Parking Issues and Policies: Volume 5

This chapter provides an introduction to parking issues and policies. It seeks to place parking in the context of transport demand management (TDM) and takes as its tenet that parking is primarily a land-use issue. It outlines the types of parking which exist and why the management of parking is all important when addressing the policy goals of impacting on traffic congestion, tackling the issue of air pollution, stimulating economic activity or aiming to improve road safety.

This chapter discusses the role played by parking as a TDM measure and its various facets most notably pricing and regulation, the prioritisation of land for particular uses, such as Park and Ride, or indeed car free developments.

The chapter reveals the complex nature of parking from both the supply and demand side. The demand is driven by the kind of activity involved be it for commuter, retail or other reasons. Clearly, the type of housing stock and residential density impact on parking demand at the start point of the journey, whereas at the destination, the type of employment and the duration of parking are significant factors. Car parking is not homogeneous, since it can be found in various locations and provided by different bodies, be that the public or private sector. The cost of parking is an issue not simply in terms of the land take, cost of construction and maintenance but also searching for parking and the time involved.

The management of parking is important as part of a package of measures commonly implemented by authorities and one which needs to be understood alongside land-use planning. It is an area involving conflict between parking supply, demand, revenue raising and economic development.

The book offers a clear understanding and insight into the area of parking and its issues and policies. The book uses case studies where appropriate providing originality in the area of parking and effective management approaches.

This chapter provides an overview of parking policy. The chapter takes as its start point that parking is first and foremost a land-use issue. It looks at the conflicts and synergies between parking policy for the purposes of traffic management and parking policy to support various key land-uses and policy objectives.

This chapter discusses the main practice-oriented viewpoints on what is meant by parking policy and what it aims to achieve. It then provides a state-of-art review of the evidence base on residential, retail and workplace parking as the three key parking destinations before drawing together these findings.

The reviews reveal that there has been an overemphasis on the importance of the impact of parking pricing to trip frequency, destination and walk times in the literature. Much greater emphasis should be given to establishing the extent to which parking restraint supports the economy, the environment and social equity. Only then will we be able to develop a consistent policy framing within which good parking management policy can play out and make a long-term difference to travel patterns and the quality of life in our cities.

If parking policy is to work well as part of an overall package of demand restraint, it needs to be applied in conjunction with land-use planning. In transport terms, this means connecting parking policy to non-car accessibility. If the overarching land-use and transport accessibility policies are right, then there is a greater possibility for other parking management policies to be effectively applied and integrated in broader transport strategies.

This chapter suggests that without a clear understanding of the broader objectives that parking policy supports it will not be possible to design effective parking management approaches.

This chapter explains the primary factors influencing the growth in parking supply, what the impacts have been in urban areas throughout the United States, efforts that are underway to better manage urban parking supply, and how these findings relate to international cities.

This chapter offers a review of prior research and literature, and further explores the impacts of parking using historical data from six cities and by focusing on two specific case studies. It also includes a discussion of global implications.

Parking supply has increased by anywhere from 70% to 160% in urban areas throughout the United States, thereby contributing to considerable land consumption and increases in local automobile use. These increases were driven in large part by minimum parking requirements and perceived market demand. Since 1980, parking growth has slowed considerably in cities that have implemented parking limits and parking management strategies.

Parking is typically viewed as a valuable amenity that should be provided indiscriminately. This work outlines the consequences associated with this view and highlights isolated cases in which policies have been successfully implemented to address the negative outcomes of conventional policy approaches.

This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of prior research in parking policy and ties the findings to specific outcomes in urban areas throughout the United States. No other study to date has tracked long-term changes in urban parking supply or its impacts. This work provides a valuable perspective on the magnitude of those impacts and the potential to mitigate those impacts thorough policy reform.

This chapter examines the primary factors affecting the demand for parking, distinguishing between residential demands and parking at other destinations. The demand for parking relates not only to where people may want to park, but also at what time and for how long.

