The trouble with minimum parking requirements

Abstract

Urban planners typically set the minimum parking requirements for every land use to satisfy the peak demand for free parking. As a result, parking is free for 99% of automobile trips in the United States. Minimum parking requirements increase the supply and reduce the price ± but not the cost ± of parking. They bundle the cost of parking spaces into the cost of development, and thereby increase the prices of all the goods and services sold at the sites that oer free parking. Cars have many external costs, but the external cost of parking in cities may be greater than all the other external costs combined. To prevent spillover, cities could price on-street parking rather than require o-street parking. Compared with minimum parking requirements, market prices can allocate parking spaces fairly and eciently. Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.How can a conceptual scheme that one generation admiringly describes as subtle,¯exible, and complex become for a later generation merely obscure, ambiguous, and cumbersome?Thomas KuhnUrban planners set minimum parking requirements for every land use. These requirements typically ensure that developers will provide enough spaces to satisfy the peak demand for free parking. This article examines: (1) how urban planners set parking requirements, (2) how much the required parking costs, and (3) how parking requirements distort the markets for transportation and land. As a way to eliminate this distortion, I will propose that cities should price onstreet parking rather than require o-street parking.

Dense, mixed-use, walkable urban precinct to support sustainable transport or vice versa? A model for consideration from Perth, Western Australia

“…However, on the other hand, if a high-intensity activity center is planned, then there are a series of specific policy settings and design issues that must be expressly decided to reach the aspiration of the redevelopment project. The maxim of "minimum densities and maximum parking" is supported by this modeling (Kenworthy, 2006;Kenworthy & Laube, 1999;Shoup, 2009;1999). Ultimately, this model demonstrates how growth of activity intensity in an area helps determine the transportation system required to fuel that same growth.…”

Urban parking policy in Europe: A conceptualization of past and possible future trends

“…Shoup (1999 and and Litman (2006) have largely discussed the problems related to parking requirements, the most important being the fact that "... urban planners neglect both the price and the cost of parking when they set parking requirements, and the maximum observed parking demand becomes the minimum required parking supply" (Shoup, 2005: p. 580). Parking standards can be set up by national or local authorities.…”

“…Both Shoup (1999Shoup ( , 2005Shoup ( and 2013 and Litman (2006) -Marketing and communication must play a fundamental role within parking policy. Parking has often a bad image among drivers and retailers (both thinking it should be abundant and for free) and even among politicians (seeing it as a difficult portfolio for which to take responsibility).…”

Phantom trips: Overestimating the traffic impacts of new development

“…Other concerns include the misplaced precision with which trip generation data are reported (Shoup 2003), the use of just a single variable such as floor area to estimate trips (Shoup 2003), and the implausibility of data when the two ITE informational reports, Parking Generation and Trip Generation, are considered together (Shoup 1999). Planners and engineers have also noted discrepancies between trip generation estimates derived from household surveys and those from ITE rates or other driveway counts (FHWA 1985;Reid 1982).…”

“…Phantom trips: Overestimating the traffic impacts of new development A more compelling possibility is that ITE's trip generation rates are not representative of the building stock or even of new development projects. Unfortunately, the Trip Generation Manual says almost nothing about the characteristics of the developments surveyed beyond their size, and ITE refuses to release further information, citing confidentiality constraints (see Shoup (1999) for similar complaints in the context of ITE's Parking Generation).…”