Reinventing Parking

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

This week, I ran a short training session about parking policy and challenged the participants with four questions that prompted them to examine their parking assumptions. 

In this edition of Reinventing Parking I share the questions with you and discuss some lessons we can learn from them. As you read or listen, think about your own answers. You might get some insight into your own parking mindsets.

You can read the written version of this episode here.

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

This edition of Reinventing Parking was prompted by a recent bonus episode of the War on Cars podcast which featured listener origin stories. Parking Reform Network President, Tony Jordan, suggested I try something similar here.

I sent out an appeal to PRN members and quickly received messages from the diverse set of people you will hear from here. I hope you enjoy them.

You can read a lightly edited transcript here. 

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

The United Kingdom has been both a bold parking reformer and a parking reform disappointment.

But which is the more important story? That's the focus of this month's episode of Reinventing Parking episode. 

The nationwide abolition of parking mandates in 2001 and the shift to parking maximums was amazing and of great interest to parking reformers elsewhere.

Yet, parking management has often failed to rise to the challenge, leading to problems and then to some backsliding on parking standards.

For more insight and lessons from UK parking, I turned to Andrew Potter, who is Director of Parking Perspectives, a parking focused consulting firm based in Chelmsford in the southeast of England.

Here is an outline of our discussion: 

• About my guest: Andrew Potter
• Basics about on-street parking management - where it is strong [2:20]
• Where is parking enforcement weak and parking behaviour worst? [3:59]
• Pavement parking is not even an offence in England (but is in London and Scotland
• Parking standards and the history of reforms [6:10]
• Maximums dealt with a parking arms race [7:23]
• Problems emerged in new residential developments with limited parking under maximums [8:39]
• Why wasn't strict parking management expanded to such areas? [10:01]
• Fundamental problem with the approach to on-street parking management outside city cores [11:31]
• These problems led to pressure on government to change the approach to parking for residential developments [12:21]
• Is London a counterfactual to refute the idea that these problems mean abolishing minimums and imposing maximums was foolish? [13:34]
• What has been happening recently with parking standards, minimums and maximums? [16:40]
• Trend for car free developments in city centre areas and this is generally successful since the streets are well controlled [19:50]
• Residents of inner city car free developments are usually not eligible for parking permits in the local CPZ [20:21]
• Are maximums still popular, despite the problems mentioned earlier? [20:54]
• Suggestion: maximums at levels to make urban supermarkets viable, but not out-of-town ones [22:05]
• Advice for other places thinking of abolishing parking mandates and or imposing parking maximums? [24:32]
• Wrapping up [25:31]

You can read a lightly edited transcript here. 

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

On November 2, 2023, the Austin City Council voted to end parking mandates, making Austin Texas the largest municipality in the USA to do so. So far. 

I had a discussion with three of the key people from the Austin Parking Reform Coalition who worked to make it happen. They were Leah Bojo, Jay Crossley and Adam Greenfield. 

Think of it as a Master Class for aspiring parking reform advocates!

Here is an outline: 

• Brief summary of the whole story, especially the beginnings [2:52]
• Were Austin's parking mandates unusual? [7:04]
• A broad coalition against parking mandates [7:44]
• Institutional and financial infrastructure for the coalition [9:49]
• How important was the parking reform network? [10:46]
• American Disabilities Act (ADA) parking when abolishing parking mandates [12:48]
• The role of people inside city hall, such as city staff [15:58]
• The time was right [17:24]
• Advice for newbie or disheartened parking reformers [18:45]
• Dealing with pushback [22:54]
• Link parking reform with wider reforms or do it as a stand-alone reform? [25:49]
• Which comes first, off-street reform or on-street parking management? [29:35]
• Support across the political spectrum? [32:47]
• If car dependent Austin can abolish parking mandates, any city can. [34:34]

You can read a lightly edited transcript here. 

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

This month I want to share some parking reform ideas that will probably be new to you. There are six ideas, so I only describe each one briefly. 

