I’m writing this column on a Sunday, and I’d like you to guess how much it would cost me to park on the street in downtown Boston, or Davis or Harvard Square.
If this column’s title didn’t give it away already, it’s free! Parking is usually free on Sundays all over Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and many other cities and towns throughout the Greater Boston area. It’s most likely meant to encourage folks to come into the city from wherever they live and spend their money at local businesses. In that sense, the policy is probably meant to pay for itself.
But yet, if this column’s title didn’t also give this away, I think this is a dumb policy. It presents a number of problems that cities essentially choose to deal with because of preconceived notions about how people behave and whom a city is really catered towards. In cities like Somerville, Cambridge and Boston, it shouldn’t exist.
The first thing you should ask when investigating the utility of free Sunday parking is: Who is this policy for? Meaning, which constituencies is this policy meant to serve? The people who live in a city who want to get around on weekends or the people in the suburbs who come in to shop, eat or walk around? Just based on the way cities and suburbs are designed, where suburban residents are more likely to own a car than city residents, the answer is pretty apparent.
So why do this at all? Are there any actual benefits to free parking on Sundays?
In short, it’s really unclear, as there simply isn’t a lot of research out there asking this question. There is a lot of research, however, on the effects of free parking itself on car usage — and the picture it shows is clear. Free parking is a subsidy for drivers, it’s unnecessary and it makes our cities worse.
I don’t really need to spell out specifically why I believe car dependency is bad and destructive — the safety hazards and climate effects are self-evident. I would argue that less car-dependent cities encourage a better quality of life that connects people to each other and the amenities offered available in their community. But if you’re a city planner or councilor leaning toward this policy, you might almost think that’s irrelevant, because you probably aren’t thinking of people in your own community but rather of richer suburbanites. Free Sunday parking subsidizes car usage, which is subsidizing a population disproportionately richer and whiter than the average car-less population.
There are such obvious good alternatives to this policy that it is really only limited by what you believe is possible. Why don’t we make buses and trains free on Sundays or make parking free at train stations instead of, you know, everywhere else? We are perfectly capable of designing policies that help boost local businesses without subsidizing the rich. Cities just have to ask themselves who they want to serve.
