"Parking Basics" from Inst of Transportation & Development Policy

#1

This report is an oldie (2015), but a goodie.

However, it is parking, not density, that creates traffic congestion. Excessive parking supply that is cheap or free induces people to use personal motor vehicles—even when good public transport is provided.

Cities across the world are now realizing their past follies. They now follow a simple mantra— add transit, build density, cut parking. Put another way, where there is good connectivity to mass rapid transit, building density is welcome but parking supply is not.

I know I’m guilty of taking my car on short trips when I can predict that parking will be bountiful (Hello, Summers in Austin, when student counts are low and temps are high!)

But I would certainly more readily take transit if parking were limited, and especially so if our Texas-sized parking lots instead made room for more storefronts and walkable spaces in close proximity.

#2

The 2nd item on the list [Page 9] is to “Use parking revenue to build people friendly streets”

Use surplus parking revenue to fund zonal improvements that shift people away from cars and towards walking, cycling, and public transport. For example, revenue generated by 1 km of paid parking is sufficient to pay for footpaths along the same stretch and 10 buses to serve the area."

#3

I want to tattoo “add transit, build density, cut parking” on my forehead.

Kidding aside, I haven’t owned a car in more than a dozen years and have lived in Heritage for almost all of it because it has the best public transit coverage of any Austin neighborhood, outside of downtown.

If anyone on the list has been curious about our bus system, but isn’t sure where to start, I’d love to give you a primer.

#4

Amen! I admit I’ve driven to Wheatsville, a mere three blocks from my house, on off-hours when I know I’l have parking but never do it during peak times because it’s too much of a pain to find parking.

Parking, like roads, have induced demand. Build more, and you’ll attract more cars and traffic. Take it away, and more people will bike and walk.

We need to do away with parking minimums for businesses. They just encourage more cars to drive through our neighborhood and leave us with ugly surface lots & big parking garages.

#5

Here’s a brand spankin. new article from The Economist

"The biggest cost of parking minimums may be the economic activity they prevent.

Free parking is not, of course, really free. The costs of building the car parks, as well as cleaning, lighting, repairing and securing them, are passed on to the people who use the buildings to which they are attached. Restaurant meals and cinema tickets are more pricey; flats are more expensive; office workers are presumably paid less. Everybody pays, whether or not they drive. And that has an unfortunate distributional effect, because young people drive a little less than the middle-aged and the poor drive less than the rich. In America, 17% of blacks and 12% of Hispanics who lived in big cities usually took public transport to work in 2013, whereas 7% of whites did. Free parking represents a subsidy for older people that is paid disproportionately by the young and a subsidy for the wealthy that is paid by the poor."