2024 Parking Study – Surface Lot Replacement Study
PROJECT #37-09887.00
1 Date: October 11, 2024
To: City of Santa Monica
Company: 1685 Main St.
Address: Santa Monica, CA 90401
From: Steffen Turoff, AICP, Beth Mercer
Project Name: 2024 Parking Study – Surface Lot Replacement Study Project Number: 37-09987.00
Introduction
The City of Santa Monica has provisional plans to construct affordable housing on some existing city surface parking lots. If public parking for these locations is to continue to be provided, the city seeks to understand how many spaces would need to be replaced when housing is built on these sites. As part of its citywide parking study, Walker has performed the following analysis of parking demand in the surface lots being considered for development, relying on data from the city’s Smarking platform.
Study Area
The study area encompasses seven parking lots within the City of Santa Monica. The specific city surface lots analyzed, along with their addresses, are as follows: Main Street Lot 9 (110 Hill St, Santa Monica), Main Street Lot 10 (111 Hill Street, Santa Monica), Main Street Lot 11 (170 Hollister Ave, Santa Monica 90401), Mid-City Lot 7 (1217 Euclid St, Santa Monica), Mid-City Lot 8 (1146 16th Street, Santa Monica), Mid-City Lot 12 (1211 14th St, Santa Monica), and Downtown Lot 27 (1320 5th street, Santa Monica, 90401). The accompanying map identifies the locations of these seven lots with red pins.
Figure 1: Santa Monica City Lots
Walker Consultants, 2024
2024 Parking Study – Surface Lot Replacement Study
PROJECT #37-09887.00
2 Analysis
Walker conducted an analysis to determine the average and 85th percentile parking occupancy over the past two calendar years, 2022 and 2023, to determine how much parking needs will be impacted by the Affordable Housing. The average occupancy and 85th percentile parking occupancy were calculated using data from the city’s online parking data platform, Smarking, for each of the city’s parking lots that will be affected by the future development. These metrics were derived from the peak parking data recorded each day throughout the entire calendar year for both 2022 and 2023. The “85th Percentile” in this case refers to the peak level of occupancy that occurs on this 85th percentile busiest day, a metric that is often used to determine the appropriate parking capacity to provide. Any more parking provided results in spaces sitting empty an unacceptable number of days per year. Any less parking results in an insufficient amount of parking for an unacceptable number of days throughout the year.
The following figures present the parking occupancy analyzed for the past two years in the seven city lots in the Study Area. Most of these lots, with the exception of Downtown Lot 27, experienced an increase in occupancy from 2022 to 2023. The table includes the capacity (inventory) of each lot and the average and 85th percentile number of cars parked, according to Smarking data. For instance, Main Street Lot 9 had an average peak of 126 cars in 2022 and 138 cars in 2023, out of a total of 169 spaces. In 2022, the cars parked within the 85th percentile of occupancy in 2022 was 177, and in 2023, it was 189.
Figure 2: Occupancy Average and 85th Percentile
Walker Consultants, 2024
According to Smarking data, as illustrated in Figure 3 below, the average parking occupancy does not exceed the available capacity for both years 2022 and 2023. This indicates that all parking lots can comfortably accommodate vehicles, with some space remaining.
2022 2023 2022 2023
MS Lot 9 169 126 138 177 189
MS Lot 10 39 33 35 42 46
MS Lot 11 131 62 73 96 106
Mid-City Lot 7 49 15 20 21 28
Mid-City Lot 8 21 16 16 20 21
Mid-City Lot 12 49 37 40 51 53
Downtown Lot 27 93 59 42 95 68
Total 551 348 364 502 511
Occupancy of Santa Monica City Lots
Average 85th
Lot Capacity Percentile
2024 Parking Study – Surface Lot Replacement Study
PROJECT #37-09887.00
3 Figure 3: Occupancy Percentages Per Lot
Walker Consultants, 2024
The colors in Figure 3 show the occupancy levels for each of the studied parking lots in the area. Occupancies below 50% are green, occupancies between 50-80% are yellow and anything above 80% is red. The 85th percentile parking occupancies appear to primarily be above 80% occupancy. On average, parking spaces are more than 50% full but under 100% full. Where the 85
th percentile exceeds the lot capacity, Smarking is likely assuming a longer parking duration than is actually occurring, as the platform records data based on pay station transactions. We suggest that it is reasonable to assume that the 85th percentile in these cases is approximately equal to the capacity of the lots.
We note that the demand for parking spaces is always a function of cost. The Smarking numbers included here are based on the current parking prices and restrictions.
Conclusion
With the construction of the future affordable housing, the replaced parking may not need to match the current capacity of the existing lots; this is a policy decision that may be impacted by considerations of cost and the availability of land for replacement parking. Structured parking spaces are not only far more expensive than surface spaces to build, they cost far more to maintain over time. The above figures provide a projected average of the number of parking spaces that would need to be constructed to compensate for the loss of parking due to the new developments. An occupancy rate of 85% is the number that we typically use to determine the most common scenario of parking behavior. A best practice for parking planning is to not overbuild, to maintain balance, preventing lots from being too full or too empty. An overly empty lot represents valuable space and resources that could be repurposed, while an overly full lot results in poor levels of service, causing parkers to waste time and energy searching for parking. The Smarking data presented here provides an estimate of how many parkers are filling the spaces in the lots on average and 85th percentile days so that we can have a projected number of spaces needed to be replaced when the housing is built, if the city chooses to do so. 2022 Occ. % 2023 Occ. % 2022 Occ. % 2023 Occ. %
MS Lot 9 169 126 74% 138 81% 177 105% 189 112%
MS Lot 10 39 33 85% 35 91% 42 109% 46 118%
MS Lot 11 131 62 48% 73 55% 96 73% 106 81%
Mid-City Lot 7 49 15 31% 20 41% 21 43% 28 57%
Mid-City Lot 8 21 16 74% 16 75% 20 95% 21 100%
Mid-City Lot 12 49 37 76% 40 82% 51 104% 53 108%
Downtown Lot 27 93 59 64% 42 46% 95 102% 68 73%
Total 551 348 63% 364 66% 502 91% 511 93%
Occupancy of Santa Monica City Lots
Average 85th Percentile Lot Capacity