The new energy billing program has members monitoring not only how much energy they use, but when they use it as well. (Photo by Aaron
McMahon)
Most power companies charge customers a single, flat rate for electricity. But one group of volunteers is experimenting with a new system. They say people might save money by changing how they’re charged for power. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:
Transcript
Most power companies charge customers a single, flat rate for electricity. But one group of volunteers is experimenting with a new system. They say people might save money by changing how they’re charged for power. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report;
Two years ago, the Illinois-based Community Energy Cooperative, struck a
deal with Com-Ed, the local power company. Instead of getting charged a single rate, members pay more when the energy supply is tight, like on a hot summer’s day.
In exchange, they get a break when there’s less demand. Co-op manager Kathryn Thowlin says a website warns members when power prices rise.
“They can see when it’s the most expensive, when its least expensive.
So somebody who really wants to fine-tune their energy use based on price has
some really easy-to-use tools to do that.”
Thowlin says it’s paid off: consumers have saved about 11 percent on their
power bills.
The experiment is the most comprehensive of its kind offered to residential
customers. Environmentalists say the program works best when consumers cut their
overall demand, not just shift when they use power.
A new book says that much of the space covered by parking lots is only designed for use for the holiday rush, and is unused for the rest of the year. (Photo by Lars Sundström)
A growing number of city planners say we’re building more parking than we really need. They say the fact that nearly all parking is free, makes the situation worse. Their ideas are turning nearly fifty years of urban planning on its head. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this second report in a two-part series:
Transcript
A growing number of city planners say we’re building more parking than we really need. They say the fact that nearly all parking is free, makes the situation worse. Their ideas are turning nearly fifty years of urban planning on its head. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:
If you had to pay for a parking space, would you think twice before making a frivolous trip, say, to a convenience store for a candy bar?
City planning researcher Donald Shoup bets you would stay home if you had to pay, or maybe you’d walk instead. That’s a point he makes in his recent book, The High Cost of Free Parking. In it, he tries to show that free parking entices us to waste gas. He says paved lots also compete for better uses of land, like parks or housing. Shoup says the problem’s very real – but to see it, you need to step out of your automobile.
“Any view of suburbia from the air will show you a lot of parking lots and a lot of these parking lots will have empty parking spaces.”
I decided to take a look at what’s Shoup’s talking about in Lincolnwood Illinois, a Chicago suburb. I cheated by skipping the air fare, though. Some new Internet sites can provide satellite photos of your area. I joined two of Lincolnwood’s city planners, Tim Clarke and John Lebeque, in their office to get a birds-eye view of their home turf.
Clarke: “The plus is closer.”
Allee: “Right, and go ahead and see if you can find… There it is. Lincolnwood.”
Clarke: “Wow.”
Lebeque: “Whoa.”
Allee: “So find a retail strip.”
Turns out, Donald Shoup was right. Within a minute, we find a popular grocery store, with a huge parking lot. Tim Clarke recognizes it.
“It’s probably one-third filled. I’m not sure when this aerial was taken. I’ve never seen the parking lot full.”
So why should a busy store’s parking lot be two-thirds empty most of the time? Shoup says it’s the cities’ fault. Cities make the rules. They say how many spaces each new business, house, and apartment building must provide.
By his estimation, city government does a poor job at guessing how much parking we really need. Shoup says governments force businesses to provide enough spaces to meet peak demand, such as the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year.
“Everyone understands the advice, don’t build your church for Easter Sunday, but we build our parking for the week before Christmas.”
In other words, cities tell stores to build parking for the year’s busiest two weeks, even if most of the spaces are empty the rest of the time. He says, without city pressure, a lot of businesses would create smaller lots or they’d sell off parking space they don’t need.
Tim Clarke, the Lincolnwood planner, says suburbs do err on the side of too much parking, but they’re often planning for future growth. He gives an example of a small Lincolnwood dental practice that had 7 examination rooms, but only used three of them. The dentist wanted to build fewer parking spaces than the village required, because it was small and family-run.
“But one could imagine that that family at some time in life would sell that business and someone would come in and want to use all 6 or 7 examining rooms at one time.”
So city planners have to look at the long term use of a building.
