Working Paper: NBER ID: w11118
Authors: Richard Arnott; Eren Inci
Abstract: This paper presents a downtown parking model that integrates traffic congestion and saturated on-street parking. We assume that the stock of cars cruising for parking adds to traffic congestion. Two major results come out from the model, one of which is robust. The robust one is that, whether or not the amount of on-street parking is optimal, it is efficient to raise the on-street parking fee to the point where cruising for parking is eliminated without parking becoming unsaturated. The other is that, if the parking fee is fixed at a sub-optimal level, it is second-best optimal to increase the amount of curbside allocated to parking until cruising for parking is eliminated without parking becoming unsaturated.
Keywords: downtown parking; traffic congestion; urban economics
JEL Codes: R4
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| increasing parking fees (R48) | decrease in cruising for parking (R41) |
| decrease in cruising for parking (R41) | alleviate traffic congestion (L91) |
| increasing amount of curbside parking (R48) | decrease in cruising for parking (R41) |
| decrease in cruising for parking (R41) | impact on traffic congestion (R41) |