Do AwayWith Parking Requirements? Yes!! No!! from Page 28


lack of parking controls and enforcement.Most of the traffic prob- lems in these cities relate to similar issues. In fact, the parking requirements in Seattle restrict the number of spaces. The tallest building west of the Mississippi (its Columbia Center) has only about 200 parking spaces.Why? The city wants to push people out of cars and into public transportation. They use parking to help affect public policy. Abu Dhabi is an example of a city where lack of on-street


regulations and enforcement made for chaos. Last year, they instituted on-street parking charges and controls, and almost overnight the chaos was gone. Some did not like to walk a few blocks from the parking lots to their destination, but they would rather do that than pay more for on-street parking. India has oth- er issues, and to get their arms around traffic means a huge enforcement effort. Woody also takes a shot at my examples of silly parking zon-


ing requirements. Fair enough. However, simply looking at the square footage or number of bedrooms is not a solution, either. If a facility is a medical office building (with its many visitors), it will need far more parking than a high-rise insurance company with staff only and no visitors. It would seem that the developer could make those decisionsmore reasonably than a zoning boardmeeting years before the project was even considered. Requiring parking for apartments based on bedrooms is a similar


issue. If it’s a place that caters to parentswith young children, then not asmany spaceswill be needed.By not requiring somuch parking, the cost of building and the cost of rent goes down. People can thenmake


the choice of reducing the number of vehicles they own. The problem is more complex than just providing park-


ing.Houston has garages on every corner, but their traffic con- gestion is some of the worst in the country. Companies such asWoody’s provide an excellent service


of being able to retrofit parkingwhere it has become necessary. The free market has enabled him and his competitors to pro- vide automated parking facilities for buildings where conven- tional parking facilities are not appropriate. I don’t think it’s the lack of parking, although that might


be an issue in some places. It is howparking ismanaged that is the difference. If on-street parking is free or cheap, and park- ing in structures is more expensive, people will drive around looking for a free space, rather than park in the garage. How- ever, if the pricing is set by the freemarket, at a rate that keeps about one space per block-face open, on-street pricing would be higher because it would be more convenient, and so people would quickly make the decision to park where they could afford it.Most would park in nearby lots, and cruising would be greatly reduced.


Paul, who unlike JVH andWoody, has actually studied the problem, sums it up: I have been looking into parking policy aroundAsia.A


report on it should be out in June (with luck). It is true thatMumbai and Delhi have parking chaos and


are now trying to follow the conventional suburban parking policy approach ofminimumparking requirementswith build- ings. Dhaka, Bangladesh, with car ownership below 50 per 1,000 people, is doing the same. In a situation like that, is it real- ly a good idea to force building managers and all of their cus- tomers to subsidize the parking of the tiny elite? So far, it is not working very well. Off-street parking does not magically suck cars off the streets if the streets are easy and cheap to park in. By contrast, Japanese cities mostly have rather low park-


ing requirements (typically, one parking space per 150 to 400 square meters of floor space).And Japanese parking require- ments apply only to large buildings.Modest-sized buildings (under about 1,500 to 2,000 squaremeters of floor space) usu- ally have no parking required.The full requirements apply only above 6,000 squaremeters (they phase in at between 2,000 and 6,000 squaremeters). Yet, Japanese cities don’t have parking chaos. In fact, they


have very little on-street parking.And since 2006, on-street parking rules have been quite strictly enforced.Where do peo- ple park then (they are not all using the trains or bicycles)? Answer: Spillover parking goes mostly into commercial off- street parking, which seems to be ubiquitous (and some city- owned parking lots, usually underground). The Japanese parking arrangements are not perfect, but


maybe they point toward a workable solution that is akin to JVH’s (and Donald Shoup’s) market-oriented one. At least it suggests that high parking standards are not necessary to avoid parking chaos.


If you followed PT’s Parking Blog, you would have read all this a month ago, along with the more than 500 who did. And you could have added your expertise to the discussion. Log on to www.parkingtoday.com, then click on “blog.” Or follow us on Facebook. JVH


PT 30 JUNE 2010 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


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