Written on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 9:04am by Paul Wolf | 2 Comments

Should the City Be In the Parking Business?

The owner of the Main Place Mall has once again expressed interest in purchasing the city-owned parking ramp beneath the Mall. Sale of the ramp would generate several million dollars in revenue and put the ramp back on the tax rolls.

The offer to purchase the ramp raises the question as to why is the city in the parking business to begin with? The argument is that the city’s involvement helps to keep parking rates low as the city is at a competitive disadvantage in competing with the suburbs where employees and shoppers get free parking.

In Chicago, Mayor Daley believes in selling any city owned assets including parking ramps,to generate revenue and to get the city out of businesses they should not be in. I think part of the problem in accomplishing things in government is that government is involved in many areas better left to the private sector. The City has plenty of issues it needs to focus on, do we really need to add owning and managing parking facilities as another item to address?

Attached is a copy of the resent Buffalo News article. Check out the post by Jason Cozza on www.whynotbuffalo.blogspot.com as well, which you can find on the links listed to the left on this site.

Download main_place_mall_ramp.doc

2 Comments

  1. Beverly Eagen says:
    January 3, 2008 at 12:45 pm

    I don’t understand why this sale isn’t a done deal. The City should be chomping at the bit to sale the parking ramp. HOWEVER, I agree that something usefull and constructive should be done with the revenue, not just ‘lose’ it into the general budget.

  2. Buffalo Blood Donor says:
    January 3, 2008 at 1:07 pm

    The city should get out of the Parking business.
    For that matter, it should also get out of the snow plowing business, garbage collection business, parks upkeep business, education business, medicine business and any other business not related to fire protection and police. On second thought, perhaps they should get out of those businesses as well and anything else where the City has established itself as a virtual monopoly.
    The City has proven itself quite capable of boondoggling everything it touches, while the private sector tends to specialize in streamlining and efficiency – profit motives do that in competitive environments. Privatization may be a much more cost-effective solution than anything the City can muster via the government sector.
    BBD

 

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