Office: 304 Buell Hall
Office hours (Spring 2010): Wednesdays 2-4, Fridays 9-11am and by appointment

B.S. University of Minnesota
M.U.R.P. Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota
Ph.D. UCLA

David King is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning. His research explores the impact of local transportation planning on the built environment, public finance and accessibility. As part of this research he has written about the phenomenon of cruising for parking and used spatial regression techniques to analyze travel behavior. He also studies how public policy influences the adoption of new technologies to address congestion, energy and environmental concerns. These issues are the focus of Professor King’s teaching through his courses covering planning techniques and methods, transportation and land use planning and transport policy.

David joined the faculty in 2008.

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Courses:
Planning Techniques (Fall, required course)
Transportation and Land Use Planning (Spring)
Urban Mass Transit Planning and Policy (Spring)
Thesis Workshop (Fall and Spring)

Working Papers

1) David A. King, "Developing Densely: Estimating the Effect of Subway Growth on New York City Land Uses"

In the early 20th Century New York City grew rapidly in population and developed area. The subway system also grew rapidly to accommodate this new growth, but also as a concerted effort to decentralize the city away from lower Manhattan. Using parcel level data this paper explores the co-development of the subway system and residential and commercial land uses using Granger causality models to determine if transit growth led residential and commercial development or if subway expansion occurred as a reaction to residential and commercial densities. The results suggest that the subway network developed in an orderly fashion and grew densest in areas where development had already occurred while lagged station densities were a weak predictor of residential and commercial densities. This confirms that subway stations tended to open in areas already served by the system and that network growth often followed residential and commercial development. While the subway network acted as an agent of decentralization, routes and stations were sought in areas with established ridership demand. The implications of land use regulations and transit network density on residential and commercial land uses are discussed as are applications to contemporary transportation and land use planning debates.

2) Michael Manville and David A. King "Credible Commitment and Congestion Pricing"

Both the political acceptability and the overall efficiency of congestion pricing hinge on the distribution of its toll revenue. As a result, it is now common to assert that many of pricing's practical and political obstacles can be overcome through astute use of the revenue it generates. One implication of this assertion is that the collectors of the toll revenue are unlikely to be its final recipients. The necessity of revenue recycling raises the potential for a credible commitment problem. The toll revenue will not be distributed until after the tolls are in place, so a revenue recipient must believe that the revenue collector will make good on any promise to deliver the money. In a situation where the recipient does not trust the collector, the agreements required to implement congestion pricing could be undermined. In this paper we outline how the credible commitment problem can affect congestion pricing, and then use survey, interview and ethnographic data from Los Angeles County to illustrate our argument.

3) David A. King "Estimating environmental and congestion effects from cruising for parking"

In busy areas where curb spaces are under-priced drivers have a strong incentive to drive around searching for an empty parking spot. Such cruising behavior creates the perception of a parking shortage, but typically what seems to be a shortage is simply a mis-allocation of valuable resources, namely parking spaces. Unfortunately the effects of mis-priced parking spaces are neither simple nor benign. Cruising for parking is excess travel that occurs only after drivers have reached their destination. This travel causes congestion, pollutes the air, diminishes pedestrian safety and wastes energy. Nearly all benefits from cheap curb parking are captured privately by the drivers at great costs to the public. This essay demonstrates a novel method for measuring cruising and estimates the environmental costs directly caused by cruising. This methodology validates previous research and the results suggest that the private gains from cruising are dwarfed by the public costs.

Selected publications and writings:

Tired of the Bridge Toll Debate? Here's Another Path, Reclaim magazine, Fall 2009.

King, David A., Kevin J. Krizek and David Levinson. (2008) “Designing and assessing a teaching laboratory for an integrated land use and transportation course.” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2046, p. 85-93

King, David A., Michael Manville, and Donald Shoup. (2007) "For Whom the Road Tolls” Access, Volume 31 Fall.

King, David A., Michael Manville, and Donald Shoup. (2007) “The Political Calculus of Congestion Pricing” Transport Policy 14, p.111-123

For David King's CV, please click here.