| Cars are parked a majority of the time and are creating a critical problem for cities. Although this problem is less visible than problems concerning in-transit vehicles, it is equally important. Cruising for parking and double parking are typical examples of inefficient use of public resource that can plague the entire transportation system. The external costs of parking are those costs that are not directly noticed by drivers, but which impact the entire society. External parking costs consist of a wide variety of impacts, such as congestion, emission, safety, vehicle hour of delay, urban vitality, fuel consumption, automobile usage, and automobile dependency.;The theoretical literature shows that these social costs can be reduced, or even eliminated, if high-quality information on the demand for and supply of parking is used to set parking prices at optimal levels. Not surprisingly, cities plagued by parking shortages and congested streets are interested in parking policies that reduce cruising, eliminate double parking and improve the efficient use of their existing parking and roadway infrastructure. The current study sheds light on the explicit effects of San Francisco's parking pricing program (known as SFpark) on cruising (both time and distance traveled) and frequency of double parking. This study differs in two ways from the small, but growing, literature that empirically evaluates parking pricing in urban neighborhoods. First, the study uses direct field measurements of parking search time and search distance, rather than simulated data or proxy variables such as parking availability. Second, the specification of the generalized mixed-effect difference-in-differences model controls for time effects by using data from a separate control area, as opposed to relying on control variables. Additionally, this is the first study that tries to unravel the effect of demand-responsive parking pricing on the frequency of double park incidents.;The results suggest a significant reduction in average parking search time and search distance due to the parking program. SFpark reduced parking search time and parking search distance by about 15% and 12% respectively, from 2011 to 2013. However, the true effect of SFpark on double parking was not significant. |