Many of Lincolnwood’s largest retailers actually build more than they need to. Bob Johnson runs a Lowe’s Home Improvement store built in late 2003. He says stores like his don’t gamble with having too few spaces.
“I think customers are going to shop, again, where they feel most comfortable and what’s convenient for them. The key word there being convenience. If they’re inconvenienced, they might drive another couple blocks down the road.”
Shoup says that’s a calculation that businesses have to make. He says market forces can help decide how many spaces should be built, but government should not force retailers to have too many spaces. Nor should it force them to offer only free parking.
In fact, Professor Shoup says cities, especially suburban cities, could use land more efficiently if businesses controlled demand for parking like they control everything else: by setting the right price.
“I’m just saying that cities should not force anyone to provide more parking than drivers are willing to pay for.”
Killing our appetite for cheap, abundant parking could be difficult, but Shoup says pressure’s building for change. He says, as suburbs grow, space gets tight. And that raises prices for all land uses.
“I think most people now are focused on the high cost of housing. I think we’ve got our priorities wrong if housing is expensive and the parking is free.”
In his battle against too much parking, Shoup says the most effective weapon might be a little comparison shopping. Free parking might not seem so cheap once it’s compared to the cost of other needs.
"Meter cruising" is when people drive repeatedly around the block to find an open curbside parking meter. A new book says that not only is meter cruising a waste of gas, but a symptom of a larger urban planning problem. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Finding a free parking space on the street is sometimes a big hassle. But cheap parking is beginning to be viewed as an environmental problem. A growing number of city planners say free parking isn’t really free. It just shifts the cost to taxpayers and society at large. In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has a report on this new view of the ongoing search for a parking space:
Transcript
Finding a free parking space on the street is sometimes a big hassle. But, cheap parking is beginning to be viewed as an environmental problem. A growing number of city planners say free parking isn’t really free. It just shifts the cost to taxpayers and society at large. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has a report on this new view of the ongoing search for a parking space.
If you’ve ever played the board game Monopoly, you’ve probably crossed your fingers as you approached the spot called “free parking.” If your token lands there, it doesn’t cost you anything.
It’s free.
But a researcher says there’s really no such thing as “free parking,” at least not in the real world. UCLA Professor Donald Shoup has spent 20 years dispelling the myth that free parking is good for everyone.
In his latest book, titled The High Cost of Free Parking, Shoup tries to show that empty cars are taking the public and the environment for a costly ride.
“Bad parking policies are connected to a lot of other problems we have in society, but people haven’t been able to trace them to parking, and I think I’ve tried to do that.”
Take one of the biggest traffic issues facing large cities: meter cruising. That’s when drivers circle a block again and again, waiting for a curb-side meter.
“The average time it took to find a parking space was about three minutes. That doesn’t seem like too much for an individual to spending hunting for a free parking space, but it adds up if everybody else does it.”
Shoup says meter cruising wastes millions of gallons of gas every year. It also creates a lot of traffic congestion and pollution. Meter cruising’s common to downtowns, but even neighborhood shopping areas face the cruising problem.
Here’s an example. Devon Avenue is a bustling commercial strip on Chicago’s far North Side. There are lots of Indo-Pakistani restaurants, Muslim book stores and Jewish bakeries there. On a typical Saturday, the area’s so popular that only a handful of parking meters stay open for more than a few minutes. And it’s no wonder. Parking at the meter only costs 25 cents per hour.
The situation’s made worse by neighborhood parking permits. That’s a policy that keeps nearby residential streets off-limits to shoppers and restaurant-goers. Walking down the sidewalk, Grace is toting several shopping bags that heave with fresh fruit and Indian condiments.
“I went on the side streets and found a place about six blocks away without a need for a permit and took it and walked in. It’s one of the first really beautiful days of spring, so it wasn’t a hardship.”
If it hadn’t been such a nice day, Grace might have been circling the nearby blocks, wasting gas, trying to find a space at a parking meter.
Local shop owners say too many customers don’t like the parking situation. So the store owners complain to the local alderman, Bernard Stone. Seated in his office, Alderman Stone says no politician can afford to ignore demand for cheap parking. So he’s come up with a solution.
Stone: “If you look over your head, you’ll see a drawing of a new garage that’s gonna be built at Devon and Rockwell.”
Allee: “When’s that gonna be up?”
Stone: “Well, it should be started very shortly, I’ve been working at it for ten years.”
Developers for that project promised to create 200 low-rate parking spaces. It’s a deal they’ve struck in exchange for free city-owned land where they want to build. But the expert on parking, Donald Shoup says as politically appealing as that type of solution is, it doesn’t work. It really doesn’t keep cruising in check.
His suggestion?
Well, he takes a page from both the free-marketeers and grassroots activists. First, he says raise the price for metered parking. A lot. He says how much takes a little calculating.
“We could call this the Goldilocks principle of curb parking prices. The price is too high if too many spaces are vacant and too low if no spaces are vacant. If about fifteen percent are vacant, the price is just right.”
Traffic engineers say keeping fifteen percent of spots open stops meter cruising. To save money, people leave their parking spots sooner and everyone can find new spots faster. Next, make higher parking prices politically attractive to shop owners by letting the neighborhoods keep the meter money. Critics say that’s a hard sell because many times, people worry the money will go to city hall instead.
But Shoup says it works. He points to some California towns, where the money goes to repair streets and even hire security guards. Professor Shoup’s supporters say he might be too optimistic about the prospects for change in our impulse to hunt for the closest, most perfect parking space.
Shoup says he wants to be remembered as the first who showed, unless you’re just playing games, there’s no such thing as free parking.
The Asian Longhorned Beetle rapidly kills hardwood trees and had plagued Chicago for some time, but officials now report that progress is being made in the fight against the beetle population. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan DNR)
The City of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
are celebrating a small victory in their battle against an invasive pest. The Asian Longhorned Beetle arrived from China in packing materials and is responsible for destroying thousands of hardwood trees in North America. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:
Transcript
The City of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are celebrating a small victory in their battle against an invasive pest. The Asian Longhorned Beetle arrived from China and is responsible for destroying thousands of hardwood trees in North America. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more.
Chicago saw its first Asian Longhorned Beetle back in 1998. USDA and Chicago officials quickly destroyed more than fifteen hundred trees to stop the infestation. They also slapped a quarantine on the historic Ravenswood neighborhood, which prevented residents from removing tree cuttings from the area.
Now officials are lifting those restrictions, saying no one’s seen the bug in the area’s stately tree canopy for nearly two years. Joe McCarthy is the City of Chicago’s chief forester. He says a beetle hotline and a diligent press made the difference.
“There’s so much coverage of this thing, that the beetle is on TV, out in the papers, on front pages. And that’s how all the main infestations were found in the Chicago area.”
McCarthy points out that another Chicago neighborhood is still under quarantine.
The USDA is also fighting the Asian Longhorned Beetle in New York City and parts of New Jersey.
Some worry that the barrier to protect the Great Lakes from Asian carp may not be as effective as previously imagined. Asian carp eggs can be brought in with ships' ballast water. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
By summer’s end, officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and the
state of Illinois hope to finish an underwater electric barrier in a canal just south
of Chicago. The barrier is designed to repel invasive fish such as the Asian Carp.
But some environmentalists fear the barrier won’t be enough to keep the voracious,
non-native species out of Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
By summers end, officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and the state of Illinois hope to finish an underwater electric barrier in a canal just south of Chicago. The barrier is designed to repel invasive fish such as the Asian Carp. But some environmentalists fear the barrier won’t be enough to keep the voracious, non-native species out of Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
Some conservationists worry Asian Carp may someday enter the Great Lakes by simply hitching a ride.
These critics say leaky ships passing through the electric barrier could hold carp eggs inside their ballast tanks and deposit them on the other side. But local officials say that scenario is unlikely.
Steve Stuewe is with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
He says Asian Carp eggs need turbulent water, and if they do find their way into rusty ballast tanks…
“They will probably be dead because they’ve settled out into the bottom of the hull and they’ve either suffocated or they’re down there, mixed in with the iron oxidate. So, they sink. They have to float.”
The research on egg viability is still sketchy, but a federal study of the issue may settle the question once and for all early this summer.
The new energy billing program has members monitoring not only how much energy they use, but when they use it as well. (Photo by Aaron McMahon)