1. What if we require private off-street parking to report regularly on usage levels? [4:02]
2. Should we turn every decent-sized building and its parking into a mini Parking Benefit District? [8:35]
3. Project to create many city maps of areas with paid parking [12:00]
4. Alternative to maximums: make parking count as floor area [14:05]
5. Parking moratorium (or maybe even parking draw-down) [18:39]
6. Please abolish parking mandates, but it you must have them, make them Japan-style [22:41]

Some of these may seem a bit wacky. But I think they are worth investigating. I hope they are at least thought provoking.

If some of the ideas seem radical, be aware that they are inspired by a post-parking-reform vision of a near future that looks something like this (and is not so very radical, in my opinion):

The users of parking cover its costs. Governments don't boost parking supply but instead want to prevent oversupply. Less space than now is devoted to parking and more to more important things. Parking regulations will not be a barrier to affordable housing or to corner stores. All parking is well managed. Motorists will have no parking hassles. But they will almost always have to pay a parking fee appropriate to the location. Parking gluts will no longer undermine our mobility options. There will be less traffic but everyone will enjoy better urban mobility.

But please look away if you expect parking to mostly be free of charge and plentiful at the end of most trips. These ideas will not give you that!

My guest this month is an active Parking Reform Network member with unique insights at the interface between the parking owned by buildings and the world of parking reform. 

Most buildings fail abysmally to manage their parking efficiently. It hurts building owners. It hurts tenants. It hurts residents. It hurts the whole community.

Yet most building managers have little clue that there are now tools to help them easily do much better.

Evan Goldin is co-founder and CEO of Parkade, a company which provides an amazing app and system that makes it simple for buildings to better utilize their parking. Parkade says it is "on a mission to create a more livable, more affordable more mobile world - with far fewer parking spots". 

Evan himself is a really helpful presence in the Parking Reform Network Slack so I was thrilled when he agreed to share his insights with Reinventing Parking listeners and readers. 

I spoke with Dana Yanocha about an encouraging, readable and helpful new report from ITDP that focuses on off-street parking reform. 

"Breaking the Code, Off Street Parking Reform Lessons Learned" is aimed at parking reformers and potential parking reformers all over the world.

Dana, who is research manager for ITDP Global, led the team that prepared the report and was co-author of the report along with Mackenzie Allen.

Visit Reinventing Parking for more information and a lightly edited transcript. 

Here is a summary of our conversation:

• The report in a nutshell
• Was it difficult to motivate ITDP or funders to work on parking?
• Was there anything that surprised you?
• Change comes slowly but small wins often lead to big wins
• Make data powerful!
• Link parking reform with other popular goals!
• Push at any level of government that works!
• Which should come first, on street parking management improvements, or off street parking reforms?
• Maximums dilemmas and complications
• Dana is not yet sick of parking reform

Several years ago, I gamified on-street parking management using a board game. It brings home to players the amazing power of parking fees in a surprising and fun way. 

And the Urban Works Institute in India has adapted and improved the game. Shreya Gadepalli and her team have been using the game to great effect in parking reform workshops and parking policy trainings.  

For this episode of Reinventing Parking, I spoke with Shreya, who leads the Urban Works Institute and is one of India's foremost urban mobility experts. She regularly leads parking game sessions for participants in parking policy trainings or workshops across India.

We discussed the parking game, a major Parking Reform Roadmap study that Urban Works will release soon, and recent developments in Indian parking policy and reform. 

More details are here. Later there will be links to more downloadable resources on the game, as well as links to the Roadmap study by Urban Works Institute.

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

People keep claiming that parking reform and the Parking Reform Network are "anti car". 

So I thought I should make an episode to try to answer the question, is parking reform anti-car? 

But, since that’s a loaded question not usually asked in good faith, I decided to instead look at a similar but more constructive question: 

And the short answer is that parking reform can help do this as much or as little as you want it to. 

You can read a transcript here. 

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

This month's Reinventing Parking episode looks at parking lot maps. 

Parking lot maps might seem an unlikely viral hit but Parking Reform Network's maps of downtown parking across the USA really did make a splash this northern Spring. They convey a compelling message, with many downtowns having more than 20 percent of their land devoted to parking. That's without even counting podium, underground or street parking.

The maps were created by Thomas Carpenito and a team of PRN volunteers. To discuss the PRN Parking Lot Map project, I spoke with Thomas along with PRN President, Tony Jordan, and PRN Communications Coordinator, Etienne Lefebvre.  Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?