September. Now I may grab some audio there and make a show out of it. But meanwhile, get out there and ride…
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Be First to Comment