Parking cars and the quality of places

Parking policies are an essential component of land-use planning and urban design

A couple of weeks ago I posted a piece about some issues arising from the current UK government’s plans to build 1.5 million new homes over the next 5 years. I subsequently came across an excellent piece from Ben Hopkinson which gives a real-world example of where substantial numbers of homes might be built in London and highlights the possibilities for re-use of land in a large and densely populated city. In this piece I want to turn to another major user of space in cities – cars and car parks – and provide some examples of how the often-inefficient use of land for this purpose might be radically changed for the benefit of communities and better places.

Parking Spaces

The numbers are staggering. Cities in Europe are estimated to have over 300 million car parking spaces, whilst in the USA there are over 2 billion. In America there are 8 spaces for every car. Most journeys by car begin and end in a parking place; it has been estimated that a driver needs between 2 and 5 parking spaces per day. And yet typically, cars are parked for 80% of the time. This would suggest that cities are allocating a huge amount of space to cars which are not going anywhere, and worse, studies show that parking spaces are not used that much either: at any one time around a quarter of parking spaces are empty.

Parking spaces are distributed around towns and cities in many forms from lining the streets in urban neighbourhoods, piled high in city centre multi-story carparks, or spread over large open spaces around shopping malls, offices, hospitals and sports venues, whilst many more are in park-and-ride facilities. It is estimated that off-street parking space can account for 25% or more of the land in many American cities. In Los Angeles parking occupies more land than housing. In some cities land for parking reaches twice the green space available.

This map shows the huge space allocated to parking in Atlanta, Georgia.

At a time when cities face real challenges from climate change, from pollution and net-zero, from housing shortages and recovery after the COVID pandemic the space allocated to the car seems out of proportion. At a time when one of the central debates in urban planning is about urban mobility, perhaps we should also be focusing on strategies relating to vehicles which are not going anywhere.

Parking policies

Parking policy is the result of an uneasy  balance between potentially conflicting objectives concerned respectively with raising revenue for local authorities, a desire to avoid deterring visitors and damaging the urban economy and local vitality, and a need to manage levels and modes of transport demand. A recent analysis of parking policies in European cities shows that there has been significant evolution in recent decades to address wider objectives relating to reducing traffic congestion, improving air quality and promoting sustainable urban mobility.

Much of the research on parking has focused on commuter parking in the urban central business district in US cities and the consequences of the car-dependent nature of city urban design, but there is a growing amount of work relating to parking strategies in European cities which tend to be denser and with more historical street patterns and mixed land use. Despite these differences in context, there seems to be some common trends in the evolution of parking policies.

Perhaps before looking at this evolution, we should look at who is doing the parking. It is not only commuters.  The regular National Travel Survey in the UK has an analysis of UK national statistics on ‘car parking acts’ which suggests that in the UK at least commuter parking comprises around only around 1 in 5 of all parking acts and that this proportion may be declining. In addition to commuters therefore, parking strategies need to take into account ‘non-commuter’ parking (such as shopping trips, accessing recreational activities or reaching health and social services) and residential parking.

More specifically, we can distinguish types of parking found at the origins of journeys and the categories of destinations for journeys. The former includes:

-         Private off-street parking;

-         Public off-street parking (short stay, long stay and contract)

-         Controlled (paid) on-street parking

-         Uncontrolled (free) on-street parking

Whilst the latter includes

-         General town centres

-         Railway stations and park and ride (P&R)

-         Shopping centres and retail parks

-         Workplaces – Private non-residential (PNR) parking

-         Airports

-         Stadia.

The list exemplifies the potential complexity of the context for parking policies.

Key trends in parking policies

The most fundamental trend in parking policies over recent decades is a shift from a focus on accommodating parking need towards a focus on parking regulation to both manage parking demand and improve the efficiency of parking management. Recent years have seen another shift to recognizing parking policy as a key component to meeting other policy objectives such as meeting clean-air obligations and national greenhouse gas and emission targets and encouraging the use of alternative modes of urban transportation.

