Pittsburgh City Council to raise parking tax to 50% to provide budget relief.

Wow. Imagine for a moment you own a business, and you receive notice that the city will now be taking 50% of your revenue. Keep in mind these people will still be paying their federal and state taxes with the 50% of the revenue that remains. Wow.

First, part of me says “Good! Maybe more people will take the bus to work.” But this isn’t just about commuters. Mayor Murphy has tried valiantly over the course of his tenure to bring more businesses into downtown, including retailers and “nightlife”-type attractions. This isn’t going to help his cause. If you think for a moment that the parking garage owners/operators won’t pass this along to consumers, you’re nuts. Parking lots aren’t like retail stores — they can only do so much business in one day. If your lot fills up at 8:30am, and stays that way until 4:30pm, you’ve reached your earning potential for the day. The only way you can offset the tax increase is to raise rates.

This is the sort of budget “fix” that has gotten the Murphy administration in trouble before. Remember the plan to cut taxes for new businesses coming into the city? The expectation was that more workers would move into city, and the city would offset the loss of business taxes with more income tax. Too bad the majority of the workers moved to the suburbs, where their income was safe from Murphy’s hands. And where did that get the city? Into the current budget crisis. The parking tax increase will hurt retailers downtown, and at some point aftershocks will be felt by the city.

Given the circus that the local government has been over the past few years, it’s really hard to take anyone seriously. I don’t follow local politics much, but I’ve seen the city’s leadership make bad decisions over and over again to try and cure their budget woes. There really needs to be a change in leadership. I’m not advocating impeaching Murphy, or throwing out the members of council, but the voters of the city (myself included) need to shoulder the burden and find leadership that can get the city out of this crisis.

Related note
Actually, a question to my intelligent readers. I know that the Pittsburgh Parking Authority owns and operates many parking lots downtown, but for other lots, is the land that the lot occupies owned by the city or the lot operator?

Posted on 13 January 2004