Residential Parking Permit Proposal
For the City of Cincinnati
Prepared by Jack Martin (Clifton Heights) and Nathan Wessel (Pendleton)
27 October 2014
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All on-street parking has a cost (to the City - asphalt, curbs, etc.) and a value (to the user).
Residential Parking Permits (RPPs) should be City-wide.
All residents who park on City Streets shall have the opportunity to purchase an RPP.
In order to be eligible for an RPP, the vehicle must be registered to a residential address in the
district/neighborhood where the resident lives.
5. Fees will be structured to cover On-Street Street Rehabilitation costs, Program Administration
costs, and other uses as seen fit to promote alternate modes of transportation.
6. Every neighborhood would have the opportunity to restrict guest/visitor parking, as needed, to
maintain an adequate number of available parking spaces for residents.
7. Initial annual RPP fees would start low ($25 - $30 per year), but would increase, as needed, to
maintain an adequate number of available parking spaces for residents.
8. If surplus spaces exist in a neighborhood (or section of a neighborhood), they may be made
available to guests/visitors at an hourly, daily, monthly or annual rate, as needed, to maintain an
adequate number of available parking spaces for residents.
9. Because residential areas typically are not equipped with parking meters, guests/visitors would
be able to pay for their on-street parking via cell phone (text) or with the use of pre-purchased
paper vouchers. Guests/visitors would only be able to pay for parking in Residential neighborhoods
via mobile phone or pre-purchased paper vouchers.
10. All City metered spaces would be able to be paid for via mobile phone.
11. City residents using the mobile phone option to pay for on-street parking in the CBD, NBDs or
other City neighborhoods could have a certain portion (or all) of their RPP fee waived for the
next year. This would be a credit that would effectively eliminate the specific charge for the RPP, while
incentivizing City residents to do business in, and visit, other City neighborhoods.
12. Enforcement would be via visual inspection (for meters, vouchers or RPPs) and hand-held
license plate scanners for those paying via mobile phone.
1. Residential Parking Permits (RPPs) should be City-wide. The current Residential Parking Permit
Program is unable to solve varying parking (congestion) problems in many of the City’s neighborhoods.
A City-wide program of RPPs would bring additional revenue for the county and City, as well as let
each of our diverse neighborhoods attack their varying parking problems with unique solutions.
2. All on-street parking should have a cost – all of the time.
3. Every personal vehicle must be registered to the specific address in the neighborhood where the
owner/driver lives. This registration currently includes a $20 annual fee that goes to the County and
gets split with the City for road and bridge maintenance. I estimate that would result in about $24K in
additional annual County revenue from just Clifton Heights and Fairview, south of McMillan (60% - 80%
of the cars parked in the approximately 2,000 spaces appear to be out-of-county, per visual license
plate survey).
4. There would be an initial annual fee of (say) $30 - $50 for a residential parking permit - specific to the
neighborhood in which you live, or within a specific radius (1/4 mile?) of your residence. This rate can
increase per neighborhood if it does not appear to result in “adequate” available on-street parking
spaces.
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Each neighborhood could then work with the City (or other on-street parking operator) to establish
guest/visitor parking rates and hours of enforcement – CBDs, NBDs and residential neighborhoods depending on demand. Alternately, the City/parking operator could unilaterally decide that all parking is
worth something, charge minimal rates everywhere, and premium rates where, and when, there is more
demand.
Generic guest/visitor passes could be made available to out-of-town vehicles and could be used where
there is minimal on-street demand (Sayler Park, College Hill, etc.). These passes would not be usable in
highly congested areas, where guests will have to pay at rates comparable to locally available commercial
parking (see below).
Guests and visitors to residential neighborhoods, as well as the CBD, OTR and NBDs, would be charged
for parking, if available, at rates that reflect the overall demand of the area (generally commercial parking
lots and garages). Guest/visitor rates could also vary by time of day, day of the week, or season of the
year, to ensure adequate on-street parking availability. Parking fee moratoriums could be established for
non-peak times.
The RPP annual fee could be applied to a pre-set amount (up to the total cost of the Permit) of guest/visitor
hourly parking fees for City residents who park in other City neighborhoods and NBDs. This could be used
as either pre-paid parking for the current year, or credited to the NEXT year's residential parking permit.
The "rebate" would never come back as cash – even if the vehicle owner moves. The rebate also would
only be credited back to people who pay by cellphone - those using cash or credit cards to feed meters (or
pay for vouchers) would not get the credit. This would very quickly make meters obsolete, as well as
incentivize residents to shop within the City.
