State of the Commute 2007 #3: Free Parking Still Plentiful
Continuing with more information from MWCOG's recently released State of the Commute 2007 survey (Telework "Rising Dramatically" in D.C. Area, July 20, 2007 and D.C. Region's Drive Alone Rate Goes Down!, July 18, 2007) comes news that area employers are still providing scads of free parking. According to the report, sixty-nine percent (69%) of respondents said their employers offered free, on-site (65%) or off-site (4%) parking, the same percentage as reported in 2004 (69%) and in 2001 (68%).
Federal agency employees were least likely to have free parking (53%) compared with more than seventy percent (70%) of employees working for private firms and eighty-three percent (83%) who worked for state/local governments. COG notes that free parking was much less common in the core area of the region, where only four in ten of respondents had free parking compared to three quarters outside of the core.
Twenty-one (21%) percent of employees said that they are responsible for paying all parking charges, nearly the same as the past two surveys (21% in 2004 and 23% in 2001). Fifteen percent said they were provided discounts for car/vanpooling and seven percent said they shared parking costs with their employers. These numbers were also are near identical to the surveys done in 2004 and 2001.
I think it is a bit surprising that the drive alone rate is trending slightly down and the rate of train, bus, car/vanpool and bike/walk are all up despite the fact that the rate of employer provided parking has remained steady over the past three surveys. I believe a bigger dent could be made in congestion by bringing that drive alone rate down if the rate of free parking could be brought down (while providing corresponding commuter benefits - which will be the subject of the next State of the Commuter post).
And why do more than half of Federal employees still have free parking?
More information on Parking Mangement for employers.
Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a biking/Metro commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria
