TRB TDM Committee (AEP60) Mid-Year Meeting

[Tien-Tien Chan]

Hi TRB TDM Committee member & friends –

 

Please see attached for the agenda for our mid-year meeting. Excited to see many of you in person! And do remember there is a remote option too.

 

Best,

 

Tien-Tien

 

Tien-Tien Chan [pronounced TIM+tim]

Principal

 

Nelson\Nygaard | Putting people first

77 Franklin St.;10th Floor, Boston, MA 02110

t +18573058000 

tc...@nelsonnygaard.com

nelsonnygaard.com | Twitter | LinkedIn

 

Mobility | Accessibility | Sustainability

 

[Lama Bou Mjahed]

Hi TRB TDM Committee members & friends –

Thank you for attending our mid-year meeting yesterday!

Check out the slides for the excellent presentations at yesterday's meeting and reach out if you have any questions! 

• Transit Rider Insights Gleaned from ORCA Fare Card Data  (Ryan P. Avery, Ph.D. PE, AICP, Senior Research Engineer, Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC), University of Washington)
• Who is using WSDOT Tolled Facilities: Preliminary Equity Findings (Mark Hallenbeck, University of Washington)

Best, 

Lama

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[Greenberg, Allen (FHWA)]

Thanks, Lama.  I regret that my 8-hour flight delay yesterday, and the fact that I was finally “in the air” at the time of yesterday’s committee meeting, precluded my presenting FHWA’s parking cash-out research (either in-person or virtually) that I was scheduled to present at the TRB TDM Committee meeting.  The presentation I had planned is attached, and is also summarized in this message.  First, though, here’s a link to the completed study which was the basis of my planned presentation:  https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop23023/index.htm.

 

FHWA analyzed and evaluated the impact city‑level parking cash‑out ordinances could have on vehicle travel, congestion, Greenhouse Gas emissions, crashes, and equity externalities for a sample of nine cities and five distinct scenarios. Parking cash-out means employers that subsidize parking offer commuters the option to take a benefit, typically of equivalent monetary value, instead of the parking subsidy. The final report describes the scenarios studied; the analysis approach, including inputs, outputs, methodology, limitations, and assumptions; data sources; and results for the sample of cities. 

The scenarios reflect different versions of parking cash-out/commuter benefit programs. As summarized in the graphic below, a broad range of policy scenarios are studied.

Scenarios	Affects employers offering free parking	Affects employers NOT offering free parking
Scenario 1: Monthly Parking Cash-Out	✓
Scenario 2: Monthly Commuter Benefit	✓
Scenario 3: Monthly Parking Cash-Out + Pre-Tax Transit Benefit for Employees without Subsidized Parking	✓ Cash-out	✓ Pre-tax transit benefit
Scenario 4: Daily Parking Cash-Out + Pre-Tax Transit Benefit for Employees without Subsidized Parking	✓ Cash-out	✓ Pre-tax transit benefit
Scenario 5: Requirement to Eliminate Subsidized Parking Benefit + Provide Universal $5 Per Day Employer-Paid Non-SOV Commute Benefit	✓ Eliminate parking benefit, add universal non-SOV benefit	✓ Eliminate parking benefit, add universal non-SOV benefit

 

• Scenario 1 is a “traditional” cash-out, whereby employees are offered the option to convert their monthly parking benefit into an equivalently-valued monthly non-drive-alone subsidy, which might be taken as an employer-paid transit pass, a taxable wage increase, or a combination of the two.
• Scenario 2 is a “cash-out lite,” where only employer-paid transit (and no wage increase) is offered as an alternative to parking.
• Scenario 3 is more aggressive, and layers onto the scenario 1 cash-out offer by providing a pre-tax transit benefit for employees not offered a parking subsidy and thus who are not entitled to cash-out. (Pre-tax transit means that employees pay for their own transit through a payroll accommodation prior to wage and income taxes being imposed, thereby saving on taxes.)
• Scenario 4 increases flexibility of the cash-out offers from scenarios 1 and 3 by allowing employees to take a pro-rated benefit on days they do not need parking, rather than having to make a monthly commitment. 
• Scenario 5, the most aggressive scenario, prohibits employer-paid parking subsidies entirely and further requires employers to provide a $5 per day employee subsidy for verified non-drive-alone commutes.

Some of the above scenarios mirror implemented policies. Rhode Island law implements scenario 2 in some circumstances; California has a long-standing law, strengthened significantly by Governor Newsome’s signing of AB 2206 on Sept. 30, 2022 (see:  https://cal.streetsblog.org/2022/09/19/bill-would-benefit-workers-who-dont-use-free-employee-parking),  that implements a version of scenario 1; and Washington, DC’s, ordinance is most akin to scenario 3.

While results that are shown in the figure below vary by city and policy scenario, commute VMT reductions of between 5 and 25% are projected in two-thirds of cases, resulting in a significant reduction of peak commute congestion. Listen to the following brief audio clip related to this study: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/04/Free-employee-parking-is-actually-costing-the-climate-and-commuters/.

 

Figure 1: Results: Percent Reductions in Daily Citywide Commute VMT by Cash-Out Scenario and City

I welcome folks contacting me by e-mail if they’d like any additional information.

 

Sincerely,

Allen Greenberg

 

From: trb...@googlegroups.com <trb...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Lama Bou Mjahed
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2023 4:14 PM
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Subject: Re: [TRB-TDM-AEP60] TRB TDM Committee (AEP60) Mid-Year Meeting

 

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