From our What's Happening in Your Capitol files...

The California Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing is conducted an informational hearing yesterday entitled "Reducing Congestion and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Through Parking Policy."

Or as better stated, (to paraphrase the Chairman) eliminating free parking so people drive less.... aka "social equity."

Yes, just days after the California Legislature managed to scrap together a budget fix to the $42 BILLION shortfall, the majority isn't working on eliminating the out year deficit that still exists. Instead they are hard at work trying to figure out how best to alter your behavioral patters to fit their end goals. Step number one: Eliminate free parking and put "cash registers curbside" to help meet carbon emission goals.

In case you didn't know, free parking is the root of all societies ailments:
-Free parking incentivizes car ownership and driving which adds to traffic;
-Free parking contributes to rapid urban sprawl & "extravagant" energy use;
-Free parking makes housing more expensive;
-Free parking is a leading contributor to global warming & climate change; and of course
-Free parking fails to provide an additional revenue stream to government.

One of the individuals to provide testimony before the Committee was Dr. Donald Shoup of UCLA. Dr. Shoup's supposition? America has too many parking spaces in this country, especially the cheap and free kind.

HOW DARE YOU AMERICA!!

There's just one problem: parking isn't free. Developers already pass the cost of "free" parking to property owners, who pass it to tenants, who pass it to all customers in the form of higher prices. Make no mistake, the end goal of such policy endeavors are nothing more than attempts to force people from their cars.

Two specific points from the proponents that are worth pointing out. First, as a perfect example of the backwards thinking that often accompanies such theories, one proponent noted that eliminating free parking does nothing to limit free choice. His example: If you want to own multiple cars, simply build a bigger house with a larger garage.

My math: Choices - Choice < More Choices.

Secondly and more importantly - the argument of "social equity" is nothing more than a red herring. Proponents note that eliminating free parking may create financial difficulties for the economically disadvantaged. May?! Eliminating free parking would have the greatest impact on those the majority party claims to care for the most - the working poor.

The Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council, noted:

In most cases, the shortest distance between a poor person and a job is along a line driven in a car. Prosperity in America has always been strongly related to mobility and poor people work hard for access to opportunities. For both the rural and inner-city poor, access means being able to reach the prosperous suburbs of our booming metropolitan economies, and mobility means having the private automobile necessary for the trip.

Since transit service is so much slower than cars and is focused principally in the core and central business districts of major metropolitan areas, people who use transit because they do not have a car face limited mobility and diminished job prospects.

In the end, whether it's money for the renovation of bridges, thousands of pork-barrel projects, buses and trolleys, historic preservation, hiking and biking trails, or highway beautification and expansion programs, all of these diversions are funded by the fuel taxes paid by motorists who use their cars to support themselves and their families.

Before simply implementing social engineering policies for political purposes Legislators should think long and hard about the unintended consequences of their actions.