Performance-based parking is a bad idea. The reason for this is that, like browser pop-ups, it’s annoying enough to the user/parker to make them want to pursue some other option – like shopping in the county. People don’t need sliding scale disincentives to go somewhere to spend money.

I do feel that the parking rates should be higher in many areas of the city however, on the current flat scale basis. There are plenty of zones where the street parking rate is a mere 50 cents per hour, which seems like more of an admission that the city is hopelessly depressed and scared to charge decent rates than a revenue generating strategy. The rates should go up to $1 per hour. No self respecting person is going to complain about spending 2 bucks to shop for 2 hours and it would double the city’s revenue in many parking zones.

There is actually highly tested and confirmed physical and economic theory behind all this. Baltimore gets overcongested despite being a mere small-town backwater compared with places like New York. That great philosopher Yogi Berra said it best: “No one goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

Baltimore’s capacity to accommodate people is far too low and more parking can never be a significant part of any solution, just as it isn’t in New York. The wall to wall parking garages on Lombard Street and elsewhere are a dead end, applying the words “dead” and “end” both individually and collectively.