Stories indexed with the term ‘revenue per parking space’

The board of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority will face a relatively light agenda for its post-election-day meeting scheduled for Nov. 7. But the meeting will include the usual routine update on usage statistics for Ann Arbor’s public parking system.

And while the most recent figures show revenues to be slightly better than expected for the quarter ending Sept. 30, revenues for just the month of September 2012 showed only a 3% gain against September 2011.

All other things being equal, the 3% revenue increase could be analyzed as increased usage of the parking system. But a couple of significant factors were not equal: total spaces available in the system, and parking rates. Both factors increased significantly more than 3%, indicating a dip in usage.

In September 2012, Ann Arbor’s public parking system offered about 12% more spaces than in September 2011 – 7,824 compared to 6,974 a year ago. Much of that increased inventory is due to the 738 spaces in the new Library Lane underground parking garage.

And parking rates increased 7-9% system-wide in September: Hourly parking structure rates increased from $1.10/hour to $1.20/hour; hourly parking lot rates increased from $1.30 ($1.50 after 3 hours) to $1.40 ($1.60 after 3 hours); hourly parking meter rates increased from $1.40/hour to $1.50/hour; and monthly parking permit rates increased from $140/month to $145/month.

The count of hourly patrons in the system is also consistent with a usage drop for September 2012 compared to September a year ago – 171,107 compared to 194,034 last year, or nearly 12% fewer patrons.

Discussion of the September parking system revenue totals at the DDA’s operations committee meeting on Oct. 31, 2012 included several factors that might account for the usage drop. In September 2011, the University of Michigan played four home football games, compared to just two this year. And September 2012 included one fewer business day (24 compared to 25) and one fewer weekend day (8 compared to 9) than September 2011. In addition, September 2012 did not include the Friday before Labor Day.

September revenue totals also reflect the fact that one segment of parking customers paid less, despite consistent usage. Holders of monthly permits in structures near the UM campus were offered a substantial discount to move their permits to the new underground Library Lane parking garage – $95 compared to the $145 regular rate. So a portion of the roughly 415 monthly permits that have been sold for the Library Lane garage reflect the discounted rate.

September was the first full month the Library Lane garage was open, without any part of it closed off for construction inspection activity. The garage showed modest revenue gains compared to last month. But somewhat as expected, it is initially lagging behind other facilities measured by revenue per space – $77 per space compared to a system-wide average of $196.

The public parking system will be adding more spaces sometime in mid-March 2013. At the DDA’s operations committee meeting, DDA executive director Susan Pollay indicated that current projections are for the DDA to take possession of the first two floors of Village Green’s City Apartments project on March 15, 2013. The building – located at First and Washington – will contain a 244-space parking deck on those first two floors, 95 of which are to be available for public parking. The rest of the spaces will be used by residents of the 146-unit project, when the construction is completed.

Graphs and some discussion of other ways to measure parking system performance are included in this report. [Full Story]