Reinventing Transport

Parking minimums are under siege and it's a very good thing.  Most buildings in most cities and towns across the globe are required by law to provide plentiful parking. But parking minimums are a huge mistake. Click here to learn how to subscribe to the podcast. These parking minimums are put in place for understandable but muddle-headed reasons. Parking minimums (also called minimum parking requirements or norms or standards) do not in fact solve the on-street parking problems they are supposed to solve. Instead, they cause immense harm by worsening car dependence, hindering infill development, undermining walkable neighborhoods, blocking transit-oriented development, and by making real-estate, including housing, less financially viable and less affordable. Abolishing parking minimums is not a panacea. By itself, it doesn't necessarily reduce the parking that developers provide in car-dependent locations. But, among its many benefits, eliminating minimums doe...

We should stop planning parking the way we plan toilets. I began with that odd (but true) statement to get your attention, obviously. But I am also serious. Many people think parking policy is boring, which is unfortunate, because boring or not, parking is important. If you care about cities and urban mobility, you really need to pay  some attention to parking. Most local governments really do plan parking the same way they plan toilets (using minimum parking/toilet requirements) and it is disastrous. More on that below. Municipalities do this because of another mistake - treating on-street parking as a public good (and therefore failing to manage it properly). Please take note: parking in cities is generally NOT a public good. These two mistakes cause huge problems: 1. on-street parking problems, which worsen many other mobility and street problems, and  2. a slow-motion disaster of increasingly excessive (but under-used) off-street parking supply whi...

"Parking" is currently the most common tag on this site and much of my research now focuses on parking. So it seemed time to consider starting a blog to focus specifically on parking policy. So that is exactly what I have now done. It is called Reinventing Parking . Among other things, I want to try to help communities understand the parking choices they face and to help them to improve their policies. If you agree with me that parking policy is important please visit Reinventing Parking and consider subscribing to its feed or via email.  Please spread the word to people who care about improving parking policy anywhere in the world.

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] Here is a presentation with highlights from the Asian Cities Parking Study that I have mentioned before . I gave this at the ADB Transport Forum in Manila in late May 2010. Barter for ADB Transport Forum 2010 What do you think? Post a comment. You may feel that the policy implications near the end don't necessarily follow obviously from the data in the earlier slides. And you would be right. Some of them are a little speculative. They are based on the wider findings, on the data in the study, on my wider research on parking, and on arguments advanced in the study report itself (out soon I hope).   A parking meter in Guangzhou. It serves two spaces and accepts only contactless card payment.

