ABSTRACT
As dties shift toward market-price curb parking and away from off-street parking requirements, parking benefit districts will reduce traffic congestion, air pollution, accidents, and energy consumption. Indiana University political scientist Elinor Ostrom argues the key to solving a commons problem is to "get the institutions right." Parking benefit districts are institutions that will help secure consensus about curb parking among everyone whose agreement counts: voters, business owners, and politicians. If cities guarantee to spend the resulting revenue on new public services that residents can see on their blocks, greater political support for market-price curb parking should emerge. The purpose of charging market prices for curb parking is to manage a scarce public resource, not to finance the cost of providing it. Parking benefit districts will not finance curb parking but will instead create the necessary political support to charge market prices for it.