This chapter is largely based on an analysis of the Great Britain National Travel Survey (NTS), over the period 2002–2010. While data on residential parking is straightforward to obtain, extracting data for non-residential parking involves ‘following’ successive trips made by the same vehicle and deriving the duration of parking, using the NTS 7-day trip diary.

At the home end, the main variations in parking demand are related to housing type and residential density: the issues associated with residential parking are essentially an urban problem. At the destination end, commuting parking dominates because (a) it is the largest single purpose category; (b) with the minor exception of Holiday parking, it has the greatest duration; and (c) the onset of working time is more concentrated than that for other purposes. Nonetheless, at the peak of destination parking activity (around 12 noon), other purposes add about 44% to the base demand due to workplace parking.

The analysis also reveals that only a small percentage of destination parking acts make any payment, and that for those that do, the average is under £2 per stay. On an annual basis, it is suggested that parking consumes about 3% of motoring expenditure but 97% of motoring time (on average).

Residential Parking is only a significant problem at higher densities (above 45 ppHa, say) where the housing types required to support the population density result in competition for on-street parking. For non-residential parking, the dominance of commuter parking causes particular problems both in terms of space provision and its impact on mode choice. Neither form of parking capacity appears to be well managed by current pricing policy, at least on the basis of the British evidence.

To the author’s knowledge, diary travel surveys have not previously been analysed to investigate parking demand. While the technique is most relevant to multiple-day diaries like NTS, the approach opens up the possibility of more extensive analysis of other surveys to reveal the patterns of parking, and duration in particular.

This chapter estimates how minimum parking requirements increase the cost of constructing housing, office buildings, and shopping centers. It also explains proposed legislation to limit how much parking cities can require in transit-rich districts.

I assembled data on the cost of constructing office buildings, shopping centers, and parking spaces in eight American cities, and data on the minimum parking requirements in these cities. I then combined the parking construction costs with the number of required parking spaces for each land use to estimate how the minimum parking requirements increase development costs for office buildings and shopping centers.

Minimum parking requirements increase the cost of constructing a shopping center by up to 67 percent if the parking is in an aboveground structure and by up to 93 percent if the parking is underground.

In suburban Seattle, parking requirements force developers to spend between $10,000 and $14,000 per dwelling to provide unused parking spaces.

On a typical construction site in Los Angeles, parking requirements reduce the number of units in an apartment building by 13 percent.

To mitigate the high costs imposed by minimum parking requirements, California is considering legislation to set an upper limit on how much parking cities can require in transit-rich districts: no more than one space per dwelling unit or two spaces per 1,000 square feet (93 square meters) of commercial space. This legislation would limit parking requirements, but it would not limit the parking supply because developers can always provide more than the required number of spaces if they think demand justifies the added cost.

This chapter measures how minimum parking requirements increase the cost of housing, office buildings, and shopping centers in order to subsidize parking. Urban historians often say that cars have changed the city, but urban planning has also changed the city to favor cars.

Parking choice involves an individual selecting a parking place based upon various inter-related factors. This chapter examines the factors that influence parking choice decisions.

A review of the literature on parking choice has been undertaken. The influence of various factors on parking choice and recommendations for future parking policy will be outlined.

Most often it is a combination of several factors which influence individuals’ choice of parking place.

Increased knowledge of the factors which influence parking-search behaviour will inform urban parking policy applications with associated environmental and economic benefits.

Drawing primarily on examples from the United States, this chapter explains how cities often misprice street parking, and the consequences that flow from that mispricing. The chapter then discusses progress toward charging market prices for street parking. In particular I examine equity- and fairness-based objections to market prices and find that most of these objections do not withstand scrutiny

I present street parking as an example of price controls, and use a sample of American cities to show that many street parking regimes exhibit the four hallmark consequences of price ceilings: shortages, misallocation, search costs, and shadow markets.

Most parking in American cities is free or underpriced (relative to nearby off-street parking), which creates the conditions for cruising and the justification for minimum parking requirements. Contrary to perceptions, off-street parking in US downtowns is usually available – most garages have at least 20 percent vacancy. Lastly, on-street parking charges are often lower than round-trip transit fares, even though drivers are on average more affluent than transit riders.