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] Planning systems treat parking and toilets in very similar ways and for similar reasons (such as to deter people from 'doing it in the streets'). Is this just a funny observation? I guess it is quite funny but I also have a serious point. Planning toilets like we plan for fire-escapes, elevators and plumbing does work quite well ( mostly ). However, planning for parking like we plan for toilets is problematic. Below, I list ways that conventional planning does in fact treat parking and toilets the same. Then I highlight key differences which make planning parking like toilets seem like a very bad idea. First, a list of how parking and toilets are (conventionally) planned in very similar ways: Both are treated as an essential ancillary service that every building will need. It is usually assumed that no fee (or a token fee at most perhaps) will be charged. Remember, we are talking ...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] Donald Shoup's ' The High Cost of Free Parking ' points towards a profoundly different way of thinking about parking policy. It offers much more than just a nifty way to price on-street parking efficiently.  Conventional parking policy in action in New Zealand Yet, in real-world policy debates over Shoup's parking ideas most people seem to focus only on his call to price kerbside parking for 85% occupancy . That's a pity because his agenda is much more interesting than that. First, a recap on Shoup's parking reform ideas.  He is focused on cities that currently have a conventional suburban-style parking policy, with cheap on-street parking and every building required to have plentiful parking. He is based in Los Angeles and his focus is on American cities. His ideas are also obviously relevant to places like suburban Canada, Australia and New Zealand which have adopted...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] Is $400 per month for season parking outrageous or reasonable? Well, it depends ... But what does it depend on? One suggestion: the price of a hamburger! This rule-of-thumb for hourly parking prices comes from Pete Goldin at the Parking World blog yesterday, citing Dr Adhiraj Joglekar, founder of the website driving-india.blogspot.com. Hmmm. I guess they are alluding, tongue-in-cheek, to the Big Mac Index from the Economist. This index uses burger prices to correct for differences in the purchasing power of money in different countries. But seriously, what is the right comparison? Purchasing power is obviously not the only issue here, since parking prices usually vary from place to place within every city. Prices range from zero in many suburban parking lots to 'expensive' in the city centre. But the last time I looked burgers were not free-of-charge in the suburbs. How about...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] Parking on the door-step (literally) in Hanoi The space efficiency of motorcycles is important for many Asian cities. Traffic engineers usually assume that motorcycles consume about half the road space of a car. In other words, two-wheelers' PCU value is typically given as 0.5 'passenger car units' in heavy traffic. But motorcycle parking can usually squeeze in many more than two machines per car space. These Taipei scooters may be an extreme case. How do they get them in and out? For the forthcoming Asian cities parking study, we found motorcycle parking space norms of up to 10 two-wheelers per car space . Singapore’s parking standards specify perpendicular car slot dimensions and its minimum and preferred size for motorcycle slots. Together these suggest that between 4.6 and 6 motorcycle spaces take the same area as a car space (Land Transport Authority 2005). In India, motor...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] I asked the sustran-discuss list for responses to my post on park-and-ride being a bad idea . In response to the discussion so far, I tried to clarify some of my points. Here is an edited version. 1. My objection to park-and-ride is strongest when such facilities are within the dense urban fabric (such as 'inner city' areas). It is in these dense areas that the opportunity cost of space is highest. Most of the other uses of station-vicinity space will do much more to build public transport ridership than P&R. Many mass transit systems in developing Asia are, for now, limited to these dense/mixed-use areas. In most cases, they don't yet extend out into the newest 'suburban areas'. P&R seems least defensible in these high-density locations with high property prices. Yet it is still being implemented in various dense urban localities in Asia. The photos of Bangkok...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] Park-and-ride facility at Chatuchak, Bangkok (This one is free-of-charge. And notice the institutionalised double-parking arrangement?) The idea that car parking should be provided at mass transit stations has taken root in Asia. The team that helped me investigate parking policy in Asian cities found active park-and-ride programs in Bangkok, Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Singapore and Taipei. Park-and-ride facilities have been debated in Ahmedabad and Jakarta for their BRT systems. Delhi wasn't in our study but park-and-ride at Delhi Metro stations has been a hot topic there too. Interestingly, we found no government-sponsored park-and-ride in the Tokyo region, although there are private parking lots used in this way (without public subsidy) in the outer reaches of the metropolitan area. I doubt the wisdom of building park-and-ride in dense parts of Asia...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] I left a comment at PT's Parking Blog in response to this John Van Horn item and its first comment . My comment ended up quite long. I think it is worth cross-posting here. I have been looking into parking policy around Asia. A report on it should be out next month (with luck). It is true that Mumbai and Delhi have parking chaos and are now trying to follow the conventional suburban parking policy approach of minimum parking requirements with buildings. Dhaka, with car ownership below 50 per 1000 people, is doing the same. In a situation like that, is it really a good idea to force building managers and all of their customers to subsidize the parking of the tiny elite? So far, it is not working very well (see http://reinventingtransport.blogspot.com/2010/04/parking-dramas-in-south-asian-cities.html ). Off-street parking does not magically suck cars off the streets if the streets are easy and...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] I am planning more posts on the Asian parking study I have been doing . But the technical details and policy debates can wait. First, some curiosities. A few days ago it was the parking predicament in South Asian cities , such as Dhaka or India's big cities. Today: Japan's coin-operated parking lots. Park a car at a coin-operated parking facility and a metal plate automatically rises to trap the vehicle (see photo below). Later, you pay into the machine (with coins, notes or prepaid card) to release the vehicle. No staff required on site. The photos above are of the same lot in Ueno (central Tokyo). Daytime price: 200 yen for 20 minutes (around US6 per hour) which seems to be the norm in inner Tokyo. Coin parking is a common use of small vacant lots. And Japanese cities have many small vacant lots (especially since the 1990 property crash). Some coin-operated parking lots are ...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] On-street parking (and double-parking) in the Motijheel office district of Dhaka. Obviously the cars on the right are there all day. As I mentioned last year , I have been investigating parking policy in 14 Asian cities. The report, commissioned by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), should be out in a month or two. Over the next few weeks, I want to share some highlights. Yes, highlights. Don't laugh! Even I was surprised how much drama there is around parking. Basement in a commercial street in Dhaka signposted as 'car parking' (but there are stairs not a ramp and this space had obviously been used for shops before being demolished, presumably in enforcement action.) Newly motorizing cities in parts of Asia face some alarming predicaments over parking. For example, in South Asia it is common to find something like this: A commercial street is clogged with motor vehicles. Many ...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] Ground floor living-room parking in Hanoi. I am busy starting up a very quick 13-city/country study of urban parking policy and outcomes around Asia. Maybe you can help? It is an exploratory study aiming to find out what parking issues are important in each place (so that follow-up research can dig deeper). The focus is mainly cars, but other vehicles are relevant too, especially motorcycles. I want to know about off-street parking AND off-street. I am keen to hear about residential parking AND work-based parking AND short-term parking at other places, like shops. A bit ambitious perhaps but I want it all. The study is also aimed at finding out if any of the major parking policy debates in Western cities are at all relevant anywhere in Asia. Can other places learn from how parking is done in any Asian cities? So, if you have a view on parking and how it works then please drop a comment...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] So you think on-street parking is public property and should be free? Do you think local governments that charge for on-street parking are uncaring and money grabbing? Maybe you doubt that cheap on-street parking causes any problems? Then please take a look at Bern Grush's vivid description of the "cruising for parking" in one specific trip and all the problems it causes. The trip should have been 5km but searching for parking by driving in circles at the end made the journey 8.25km! And that is the least of the problems that Grush describes. The image above is from the post at the Grush Hour blog and shows just that last part of the journey. You couldn't ask for a better explanation of the need for performance-based pricing for on-street parking.

