Car Park Rates Set to Rise

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Housing and Development Board (HDB) are currently conducting a review of park car rates for both short-term and season parking. The last time a similar review was conducted was in 2002. The review was conducted 2 months after National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said that public car park charges have to be increased to bring them in line with other cities and as part of Singapore's goal to become a "car-lite" nation.

Changes to the park rates will affect both residents who require multiple parking lots and non-residents who use HDB car parks. The changes were made to help improve the management of parking demand, prioritizing parking for residents' first car.

According to HDB, which manages around 607,000 parking spaces, while car park changes have stayed the same, both old and new HDB car parks have greatly changed over the years. These includes improvements in car park design featuring landscaped decks and implementation of electronic parking systems, as well as the addition of lifts in all existing multi-storey car parks.

URA which manages about 24,000 parking lots claim that the review was meant to determine the "right price" for public car park rates and to reduce the difference between private and public car park charges. Private car parks have higher rates due to the cost of managing and operating car parks.

Instead of covering higher costs, the Government should study pricing mainly to manage congestion and parking demand, according to a parking policy expert. He also add that it could mean varying rates depending on time, location, and occupancy.

Dr. Paul Barter, Adjunct Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy said that the main purpose of the (car park) price is to ration that car park and to ensure that it's never completely full.

"[because] Full parking causes all sorts of nasty side effects. You get queues outside, you get people circling around the neighbourhood and that causes all sorts of nasty problems including traffic congestion," said Dr. Barter. "What we need to do in Singapore is to get back to the original idea that pricing street parking has a purpose, and we avoid overdoing it as well so that we don't have empty parking (lots) either."

Dr. Barter also said the pricing reviews should be done on a more regular basis.

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