The chapter demonstrates the logical inconsistency of keeping street parking free, as well as the practical problems that arise by doing so. It also addresses the common concerns that dense areas have insufficient parking, and that accurately priced street parking would burden low-income people.

By using the price control framework, the chapter provides a novel way to think about parking pricing, one that emphasizes the distortions created by governments’ refusal to price their valuable street space. The chapter also provides new evidence about the relative prices of on- and off-street parking, and the burdens of parking charges relative to charges for transit.

This chapter explains how and why local parking policies are developed, the sometimes conflicting relationship between parking, revenue raising and economic development and the circumstances in which it may be appropriate to use parking policy as a demand management tool.

This chapter offers a review of prior research and literature on the topic parking management and further explores the impacts and difficulties of parking management. Moreover, empirical data in this chapter comes from the authors’ own survey study of southern, eastern and southeastern European cities about their parking problems and policies.

The findings of this chapter show that there is a need to consider what parking solutions cities may choose and what solutions might work for them. It is difficult to say that very different solutions will suit cities of different sizes, but rather that the level of implementation of the solutions must be related to the scale of the problem in each city, and its citizens’ demands. In addition, each city must work within its particular legislative context, which is why certain solutions might not work in some cities.

Parking policy and parking management are key to urban mobility and to managing its negative effects. It is possible to develop a car parking policy that will manage the negative impacts of urban car use whilst also supporting business and the economy; but this is a balancing act, which is why it is important to learn from the experience of other places, as we have shown in this chapter. Parking demand and the response of different cities to it are very important when considering the rise of car use in Europe and other parts of the world. Future solutions for parking problems are detailed at the end of this chapter.

This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of prior research in parking management and connects this overview to findings of the authors own survey in south, eastern and southeastern European cities. Very few studies have made similar connections and provided in-depth insights into parking management in European cities. Moreover, the research provides useful information for planners and professionals dealing with parking issues and what solutions might work in their city.

The chapter provides a general review of the policy debate around the provision of formal Park-and-Ride (P&R) facilities and the empirical research evidence about travellers’ responses to the opportunities they present, drawing on evidence from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The effects of the schemes on road traffic and car dependence are considered.

The different ways in which private vehicles and public transport are combined during journeys are reviewed. The position of P&R is considered as a modal variant within a ‘socio-technical system’ competing with the more established journey options of fully private and fully public transport. Scenarios which can maximise the traffic reduction and sustainable development potential of P&R are examined.

The review of the policy context establishes that a range of policy objectives are conceived for P&R depending on different professional and citizen perspectives. There is partial understanding amongst local authorities about the effectiveness with which P&R addresses the range of objectives in practice. The key travel behavioural findings are that only a portion of P&R users’ car trips are shortened. Hence, overall increases in car use occur, combined with overall reductions in public transport use, and in some cases less active travel. Where dedicated public transport services are operated, these are also a further source of additional traffic.

P&R implementations are generally successful where they are explicitly for providing more parking for economic growth or traffic management reasons, rather than to enhance sustainable mobility. The essential conditions for traffic reduction to occur in future are a strategic subregional integrated parking and public transport strategy which achieves interception of car trips early and ensures public transport services remain attractive for a range of access modes.

The chapter provides a synthesis of work by a number of leading authors on the topic and includes elements of originality in the combination of the established knowledge, the addition of novel insights, and in overall interpretation.

This chapter defines and describes the different types of carfree and low-car development found in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, analysing the benefits and problems they bring and their implications for parking policy.

The chapter draws on the literature on UK and European carfree developments, including primary research conducted by the author into the potential for carfree development in the United Kingdom. It is also informed by a series of observational visits to some of the principal carfree developments around Europe.

The UK concepts of car-free and low-car housing are limited in scope, defined by the absence or reduced level of parking. The European concept of carfree development is broader, bringing greater benefits to the immediate residents. All have led to lower traffic generation. European carfree developments bring other benefits to their residents such as more socialisation between neighbours and earlier independence for children. The potential demand for car-free and low-car housing is greatest in the inner areas of larger cities. These are also the places which offer the most suitable development locations. The most common problems encountered relate to parking and/or management of vehicular access. To avoid overspill problems, parking needs to be controlled on the streets surrounding carfree or low-car developments.

