The case for the $6 parking meter

Supporters of demand-based pricing, however, point out that truly disadvantaged people are unlikely to be driving in the first place — and that in a certain sense, cheap street parking amounts to a big subsidy for drivers at the expense of everyone else. A policy that results in less cruising and less pollution, on the other hand, would result in benefits that would be enjoyed by everyone.

In Boston, parking officials are watching the San Francisco experiment closely, but don’t have plans to try demand-sensitive meters any time soon, says transportation commissioner Thomas Tinlin. They’re worried about low-income drivers, and also the effect on local businesses.

“One thing that we’re always balancing is we don’t want to incentivize somebody to go to a mall outside of the city where they can park for hours and hit multiple stores and go to restaurants,” Tinlin said.

The city, according to Tinlin, is trying to improve the driving experience in more subtle ways, by introducing meters that accept cards, offering parking spots for bikes and scooters, and experimenting with sensors, not unlike the ones in San Francisco, that alert drivers to vacancies through a smartphone app. Demand-based pricing could be part of the program down the line, he said — “as part of an overall package in parking strategy, I think it absolutely has a place” — but not the whole solution. “When you’re trying to change driver behavior, doing it by pricing alone, I think, is a bit of an overreach,” Tinlin said.

For many people, what’s disconcerting about demand-based parking is the same thing that excites economists: It introduces market forces to an aspect of public life that historically has been largely protected from them. Like highway tolls that go up during rush hour, or the “congestion fees” some crowded cities have imposed, the Shoup model of street parking is part of a broader conversation about the trade-off between efficiency and equal access — and about what aspects of our lives should be treated as commodities as opposed to inalienable civic resources.

“There will be some that will tell you, for example, that in downtown Boston, on Newbury Street, the curb should be priced differently than curbs, say, on the South Boston Waterfront,” said Tinlin. “And you can get both sides of that argument, but there’s also, I think, something to be said for continuity and consistency.”