2.1.2. Fringe Parking and Bus Transit: To fully understand the experience of fringe parking related to bus transit, consideration must be given to the ubiquituous opportunities for park and ride afforded by bus transit. The number of stops in a bus network in a large city may exceed many hundreds, and a significant number of these are located in areas where there is ample opportunity for all day curb parking. As will be shown later, drivers take advantage of these opportunities for park-and-ride, often to the consternation of residents near the bus stops who themselves are somtimes hard put to find a place to park near their homes. The important element here is that fringe parking is already inherently available to a large degree in a city with bus transit. As a result, efforts to induce the commuter to park in a fringe lot may fail, particularly if a fee is charged for the parking. Table 2-3 indicates the effect of parking fees. The thirty-six cities surveyed failed to turn up but three cases of successful bus fringe parking where a parking fee was levied. All are somewhat special cases. In Cleveland, three free lots are operated, all within one mile of the downtown, where on-street parking is unavailable and where many of the parkers do not use transit, but walk to their destination. At the Lincoln Tunnel lot just west of New York City, drivers are induced to park-and-ride through the triple influences of tunnel toll fees (50¢ round trip), lack of Manhattan parking space and the fact

that the buses connect with the New York subway system for distribu

tion throughout Manhattan. Chicago's Soldier Field charges 25¢ for parking

but reduces bus fare from the lot to 15¢ (total daily cost 15¢ + 15¢ + 25¢ = 55¢). Normal bus fare is 50¢ round trip. Thus the net fee is 5¢ per day above costs of parking on the street and riding a regular bus. This lot is only two miles or a 12 minute bus ride from down

town.

Even where no fee is charged, the fringe lot must offer something better than is available on the street if it is to be used. A well located and designed fringe parking lot can sometimes offer these advantages over on-street park-and-ride.

(1) Better bus service. If a lot is large and sufficiently used, extra express bus service can be provided which offers superior frequency and travel times compared to the regular bus

service.

(2) A safe place to leave the car and catch the bus. Parking on the street in some areas exposes the commuter's car to vandals. In addition, he feels unsafe himself while waiting for the transit. Some lots provide guards during working hours to protect the car. Safety in numbers is provided in any case where larger numbers of commuters gather to catch

the bus at the lot.

(3) The assurance of a place to park. Some otherwise good park and ride locations are short of street parking space. Space hunting may discourage the commuter while the assurance of space in a lot would encourage park-and-ride.

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(4) Shelter while waiting for transit.

Table 2-4 tabulates information on bus fringe lots which have been discontinued, in most cases due to lack of patronage. In some cases details of the operation are no longer available and it is difficult to determine the cause of the lack of usage. This Table provides evidence, however, that a successful fringe parking operation requires some ingredients other than a paved lot, bus service, and a sign announcing the availability of fringe parking. San Diego's 900 space Balboa Park lot only attracted 10 cars, Louisville's Bowman Field Lot with 500 spaces attracted 35, and two large 1500 space drive-in theaters in Boston attracted about 10 to 25 each. Cincinnati's Public Landing is still parking cars but apparently enough drivers could walk to their destinations that the bus service could not be supported.

Failure of fringe parking in the small and medium sized cities such as Harrisburg, Ft. Wayne, Richmond, Louisville and even San Diego can probably be explained by the relatively low downtown parking costs in such cities. As noted before, avoidance of downtown parking costs is one of the prime motivations of fringe parkers and when this element is not present park-and-ride is not likely to be popular. The levy of fringe parking fees can probably be blamed for the

low usage of the Los Angeles and Baltimore lots.

The many variables affecting the usage of fringe facilities are difficult to isolate since in each case several factors operate simultaneously to determine the outcome. However, examination of Tables 2-3