The benefits of carfree development are greatest in urban areas where road capacity and/or parking are under the greatest pressure. Thus carfree development is a useful tool for cities undergoing urban intensification.

The chapter is the first to analyse carfree and low-car development from a parking perspective and to demonstrate their implications for parking policy.

Parking policy in the United States is dominated by zoning codes with minimum parking requirements stipulated for a variety of uses. Some cities have realized that this approach has not yielded the desired policy outcomes; instead, it may be causing unintended consequences including added auto-travel, dispersed development, congestion, and air pollution that cities now wish to mitigate.

This paper identifies historic and contemporary trends in United States’ parking policy as cities gain additional insight and embrace new priorities.

Three emerging trends in the U.S. context are identified: Rethinking zoning codes that require parking with development; introducing pricing to better manage curb resources thereby cutting down curb-space competition; and looking for urban design solutions to parking access, location and on-site placement which can lead to more efficient mode use decisions.

The chapter provides an analysis of cases showing how cities are now seeking alternative approaches.

After many years of policy intervention focused on the alleviation of parking shortages by requiring additional off-street parking, cities are now seeking alternative approaches.

Cities can learn from each other’s experiences. New paradigms in parking policy will lead to different social outcomes: they could increase the cost of auto use (disadvantaging the poor) but decrease auto dependence (favoring the poor).

The originality of this chapter is in the juxtaposition and analysis of trends that have, heretofore, had little exposure.

The purpose of this study is to measure the supply and demand for parking in London to determine whether there is sufficient provision for night-time residential needs and to determine whether policies designed at controlling car ownership by restricting residential parking are effective.

The history of parking controls and early studies of parking in Central London are reviewed to put into context recent surveys of parking supply undertaken by MVA. Data from the National Travel Survey, the English Housing Survey and various travel demand surveys by Transport for London have been analysed to determine the overnight demand for parking and the supply both off-street and on-street.

The study shows that there appears to be saturation in inner London for controlled on-street parking (which is the majority of available parking) and high utilisation for off-street parking. In outer London, there is more spare capacity. The evidence suggests that restricting residential parking space does not limit the growth in car ownership especially in outer London where the car is an essential part of modern living.

Restrictive policies on parking supply in new developments leads to unsightly and dangerous parking on streets not designed for parking or illegal parking on footways. Policy makers must appreciate that car ownership will continue to rise and that parking spaces must be provided, if necessary, underground.

The study uses several different sources of data to investigate the under-researched area of parking availability which is of considerable importance to transport planners and policy makers.

The pricing of parking is a common tool used by governments to facilitate the efficient movement of traffic, raise revenue and, more recently, influence travel behaviour. An important and under-researched by-product of parking pricing schemes is the impact of these schemes on parking supply.

This chapter offers a review of prior research and literature, and explores: who pays the parking levy, the impact of the Congestion Levy on the provision of parking and an overview of the transport impacts of the levy.

The direction of the levy at parking operators and owners rather than the vehicle drivers does not provide a direct link between users and the levy and results in many parking providers not passing the levy onto commuters. The study of parking supply impact shows that, since the introduction of the levy, the supply of commercial off-street parking spaces has declined while the growth in private, non-residential, parking spaces has slowed. Over the same period, there has been a decrease in the number of parking spaces provided for long-stay parking (which attract the parking levy), and an increase in the number of spaces provided for other uses. Understanding these parking supply impacts are important, not only because a reduction in the number of long-stay car parking spaces is an objective of the levy, but also because any such reduction could magnify the travel behaviour impacts that may have occurred solely as a result of an increase in parking price. Investigation of the overall transport impacts of the levy indicate that the parking levy did have an impact on mode choice. However the extent of this impact was not clear due to a large number of associated changes in policy and economic conditions that took place at the same time as the levy.

