Philly has the most fourth most expensive parking in the nation, according to a new analysis of parking fees across the country.
City Observatory recently took a deep dive into the cost of parking in major U.S. cities and found that the average monthly rate in Philly is $325 a month. It came in fourth after New York, Boston, and Washington, respectively.
Now, it should be noted that City Observatory only looked at five parking lots and garages near each metro region’s City Hall. They then calculated the average of their monthly parking fees.
Not surprisingly, the more dense the city, the higher the parking fees. Cities in the Northeast and on the west coast had the highest rates, while the much of south had low prices.
With their data, City Observatory researchers took it one step further and looked at what parking prices tell us about urban transportation. They plotted the number of transit trips per capita against the average price of parking in Philly and other major cities.
There’s a very strong positive correlation between transit rides per capita and parking rates. Cities with higher parking rates have more transit rides per capita than cities with lower parking rates.
In the Philly metro region, where the average monthly parking is $325, there are 63 transit trips taken per capita.
Overall, the researchers found that the correlation between the two measures is incredibly strong, suggesting that "parking rates statistically explain 83 percent of the variation in transit use among cities."
In other words, higher parking prices equals more transit use.
It may be hard to imagine that here in Philly, where parking is often the biggest issue at community meetings, but transit use is certainly on the rise. Just yesterday, Center City District announced that bike commuting has jumped 79 percent since 2010, and most recent Census data shows that the number of workers who drive to work in Philly declined by 2.6 percent from 2006 to 2013.
- The Price of Parking [City Observatory]
- Cities and the Price of Parking [City Observatory]
- Report: Bike commuting in Center City has skyrocketed since 2010 [Curbed Philly]
- Who drives to work? [U.S. Census]