Parking: An International Perspective

By Jonathan Corcoran and Neil Sipe

Most parking research to date has been conducted in Western countries. Parking: An International Perspective is different. Taking a planetary view of urbanism, this book examines parking policies in 12 cities on five continents: Auckland, Bangkok, Doha, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Nairobi, Rotterdam, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Shenzhen, Singapore, and Tokyo. Chapters are similarly structured, and contain detailed information about the current parking strategies and issues in these cities. The discussion of parking is placed in the context of transport, mobility, land-use, society, technology, and planning in each of these cities

• Features structured case studies focused on summarizing current and emerging trends in parking policy and practice in cities around the world
• Provides a systematic comparison of parking issues and approaches across a variety of situational and cultural contexts – examining each city’s transport modes, social trends, land use, technology and planning policies
• Offers a bridge between transport planning research and practice related to the latest trends in parking and parking space re-use

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Nov 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780128152669

Book preview

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Chapter 1

Learning from parking reforms in other cities

Donald Shoup,    University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Abstract

What are the best parking policies? Some cities have developed excellent ways to deal with parking but these policies have not traveled fast to other cities. Parking problems are similar everywhere but urban planners are often unaware of parking policies that work well in other cities and could work well in their own city. Good parking policies improve transportation, the economy, and the environment, while bad parking policies congest traffic, slow public transport, and foul the air. Adopting policies and practices that are working well in peer cities can help every city improve its livability and economic competitiveness.

Keywords

Curb parking; cruising; on-street and off-street parking; parking problems; traffic congestion; foul air

Chapter Outline

Outline

Introduction 1

On-street parking reforms 2

Banning on-street parking 3

Charging the right prices for on-street parking 4

Progressive prices and paying by the minute 5

Paying by license plate 5

Cashless payments for parking 6

Parking discounts for residents 6

Parking discounts for cleaner cars 6

Parking discounts for smaller cars 7

Parking benefit districts 7

Progressive parking fines 8

Pilot programs for parking reforms 8

Off-street parking reforms 9

Remove minimum parking requirements 9

Establish maximum parking limits 12

Conclusion: rely on prices to manage parking demand 12

References 13

Introduction

Parked cars have colonized city streets for so long that most people assume cars own the curb lane. Nevertheless, decolonizing the curb lane is underway because better uses for the land have emerged. Bus lanes improve public transit. Bike lanes encourage active transportation. Loading zones allow shared vehicles to pick up and drop off passengers, and allow trucks to make deliveries. Curb parking spaces can also be converted into restaurants, parks, or wider sidewalks. Curb space is the new urban frontier.

What are the best postcolonial parking policies? Some cities have developed excellent ways to deal with the curb, but these policies have not traveled fast to other cities. Parking problems are similar everywhere, but urban planners are often unaware of parking policies that work well in other cities and could also work well in their own city. Good parking policies improve transportation, the economy, and the environment, while bad parking policies congest traffic, slow public transport, and foul the air. Explaining the policies and practices that are working well in peer cities can help every city improve its livability and economic competitiveness.

Parking reforms are difficult where people think no city should ever do anything for the first time. Resistance to change and the lack of information about successful reforms in other cities explain why some cities fail to consider the best parking policies. Saksith Chalermpong and Apiwat Ratanawaraha (Chapter 12: Bangkok) observe that in Bangkok, Policymakers are reluctant to adopt any new parking-related initiative, as they lack empirical evidence to support what they may consider appropriate. A case in point is the move to change the minimum parking requirements.

Parking: An International Perspective remedies this lack of evidence about successful parking reforms. The 29 authors examine parking policies in 12 cities on five continents—Auckland, Bangkok, Doha, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Nairobi, Rotterdam, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Shenzhen, Singapore, and Tokyo. Successful policies in these cities can support reforms in other cities.

In this chapter, I will highlight the most promising parking reforms reported in this book. I have divided them into two categories: on-street and off-street.

On-street parking reforms

Free parking on a crowded street creates severe problems because it gives drivers an incentive to search for a rare vacant space. Cruising for parking creates a moving queue of cars waiting for curb vacancies, but no one can see how many cars are in the queue because the cruisers are mixed with other cars that are actually going somewhere. A summary of 22 studies of cruising in downtowns found the share of traffic that was cruising for parking ranged between 8% and 74%, with an average of 34%. The average time to find a curb space ranged between 3.5 and 14 minutes, with an average of 7.5 minutes (Shoup, 2018, p. 262).

Everyone wants to park free but drivers who cruise for scarce curb parking waste time and fuel, congest traffic, pollute the air, and endanger pedestrians. After finding a space they have no incentive to economize on how long they park, and thus make life more difficult for everyone else.

Bangkok exemplifies this mismanagement. Municipal neglect has led to the growth of an extensive illegal industry to manage the asphalt commons. Chalermpong and Ratanawaraha write:

Another key feature of Bangkok’s parking situation is the informal and illegal governance of curbside space. Particularly at night, illegal parking attendants control on-street parking in many high-demand areas … These parking attendants are usually controlled by local mafia or, allegedly, by the Traffic Police themselves. This situation occurs wherever there is high demand for parking, regardless of whether parking is legally allowed or whether the municipalities collect parking fees. Drivers who refuse to pay may risk the possibility of damage to their cars while they are away. Some local people consider such informal parking charges to be a social norm, however, others view it as extortion.

Some cities manage curb parking more successfully than Bangkok, and these cities have developed a wide range of policies and practices that other cities can try out in pilot programs at low cost. Drawing from the chapters in the book, I will describe 11 of the most promising reforms.

Banning on-street parking

Hironori Kato and Saturo Kobayakwa (Chapter 6: Tokyo) report that Tokyo bans parking on many streets during the day and on all streets at night. Tokyo reinforces the ban by requiring residents to prove they own or rent an off-street parking space before they can buy a car. This proof-of-parking requirement, combined with a ban on overnight on-street parking, puts the responsibility to pay for parking where it belongs, on car owners.

If drivers must prove they have off-street parking before they can buy a car, a ban on overnight street parking may seem redundant. Without a parking ban, however, some drivers will, by means fair or foul, get proof-of-parking permits even if they do not have off-street parking. With a ban on overnight street parking, however, fake permits will be useless because drivers who do park on the street will get a ticket. Another purpose of Tokyo’s nighttime ban is to prevent people from parking on the street and using their garages for other