The chapter shows that the parking levy was positive in its impact on transport use, however there were a number of improvements that could be made to the way the levy was implemented that could improve these. Interestingly, there have been a number of recent changes in the implementation of the levy that address some of these issues. Most importantly, following its own investigation into the impact of the levy, from January 2014 the cost of the levy was increased by 40% to $1,300 per annum, and its coverage extended (Victorian State Revenue Office, 2013). The impact of this change has not been considered in this research.

The uniqueness of the chapter lies in its exploration of how increased prices of parking has influenced supply and how the levy, as a new form of congestion pricing, has influenced the supply of parking in the context of the case study of the Melbourne parking levy in Australia.

This chapter provides a case study of the implementation of the Parking Space Levy (PSL) in Sydney, Australia. Introduced by the Parking Space Levy Act 1992, the scheme places a levy on business use of off-street car parking spaces with the revenues from the levy being hypothecated to public transport improvements. The chapter outlines the implementation of what is now a relatively mature scheme and examines how the revenues raised by the scheme have been spent.

This chapter offers a review of the introduction of the levy in Sydney and explores its impact in implementation with respect to changes to the number of parking spaces and an analysis of the way in which the hypothecated revenue has been spent. The implementation of the PSL is evaluated against the literature on hypothecation of funds and includes a discussion of policy issues for Sydney in the light of the evidence presented.

Whilst off-street parking availability is a major contributor to peak period traffic, the implementation of the PSL as a single rate of application has not led to a decrease in total number of available parking places in the City of Sydney. The number of concessions for unused spaces, whereby the levy was not imposed, increased when the levy rate was doubled in 2009 although this was accompanied by a fall in the number of exemptions from the levy. The revenue from the PSL has been dedicated to improvements in public transport infrastructure, primarily interchanges and commuter car parks although the more recent provisions to spend on ‘soft’ measures to improve sustainable travel have not been taken up.

Whilst a stated objective of the PSL was to reduce congestion, the chapter concludes that the PSL had more than this single objective which makes it more difficult to assess whether its implementation has been a success.

This chapter provides an overview of the introduction, implementation and outcomes of the PSL in Sydney, relating it to the PSL in Melbourne (Chapter 13) and the WPL in Nottingham (Chapter 15). No other study to date evaluated the PSL in Sydney against the literature relating to hypothecation nor tracked the impacts of implementation of the PSL to evaluate its success.

A Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) scheme represents a major transport demand management intervention which raises a levy on private non-domestic off street parking provided by employers to employees, regular business visitors and students. It therefore increases the average cost of commuting by car and stimulates a contraction in the supply of workplace parking places. Under UK legislation the revenue from such a scheme is hypothecated funding for further transport improvements. As such it is potentially an important mixed policy instrument available to transport authorities to tackle traffic congestion and create extra transport capacity by using the additional funding such a scheme provides. At present, in the United Kingdom, only Nottingham City Council has implemented such a scheme and thus an understanding of how that scheme was implemented, how it operates and the outcomes after a full year of operation are of importance to transport academics and other local authorities considering utilising a similar approach.

This chapter presents an overview of the WPL scheme in Nottingham. The legislation, implementation experience, monitoring framework and outcomes for this scheme after the first year of full operation are discussed by drawing on current literature, documentary evidence and monitoring data.

The Nottingham WPL scheme was fully implemented in April 2012. The gap between the provisions of the underpinning legislation and the functioning scheme has necessitated the formulation of policy in line with the spirit of the legislation. Acceptance by the business community and the public were further barriers to implementation which were mitigated by a consultation process and a Public Examination. However acceptance remains a concern until the scheme has been shown to meet its key objective of reducing congestion. To date there is no evidence that the scheme has had a negative impact on business investment and, while there is as yet no evidence traffic congestion has reduced, it is still early for such impacts to be identified especially as the majority of the associated public transport improvements are yet to be implemented. However the WPL has already raised £7 million in net revenue in its first year of operation which is hypothecated for public transport improvements which may help encourage inward investment and reduce car travel.

At present the Nottingham WPL scheme has only been operational for a short time and a limitation to the research presented here is that the major public transport improvements part funded by revenue hypothecated from the WPL are not yet in place. It will be necessary to wait at least a further 3 years before more definite conclusions as to the success of the WPL package can be drawn.