In addition to the fees from on-street parking helping to cover Street Rehabilitation/Re-paving ($5 - $15 per
space per year), they can be used to fund initiatives for other modes of transportation, from bike lanes to
public transit (after paying for administrative costs).
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The following pages will deal with some observations about on-street parking and aspects that need to be
fixed, and/or initiatives that need to be tried, in the City of Cincinnati; and more details of the RPP. If we are
about to embark on major, and fundamentally transformative changes to our parking structure (and
philosophy), we should do it comprehensively using the best practices and technologies available. We can
be the best, not just better.
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Guiding Principles, Facts, Givens, Observations, Opinions, etc.:
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The current Residential Parking Permit system is onerous and inflexible, making it very difficult to get
resident approval and virtually impossible to modify after the fact
No resident of the City should have to pay more (or less) than another resident of the City to park on
the street near their residence; however, the current RPP program requires that (Pendleton, Clifton)
There is a cost for the maintenance and re-paving of parking lanes ~ $5 - $15/year/space (residential –
commercial, respectively)
There are negative health impacts associated with automobiles – crashes, pollution, obesity, rage, etc.
Certain areas of the City have more vehicles than parking spaces
o Some, all of the time – CUF, Mt. Adams
o Some, at certain times – Pendleton, Corryville, Oakley Square, OTR, Hyde Park Square,
Evanston, East Hyde Park
Public transit and other forms of active transportation are good, and healthy
For a number of reasons commuters choose to park on residential streets (for free) rather than
commercial lots and garages (for a cost)
Maintaining, adding and financially subsidizing parking only works against the desire to improve public
transit, and often competes for the same dollars
Shared cars (Zip Cars) can take the place of up to 10 - 15 private vehicles parked on the street
Auto-oriented development restricts the development of urban, mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods,
due to the cost of parking
Parking meters cost approximately $500 - $1500 per space to install, plus maintenance
Almost everybody who has a car, has a mobile phone
If a person loses or breaks their phone, they will take the responsibility to replace it
4pm – 6pm parking restrictions limit businesses downtown and in the NBDs, and they are rarely
evaluated and changed. To a lesser extent, am restrictions are similar. The City should implement an
experimental program of eliminating parking restrictions to evaluate the impacts (+/-) on traffic,
congestion, accidents and local businesses.
“Cincinnati Municipal Code Section 508-12 (Parking Unreasonable Time - No person shall park any
vehicle contrary to traffic signs erected as otherwise authorized herein; and further, no person shall
park any vehicle upon any highway longer than 14 hours except that vehicles operated by or for the
transport of a person with a disability that limits or impairs the ability to walk which display a valid
removable windshield handicapped placard, or special handicapped license plates alone, or special
handicapped license plates and validation stickers, or validation stickers alone, issued pursuant to the
provisions of Chapter 5034 of the Ohio Revised Code or the equivalent thereof from any other state,
may park upon a highway for up to but not more than 36 hours.)” should be repealed. The law
encourages unnecessary driving and penalizes people who leave town, go to the hospital, etc., without
their car.
No buildings should ever be demolished for parking. Land is too valuable. The historic character and
density of our neighborhoods should be valued and retained. New development should match or
exceed existing densities. Surface parking lots should be prohibited, particularly in higher density
neighborhoods (CBD, OTR, Pendleton, Mt. Adams, CUF, Corryville, etc.). Prohibitions should be placed
on new surface parking lots if minimum parking standards are eliminated (which is a good thing)
Lack of free on-street parking will create a demand for (and the use of) other, more efficient modes of
transportation.
More Detailed Elements of the Proposed Residential Parking Permit (RPP) Plan:
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Residential Parking Permits (RPPs) will be required throughout the City, per neighborhood, while
allowing people to park within (say) ¼ mile of their residence. Generally, Cincinnati’s existing
neighborhoods will be considered districts, but there will need to be some overlap for
adjacent/ambiguously defined neighborhoods (or the above ¼-mile exception). All residential parking
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permits will initially cost the same (say $30 - $50 per year), regardless of neighborhood, with proceeds
to fund the following (for example):
o Administration – 25%
o Street Rehab – 25%
o Alternate forms of Transportation – 50%
Residential Parking Permits will initially cost $30 - $50, or as determined. Proof of residency will be
required by valid driver’s license and vehicle registration (at a specific and verifiable address within the
district). Vehicles with Residential Parking Permits may be given a certain dollar amount of parking at
city facilities (on-street or structured), creditable toward the NEXT year’s Residential Parking Permit,
thereby encouraging people to keep their business in the City.
