Downtown real estate in Maine's largest city – its cultural and commercial center – is too valuable to be used to store cars.
That should be the guiding principle behind changes to city policies now under review by the Planning Board.
The proposals result from last year's Peninsula Transit Study, which recommended improvements to intersections and lane stripes that would make the city's streets work better for pedestrians, cyclists and people who ride buses, decreasing motor vehicle traffic and congestion.
The study also recommended changing the relationship between new development and parking.
Among the changes on the table is removing the requirement that developers create a specific number of parking spaces for every office or dwelling they build.
Instead, a commercial developer would have the option of contributing to a fund that would be used for transit projects that would make it easier for people to get around without a car.
Residential development would be completely free of parking requirements. Residents would pay less for housing that comes without parking and would have the choice of finding it in the marketplace or looking for alternatives.
In the short run, it would lower the cost of development, helping build out still empty or under-used properties (including surface parking lots) that stretch right through the heart of the peninsula, from the eastern waterfront to Marginal Way. If it works, over time, it could create the density needed to make mass transit a viable alternative in ways that it now is not.
Breaking the link between development and parking harnesses the market principles of choice, competition and incentive to work on the city's transportation problems.
A worker who receives a parking voucher from his employer could use it toward space in a garage but might find that it would go further in a carpool, bus service or by riding a bike into downtown from an off-peninsula satellite lot.
There are attractions other than cost. Exercise from walking or cycling would be seen as a good option for more people if it was perceived as safe and convenient.
If options are available, people can choose the ones, including paying for parking, that work best for them.
Unfortunately, options are not now available for most people who work or shop in downtown Portland. A car is often the only way to get one person to work, and the car sits alongside hundreds of others all day, taking up valuable downtown real estate.
Opponents of the transit plan can be expected to claim that market-priced parking will drive business and visitors out of Portland, but this doesn't match the experience of other cities, large and small. Some of the most valuable commercial real estate in the world, as well as some of the most popular tourist destinations, are also among the least car-friendly.
A few people may come to Portland because it's an easy place to park, but many live, do business and visit here because it has a walkable downtown.
An asset like that is too valuable to be used storing cars. City policy should look to maximize the value of that asset.
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