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] Problem 1: Is parking a hellish nightmare for your local business or shopping district? Do drivers complain that they can never find a parking space? Is the roadway clogged with honking vehicles searching for a parking spot? Problem 2: And are the local public facilities in terrible shape? Are the footways cracked? Drain covers broken? Rubbish uncollected? Are the street plantings (if any) dying? Does that sound familiar? Donald Shoup suggests a single solution to both of these problems : Performance-based pricing (would solve Problem 1) with the revenues returned to the local area to be spent on solving Problem 2. Shoup explains more in an article in the Feb 2009 edition of the Parking Today magazine: The Price of Parking on a Great Street As I have said before , I suspect this policy would be perfect for many of Asia's cities. Can anyone suggest a city in Asia that might be willing...

The US has started trials for distance-based charging mechanisms aimed at ultimately replacing the gasoline tax. Motorists in several US cities are being recruited to try out a new mileage-based road user charge system . The Public Policy Center of the University of Iowa is leading the trial. This is very good news (although I realise this trial is only the first step in a very long process with no gurantee of political success). Smart folks like Bern Grush and Robin Chase have been calling for usage-based pricing for a long time and pointing out that motor fuel taxes are gradually failing us. The Netherlands, Singapore and the UK apparently have plans for distance-based charging too. Germany and Switzerland already charge heavy vehicles based on distance and weight. There are spin-off opportunities here. I hope they don't get missed! It would be natural for people to be suspicious about having 'extras' that piggy-back on a new user charging system. But I think it would b...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] A Hangzhou boulevard (almost 10 years ago now) The article below from the China Daily online suggests that the beautiful city of Hangzhou is planning to reduce the price of car parking "to ease congestion". Oh dear ... I hope this is a case of 'lost in translation' but I cannot understand the logic of this proposal. There may be some (twisted) logic here. The free parking proposal might indeed reduce the total number of cars that can visit the area each day. This is because making parking free will reduce the turnover of vehicles in parking spaces. Workers will take most parking lots early in the day, leaving few spaces for business traffic and shoppers arriving later. This would be very bad for shop-keepers in central Hangzhou. I doubt this is what is intended by the plan. And would this mean less traffic? Unfortunately no. If public parking is made free, there will be a lo...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] Shibuya in Tokyo. 'Bicycle pollution'? You may be familiar with the argument that car-sharing helps reduce pressure on parking space. You may also be aware of the meteoric rise of interest in bicycle sharing schemes, with Barcelona's Bicing and Paris' Velib the most famous. This article from Japan connects bicycle sharing, which is on the rise there too, with parking issues. But the parking problems addressed are with BICYCLE parking not car parking. Cycle-sharing schemes reduce parking violations, raise profits The Yomiuri Shimbun (May. 19, 2008) OSAKA--While bicycle-sharing schemes are becoming common in urban areas as more importance is placed on the environmental and health benefits of cycling, such schemes are also seen as an effective countermeasure for the illegal parking of bicycles. At a condominium in Konohana Ward, Osaka, which was completed in October, each of the...

[Update: Looking for more parking policy information?   Try Reinventing Parking. ] If the topic of parking pricing makes you yawn then think again! This is a hot topic in urban transport policy at the moment. Lately, I have been asking students and training groups these questions about on-street parking: What is the right price of kerbside parking in a busy shopping street in a city? And how can we tell when we have the wrong price? I have tried this with three groups so far. With a little prodding they agreed that ( if pricing is to be the main mechanism to encourage turnover): The price is too low if there are no empty spots, so most motorists take a long time to find a vacant parking place. The price is just right if there are just enough vacancies so that most people can find a park very quickly (zero search time). And the price is obviously too high if a large number of vacancies can be seen. They were actually working out for themselves (with a little guidance) ...