LOS ANGELES-
Free parking or cash? It’s a choice many employees in California should have under a state law enacted more than a decade ago to encourage residents to carpool, ride public transit, walk or bike to work.
But many people–including employers–don’t know about the 1992 rule requiring certain businesses to pay a stipend to those who don’t drive to work, and some officials say it’s hard to police.
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council’s Transportation Committee, eager to reduce traffic congestion, will consider better implementation and enforcement techniques.
“I think it’s clear that parking policies affect how people get to work,” said city councilwoman Wendy Greuel, the committee chairwoman.
Greuel said studies show that free parking encourages people to drive to work alone,
According to Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA who helped write the state law, 17 percent of all drivers offered cash in exchange for their free parking space will give up their vehicle. He studied eight L.A.-area law firms to arrive at that figure.
“It treats every employee equally,” he said. “It’s much fairer than saying you get free parking or nothing.”
The Southern California Association of Governments estimates that 95 percent of the people who drive to work park there for free, Shoup said.
Under the parking cash-out program, employers must pay a stipend equal to the cost of a parking space to workers who do not drive to the office. The law covers public and private employers that have at least 50 employees and that offer free parking in a leased lot.
The restrictions allow about 3 percent–or an estimated 290,000 of the state’s 11 million employer-paid parking spaces–to be subject to the law, according to a 2002 report by the state legislative analyst’s office. About 84 percent of the free parking spaces are exempt because they are employer-owned.
Statewide, only Santa Monica enforces the law. More than a decade ago, provisions of the statute were incorporated into a traffic management ordinance.
Gennet Paauwe, a spokeswoman for the California Air Resources Board, said the law’s exemptions make it hard to enforce. She said it currently is “complaint driven.”
The statute includes a $500 fine per vehicle for noncompliance but no one has been fined.
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Information from: Los Angeles Times,
