Title

The High Cost of Minimum Parking Requirements

Time

1:40 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Location

1605 Tilia, Room 1103, West Village

Abstract

Minimum parking requirements subsidize cars, increase traffic congestion, pollute the air, encourage sprawl, increase housing costs, degrade urban design, prevent walkability, damage the economy, and penalize poor people. To my knowledge, no member of the planning profession has argued that parking requirements do not cause these harmful effects. Instead, a flood of recent research has shown they do cause these harmful effects. I will review parking reforms that are politically feasible in American cities, and explore some the results where these reforms have been adopted.

Biographical Sketch

Donald Shoup is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research has focused on how parking policies affect cities, the economy, and the environment. In his book, The High Cost of Free Parking, Shoup recommends that cities should charge fair market prices for on-street parking, use the meter revenue to finance added public services in the metered neighborhoods, and remove off-street parking requirements. Shoup is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, an Honorary Professor at the Beijing Transportation Research Center, and the Editor of ACCESS.