Westwood’s only public parking structure, on Broxton Avenue, may soon eliminate monthly parking passes depending on the results of a possible study by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.
A recent motion by Los Angeles city councilmember Paul Koretz aims to commission a study about the Broxton parking garage to review how eliminating the monthly passes would financially impact the Department of Transportation. The proposed study would also make recommendations on how to make up revenue loss from the change.
At the garage, which is in a central location in Westwood, parkers receive the first two hours of parking for free, after which they are subject to an incremental parking rate up to the daily maximum. Parkers pay a flat rate of $3 after 6 p.m.
The motion cites a previous study conducted by Civic Enterprise Associates, which recommended that the Los Angeles Department of Transportation remove monthly parkers and increase short-term parking prices.
The study recommended the Broxton parking garage eliminate the average of 76 monthly parking passes to make more room for shorter-term parkers in the 365-space garage. It also suggested increasing the daily maximum charge for parking from $9 to $10 and the flat rate charged after 6 p.m. from $3 to $4.50 to make up for lost revenues from the change.
Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, said that an alternative to eliminating monthly parking passes is to restrict monthly parkers to the top one or two levels of the structure. By restricting monthly parkers to the top levels of the parking structure, he said, the garage could have a higher turnover on lower floors.
The Civic Enterprise Associates study found that about half of the tickets at the Broxton parking garage were for less than two-hour stays.
Dina Bloem, a resident of Los Angeles who has been parking in the Broxton garage for around a year, said that potential increases to the daily maximum rate do not worry her because she only stays one or two hours each time she parks.
Randall Crane, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, said that when parking is priced too low, people look for parking longer because there is a greater demand for parking.
Crane said he thinks prices are only too low if parking is filled to capacity, and prices should be high enough so that on every block there is at least one empty space.
Andrew Thomas, the executive director of the Westwood Village Improvement Association, said the Broxton Avenue parking garage has its peak occupancy on Thursday afternoon, when it is around 85 percent full. He said moving monthly parkers to a private parking garage would be the equivalent of adding another floor to the structure.
“I think the city will find they make as much money on transient parkers (as on monthly parkers),” Thomas said. “There are a lot of ways to make up guaranteed revenue.”
Mott Smith, a parking advisor to the Westwood Village Improvement Association, said a new express parking program would bring in revenue for the Department of Transportation in case there was revenue loss. The express parking program works by pricing meters based on demand. He said in areas of higher parking demand, the prices would increase for a higher turnover rate.
Smith said he thinks the Broxton parking garage is distinct because of its ability to bring in transient parkers with free or inexpensive parking, and that monthly parking permits do not add anything that other private parking garages in Westwood already provide.
Koretz’s motion was referred to the Transportation Committee for consideration. The motion asks the Department of Transportation to report its answer within 60 days.