In practice, the implementation of this policy shift is leading cities to move from the so called ‘plan-and-provide’ approach to a range of initiatives to manage parking demand. These include moving from minimum parking standards in residential and office developments to maximum parking standards leading to the reduction the reduction of parking spaces in new office developments and around residential developments thereby reducing the available spaces for parking in city centres and residential neighbourhoods.

An important strand of parking policies for managing demand for parking is through various parking pricing strategies. Many European cities have taken advantage of new technologies and data systems to provide dynamic pricing for on-street parking and an increasing number have mobile payment systems and real-time place availability apps which improves convenience for the user in finding a parking space and improves the efficiency of parking management.

The requirement to meet environmental goals means that parking policies need to be closely integrated with broader city mobility strategies aimed at reducing private car usage and coupled with the promotion of public transport, encouraging active travel and walkability. These will include re-allocating road space to reduce on-street parking and reducing or banning cars from using some city streets.

The impact of parking policies

Researching the independent effects of specific parking policies is not easy when, as we have seen, parking policy is becoming a key component of a range of strategies for sustainable and efficient urban mobility. Nevertheless reviews do include studies on the impact of parking charges and the restriction of parking spaces in towns and cities, but even here the results are not consistent.

Taking parking charges as an example, they appear to be relatively arbitrary and do not typically reflect the costs of provision, especially for multi-story carparks, nor do they reflect market price and what users would be prepared to pay. However a potential benefits have been identified including:

-         increased turnover in the most convenient parking spaces which increases consumer convenience, facilitates deliveries and reduces cruising to find parking spaces;

-         A reduce number of spaces needed to meet parking demand allowing more compact developments

-         Encourages long-stay parkers to use less convenient spaces and encourages the use of alternative transport modes especially amongst commuters;

-         can reduce total vehicle traffic and hence problems of traffic congestion and pollution;

-         generates revenue ensuring car users pay a greater share of municipal costs for roads and parking provision.

In summary, parking policies can be shown to:

-         Reduce vehicle ownership, particularly in residential parking;

-         Encourage mode shifts from driving to walking, cycling and public transport;

-         Destination shifts to areas with cheaper or free parking;

-         Trip rescheduling from priced to unpriced periods; and

-         Shorter duration of parking stops.

However numerous factors influence the scale of the impacts of these changes. For example, larger impacts are likely from lower-income motorists, on discretionary trips, the availability of alternative modes of transport, and the existence of alternative destinations for work or leisure activities.

Parking and Place

These impacts clearly have influence individual behaviour and contribute to sustainable and efficient city mobility strategies. However they also have an impact on the nature of places. Car parking, especially on-street parking, means that a substantial proportion of public space is taken up by the storage of private property. Arguably this is an inappropriate and inefficient use of public space to the detriment of the quality of that space and the alternative public uses that it could offer.  Parking policies, as has been suggested earlier, should therefore also be a key component of urban land-use policies and of urban design strategies. This involves not only limiting parking targets in new developments but also considering the potential re-use of parking spaces into more productive urban places.

The placemaking literature is replete with examples of the re-allocation of street space to generate new possibilities for community activities and social interaction. There are examples of both large and small car parks being re-allocated for housing development, or for additional green space and ‘parklets’.

There is also scope for re-designing or adapting existing car parking spaces to not only improve their appearance but also allow them to make a contribution to efforts to ameliorate climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. For example, car parks can be given tree cover which also helps control heat problems and improves the environment for parkers. Multi-story car parks can be adapted as multi-purpose facilities for commercial or community benefit, and roofs can be ‘greened’ for environmental and climate benefit.

The time has come for re-balancing the tensions between car use and the associated demand for somewhere to put them and the quality of places.

City authorities and developers are only beginning to explore the possibilities.