As reported in RANGE, Spokane City Council is considering a commercial parking tax at its meeting on Monday, November 17. Structured as a 6-12% fee to park at a commercial lot, the measure would help address Spokane's $13 million budget deficit, shoring up our transportation budget and hopefully reducing the need for layoffs at City Hall.

Predictably, the downtown business community has lit its hair on fire.

They are overreacting.

• At peak utilization, these lots are only 50% occupied.
• The reduced rate for structured garages incentivizes more efficient land use, dovetailing with policies like Building Opportunity for Housing.
• The law would exempt residential parking, student parking, employee parking, and on-street parking, which means it would apply only to lots designed to earn money from parking, which has negative externalities.
• Surface parking makes downtown less walkable, weaker economically (because buildings earn more revenue than parking!), and in some cases, less safe. Many of these surface lots have been hotbeds for the same type of antisocial behavior, like public drug use, that we often see downtown business leaders decrying.
• Many cities smaller than Spokane levy parking taxes––often at higher rates––with no ill effects. Burien levies a tax of almost $4 per transaction. Tukwila charges 15%. Bainbridge Island charges 30%. Seattle charges 14.5%, also more than in Spokane.
• Finally, and most importantly, $13 million in budget cuts would be far more economically detrimental.

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