If I were made parking czar, my first edict would be to ban surface parking lots downtown. We can't get rid of the existing ones, but we can curb the future supply.
This may sound awfully interventionist for a market-oriented guy, but there is a bona fide market failure here. Our inefficient tax system gives developers an incentive to tear down buildings and replace them with surface parking lots until the developers are ready to build (which could be years). We impose heavy taxes on capital (buildings). This raises the cost of building and lowers the cost of holding vacant land. Revenue generated by surface parking further reduces the cost of holding vacant land. A ban on surface parking would be a second-best response to our inefficient tax system. (The first-best response would be to fix the tax system.)
Banning surface parking lots would accomplish three things. First, it would discourage the premature demolition of buildings by raising the cost of holding vacant land. We are all better off if buildings and tenants are kept around until the redevelopment is ready to begin.
Second, surface lots are intrinsically bad for downtown. They blight the streetscape, making the environment inhospitable for pedestrians. They also radiate heat in summer. Surface parking lots, in other words, deter pedestrians, which reduces demand for nearby ground-floor retail and offices. (If you doubt me, walk south on the west side of Congress starting at Eighth Street. You will find bustling sidewalks until you hit the parking lot at the corner of Congress and Fourth, beyond which lies a pedestrian desert. Perhaps the Austonian will fix that. But that's no sure thing.)
Third, surface parking decreases the demand for garage parking. That may sound like a good idea -- after all, I just got through complaining about Austin's surfeit of downtown parking. But I think one problem with downtown's parking market is the low utilization of existing parking. This is partly due to the reluctance of many garage owners to open their garages to the general public; the returns are simply too low for it to be worth their while to bother with late-night revelers or day-trippers. Raising the returns would lead to better utilization of downtown's parking supply. That, in turn, might provide developers (and lenders) some assurance that there will be a steady supply of market-rate parking in the neighborhood. Surface parking lots provide no such assurance because they could be redeveloped at any time.
Even if a ban on surface parking did lead to more garage parking, we'd still be better off. We can require garages to provide street-level retail or other uses, or even just awnings. There is not much we can do with an asphalt parking lot other than require the owner to rim it with bushes.
