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Stanford’s big on promoting ‘alternative’ transportation (read: anything but you, driving alone in your private vehicle), especially for commuting. And to Stanford’s credit, Stanford apparently has one of the lowest rates of solo-driver commuting of any major organization in the area. Which is great.

And what’s most impressive, is that this is in spite of Stanford’s parking pricing structure.

Parking pricing? Who cares? Well, turns out this is one very key knob (some would argue that it’s the best knob) we have to help push us away from foreign oil, global warming, childhood asthma, chronic obesity and all those other happy products of our big bad-ass car culture.

To understand how Stanford’s parking pricing is such a powerful knob that is currently twisted the wrong way, it helps to look at a more-or-less typical case study. Let’s consider a hypothetical commuter, call her… “Jane Student” and let’s say like many Stanford students, she chooses to live up in San Francisco and commute down, for reasons like quality of life, culture, etc. Let’s say Jane has a car, but plans on taking the local commuter rail, Caltrain, about half the time.

At Stanford, there are two primary ‘zones’ for commuter parking: ‘A’ and ‘C’. ‘A’ is the good, close lots and costs about 2.5 times what ‘C’ does. You generally only find metered spots adjacent to the ‘A’ lots. Everything that holds true for ‘A’ also holds true for ‘C’, so for simplicity, we’re going to assume Jane doesn’t want to park a bus ride away from class, so we’re only going to consider ‘A’.

Now, to pay for her parking, Jane has three options:

• Metered parking: $1.50 an hour
• Daily permit: $11
• Monthly permit: $60.50

When Jane sits down to consider this situation, the first thing she does is figure out what’s cheapest for her. Well, Jane is on campus usually about 7 hours a day. If she were to drive everyday (20 days a month), then her options cost per month:

• Metered parking: 1.50*7*20 = $210
• Daily permit: 11*20 = $220
• Monthly permit: $60.50

Whoa! $60 versus $220? That’s quite a difference. But now Jane knows she’d rather take the train some days. So how many days a month would she have to drive to make the monthly permit worth it? Well, 60.50/11 = 5.5 and 60.50/1.50/7 = 5.76. So if Jane drives 6 or more days a month, it’s worth it for her to get a monthly permit. Since Jane plans on doing about 50-50 train/car, she goes ahead and buys a monthly permit.

Now, let’s consider Jane’s decision making process each morning when she’s choosing whether to take the local commuter rail, Caltrain, or drive alone.

Costs to take Caltrain:

• Bike to Station: 15 min, Train: 45 min, Bike to Class: 15 min => 30 min of exercise, and 45 min of semi-productive time
• Two Caltrain 3-zone tickets: 2 * 6 = $12

Costs to drive alone:

• Walk to car: 5 min, Drive: 45 min, Walk to class: 10 min => 15 min of light exercise, 45 min of wasted time
• Gas each way is 40 miles at 30 mpg and gas is now $2.00 a gallon => 2 * 40 / 30 * 2 = $5.33

(Note that medium and long-term costs like insurance, depreciation, health, environmental etc do not factor into Jane’s daily decision making process. Medium and long-term costs and benefits will factor into Jane’s medium and long-term decisions, but will be, generally, inconsequential for her short-term decision making.)

Wow, not only does it take longer for Jane to take the train, but it costs her more! This means Jane’s default behavior will be to drive. We can expect Jane’s commute to be dominated by solo driving with sprinkled Caltrain.

FAIL. That’s not what Jane wants, that’s not what Stanford wants, and that certainly isn’t what our community as a whole wants.

Let’s consider what would happen if Stanford implemented a different parking pricing structure. The following could be implemented with zero costly infrastructure change.

Proposed:

• Metered Parking: $1.25 an hour
• Daily permit: $8
• Monthly permit: $125

Now, the following holds true for our wonderful Jane:

• A daily permit is only worth it if you’re planning on parking 7 hours or longer that day.
• A monthly permit is only worth it if you’re planning on parking 16 days or more that month.

All of a sudden the bar to buying a monthly permit is much higher. So Jane, who expects to go for a 50-50 mode share, now will no longer buy a monthly permit. She’ll buy a series of daily permits to use whenever she chooses to drive. Now, let’s consider Jane’s new decision making process each morning when deciding to take the train or drive alone.

Costs to take Caltrain (no change from above):

• Bike to Station: 15 min, Ride: 45 min, Bike to Class: 15 min => 30 min of exercise, and 45 min of semi-productive time
• Two Caltrain 3-zone tickets: 2 * 6 = $12

Costs to drive alone:

• Walk to car: 5 min, Drive: 45 min, Walk to class: 10 min => 15 min of light exercise, 45 min of wasted time
• Gas each way is 40 miles at 30 mpg and gas is now $2.00 a gallon => 2 * 40 / 30 * 2 = $5.33
• Parking: $8

Bam. Jane’s total direct, tangible cost to drive alone each morning is now $13.33 – higher than the $12 it costs for Jane to take Caltrain. That, coupled with the benefit of reclaimed time Caltrain affords Jane changes Jane’s default behavior. Jane’s default behavior is now to take Caltrain. We can expect Jane will generally take the train, and occasionally drive.

Given that Stanford’s all about going green, this is puzzling. Thoughts? Anybody from Stanford Parking and Transportation out there with any deeper insight into this situation?