Beijing-parking-ITDP-China

wider roads leads to dispersed developmentpatterns and reduced travel options that lead toincreased car ownership and car use.In an effort to balance supply and demand forparking spaces, the government has only workedon the providing more supply, whereas reducingdemand is the preferred solution. Reducingdemand is done by setting high prices, enforceillegal parking and reduce, or at least cap, thenumber of off-street parking spaces.3. Managing on-street and illegal parking areignoredSurveys show chaotic streets with high parkingoccupancies and frequent illegal parking, whileadjacent off-street parking lots show high vacancies.This is not surprising, since few streets havepaid parking operation and illegal parking is notproperly enforced, resulting in drivers parkingon-street for free. Beijing’s strategy of buildingmore off-street parking is therefore ineffective anda waste of government’s budgets, without organizingpaid on-street parking, with formal prices,and enforcement of illegal parking first. On-streetDrivers parkon-street insteadHigh vacancies inparking buildings,due to poor on-streetenforcement andhigher parking priceChaoticstreets“We needmore off-streetparking!”Constructionof new parkingbuildingsHigh investment& operation costsfor governmentor privateinvestorPaid on-street parking and increased parking enforcementis needed in Beijing before new off-street parkingis necessaryparking management is also expected to stimulateprivate investment in the provision of off-streetparking, especially for all-day parking demand.4.2 On-street parkingAs mentioned in the previous section, somestreets have paid parking where others are free.This leads to high occupancies and low turnoverin streets without a parking fee and low occupanciesin streets with a parking fee. Also the parkingzones are far too large, with the entire third ringroad as the most expensive zone, which does notsteer parking demand away from the most importantareas within the third ring road. Driverscircle the blocks, looking for vacant parking spaceat low speeds and stop-and-go behavior, slowingdown other traffic and adding to pollution, noiseand danger to people.Furthermore, on many of Beijing’s streets theallocation of parking spaces is unclear. Parkingspaces are illegally drawn by operators on streets,some on bike lanes and some not even drawn atall, and parking fees charged.The use of primitive on-street parking systemsresult in large leakage of parking revenue intoprivate pockets. CCTV did a recent researchinto parking revenues and found that contractsbetween city governments and city-wide parkingoperators jointly secure 300 million RMB annuallyfor the right to operate on-street parking, butonly pay 20-30 million RMB. Moreover, the currenton-street parking system provides no serviceto drivers and no insights into parking demand,occupancies and turnover to the government, onwhich proper parking policies should be based.4.3 Parking enforcementIllegal parking is abundant in Beijing due to poorenforcement. Illegal parking on setbacks andsidewalks cause problems for pedestrians who areforced to squeeze through parked cars, and businesses(shops & restaurants) who are less visibleand access become more difficult. Bike lanes areoften blocked by parked cars, leaving cyclists toshare to street with mixed traffic. Given the largenumbers of illegally parked cars without fines,it can be concluded that parking enforcement ispoorly executed, which was confirmed by parkingBeijing Parking, ITDP-China 931 March 2015