An additional benefit of requiring all RPP vehicles to be registered in the City is that there will finally be
a data base to know how many vehicles are permanently in any neighborhood. The data base could
also be used to verify that housing units and developments are not overcrowded.
All guest-, visitor-, commuter-, etc., parking will be priced based on supply and demand (generally
based on local, commercially-available parking) with the goal of always having some available on-street
parking. The cost may vary by:
o Hour of the day (business districts)
o Day of the week (Pendleton)
o Season of the year (UC neighborhoods)
Monthly (or possibly annual) guest/visitor permits could be sold in the neighborhoods where such
parking is available; however, in the more intensely parked neighborhoods (CUF, Corryville, OTR,
Pendleton) longer-term permits should not be issued until a substantial trial period has passed to allow
for accurate evaluation. Guest parking permits have historically been abused in many of the existing
residential district parking permit programs
On-street parking should be provided (or not) for shared cars – at the residential permit rate, with no
credit/rebate for that fee.
Visitor parking can be paid for with pre-paid vouchers (sold wherever lottery tickets or transit passes
are sold, etc. - mark the date and time on the voucher and place it on the dash) or mobile phones
(registration can occur instantly, with the time and “zone” texted to the central “facility”). Because
registration can occur instantly, at the moment parking is needed, new/first-time guests and visitors
can easily pay for their parking even if it is a one-time deal. Billing is done through the phone provider
or by credit card. CBD meters already have cell phone technology with appropriate hardware/software
at the receiving end.
Rates and duration will vary as now – business districts need turnover to serve their customers.
Enforcement will occur in every neighborhood, as needed, with the use of hand-held license plate
scanners/ticket printers. These will be GPS-capable and real-time monitored so there would be no need
to employees to clock in at “the shop”. The amount and quantity of work can be monitored at all times,
allowing for workers to be hired for specific hours of the day when enforcement is needed. This allows
for the opportunity to hire VERY local workers, who don’t need to commute.
Because there will (eventually) be no parking meters, there will be no need to pay people to drive all
over the City to extract the money from those meters, at an ever-decreasing rate due to increasing
credit card usage.
Some guest/visitor discounts may be given to City residents who are guests/visitors in another
neighborhood, but that would depend on the parking demand in that neighborhood.
Moratoriums for guest/visitor parking fees could be instituted for holidays, certain seasons, etc., if
demand is low enough to justify.
This only provides a very basic overlay for what could be a system of parking that can be tweaked according
to the needs of different neighborhoods, with the possibility of specific applications for separate
neighborhoods. For example:
 Pendleton, OTR and Mt. Adams are overrun during weekdays by downtown workers.
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CUF, Corryville and Clifton are overrun at all times by students, neighborhood workers, commuters
catching buses to downtown, and an overabundance of student/residents who own rarely-used cars.
Oakley, Hyde Park and East Hyde Park are overrun on many evenings by patrons of the business
district’s bars, restaurants and entertainment venues, with few public parking options.
OTR and Pendleton are overrun during the day and into the evening by many non-resident openmarket retailers taking up residential and business parking spaces.
There are others.
This proposal gets the process over the hurdle of needing a majority of residents to respond, and
vote for, an on-street parking user fee. Many neighborhoods, particularly the more dense ones, have
a high percentage of residents that already don’t own cars, making it very difficult to get the majority
participation necessary to implement the current program (in many ways, they don’t care). The
(user) fee needs to be justified as a means to fund street maintenance and a means to better fund
more efficient transit options. If the city remains heavily in the parking subsidy business, we’ll never
be able to afford the transit options that we all want.
Finally, the whole point of the Residential Parking Permit program is to reduce the number of vehicles
competing for a finite number of on-street parking spaces. Pricing that is competitive with nearby
market-rate parking (lots or garages) will remove some vehicles from the pool. Requiring local
registration will cause some to re-think whether they should bring their cars with them when they
visit or move to Cincinnati. Some of us may even decide to downsize to fewer cars and take
advantage of our great neighborhood walkability, improving bike friendliness and accessible public
transit.
Questions or Comments? Please contact:
513-484-5067; (E) jack@cincybeerco.com
(E) bike756@gmail.com
Jack Martin: (M)
Nate Wessel: (M) 303-936-2849;
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