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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

July-August 2002

Are You Eligible for Parking Cash-Out?

Hey! There's cash in my car! If you work for a large employer who subsidizes your parking, you may be sitting on a gold mine -- or at least some extra lunch money. That's because your em- ployer could be subject to a little known state law dealing with "parking cash-out." This law requires that certain employers who subsidize parking also offer employees the value of the subsidy in cash in exchange for the parking space, with the hope that the money would be used to subsidize transit use or other alternatives to driving alone.

So why haven't you ever heard of this employee benefit? Although the law has been on the books since 1992, determining which companies it applies to, and spreading the word, hasn't been as easy as it might have appeared to the bill's authors.

A recent report by the state Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) brings the impact of the parking cash-out law into focus. Because the law is limited to leased parking that is unbundled from the building lease, it applies to only about 290,000 spaces, or 3 percent of all employer-paid parking spaces statewide. Based on this, the LAO estimated that at best, the law would reduce emissions by 2 tons per day and miles driven by 870,000 per day statewide.

Given that Bay Area vehicles alone produce about 545 tons of emissions per day and drive about 160 million miles per day, the law's potential impact is quite limited. Nonetheless, said MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger, "it's also something we can't afford to ignore in the battle for cleaner air." Accordingly, MTC and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District will soon launch a pilot outreach campaign.
-- Rebecca Long

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