As the first of its kind in the United Kingdom or indeed in Europe, the WPL scheme in Nottingham provides a unique contribution to the literature, comparing and contrasting implementation and outcomes with those in Australia and Canada. Geographical and cultural differences between the United Kingdom and these countries mean that conclusions drawn concerning existing schemes in other continents are not necessarily transferable to the United Kingdom. This chapter provides evidence in a UK framework to assess if the approach could be suitably applied more widely.

To overview the gamut of issues that on-street parking impacts in mixed-use centers including: parking demand, land use, vehicle speed, road safety, the pedestrian environment, and travel behaviors.

In addition to reviewing existing literature, the following two case studies are presented. The first study explores the impact in centers built before the advent of parking regulations as compared to more contemporary, conventional developments. The second study investigates how street design factors affected vehicle speeds and safety, based on a study of over 250 roads.

On-street parking typically: serves the highest demand; is efficient in terms of land use and cost; induces lower vehicle speeds; increases safety on low-speed streets; enhances walkability; and fosters less driving, more pedestrian activity, and increased vitality.

On-street parking is one piece of a larger puzzle of complementary factors that influence issues such as travel behavior and safety, and therefore, it is difficult to isolate. On-street parking plays a crucial role in helping create places that are walkable, require less parking, and have more vitality. On-street parking is not purely a device to be used in the right environment; rather, it is a tool to help create that right environment.

Prevailing thought on the subject of on-street parking has shifted back-and-forth for generations, in part because most studies focus on one or two impacts. This chapter takes a more comprehensive approach in order to increase our understanding of on-street parking in mixed-use, commercial centers.

In Guangzhou, the largest city in southern China, car ownership is increasing beyond the capacity of the road system. This leaves streets gridlocked and parking facilities inaccessible, thus under-utilized. At the same time, Guangzhou's zoning code calls for additional off-site parking which is likely to encumber development. This chapter documents and discusses policies in Guangzhou that affect and are affected by parking and how they relate to City goals.

The chapter explores the relationship between three interrelated topics: (1) today’s parking policies in Guangzhou, regulated by a variety of municipal agencies, (2) case studies of two large developments and their respective parking supplies and demands, and (3) city goals and objectives.

There is opportunity for Guangzhou to implement strategies to manage its parking supply relative to its roadway capacity, plus integrate its parking policies to the overall transportation system.

Emerging cities can learn from other’s experiences. Parking supply affects the decisions people make about how they will travel and this in turn affects congestion, air quality and quality of life. Using smart parking regulations means an end to inadvertently fostering dependency on the car and the start of creating sustainable communities.

The value of the chapter comes from the way it builds from existing evidence to further understand the challenges of an emerging, fast-growing city.

The purpose of this chapter is to synthesise the issues and debates raised in the book as a whole.

This chapter reviews the content of the book, drawing together the threads to provide conclusions on parking issues and policies around the world.

The chapter reveals the way in which parking is fundamentally a land-use issue and the importance of parking to different travel demands. As cars spend most of their time parked at home, the issue of residential parking is important and determines the shape and nature of our cities. Planning for parking has a key role to play in determining the outcome of how walkable the built environment becomes. The synthesis of the chapters of the book reveals how the type of parking is intrinsically linked to the activity undertaken and the type of destination, whether the trip is for commuting or for retail or leisure.

The chapter identifies strategies such as car-free developments, park and ride and workplace parking levies used to provide solutions and the way in which the number of stakeholders involved influences the ease with which the complex interplay of issues in parking can be resolved.

Understanding that parking is primarily a land-use policy, dependent on the home location and destination of the trip, has implications for the development of parking policy within the package of measures making up travel demand management strategies. The chapter shows how parking for a stationary vehicle can influence the flow of moving vehicles and the built environment.

This chapter draws on the chapters of this book which offer a multidimensional investigation into parking issues and parking policy, providing a wealth of case study material providing evidence to underpin the design of effective parking management approaches.