The $30,000 Parking Space

The University of Wisconsin-Madison grew up in the center of the city, before the advent of the automobile and its requisite parking.  Until 20 or so years ago, parking was not much of an issue; students lived in the campus area (they still do) and most professors and support staff lived in Victorian homes within walking distance.  Those homes are now out of reach of most university employees, and most people now commute from the outskirts of town, or further.  There is now a dearth of parking spaces. Competition is ferocious to get them, and the cost to employees is significant, up to $1100/yr to park in a garage.  Another way for the university to make money, right?

Wrong.  I was astounded to learn that the cost of building a parking garage is $30,000 per space.  Amazing!  With that number, it is clear that the university is actually heavily subsidizing the parking.  At $1,000/yr for parking, it takes 30 years to recoup the capital cost of the garage.  I'll bet that the garage has to be rebuilt more often than that.

I admit to being, for a long time, dubious of the accuracy of $30,000/space.  Then a couple of years ago a famous Austrian physicist, Rainer Blatt, visited the UW physics department.  At lunch, we were asking him about the new institute they were building for him in Vienna, and he was describing the various travails of getting the building built, including the required parking.  I brought up the $30,000 number, which was pooh-poohed by several at the table.  Prof. Blatt thought quietly for a minute or two, then affirmed that that was close to the cost for the parking ramp he had to build for his new institute.

It is becoming increasingly clear that our customs of automobile usage are ferociously expensive, though often hidden from us, and are generally heavily subsidized.