Academic Research Papers

Finding space for nature in cities: the considerable potential of redundant car parking

By Shirin Qiam, Lewis J. Lehe. This paper measures surface parking in 15 U.S. cities using satellite imagery and deep learning, providing statistics, maps, and analysis that reveal variation and distinct spatial patterns across urban areas.

Car parking spaces occupy significant areas land within cities and, in many areas, is often provided to motorists free of charge or at low cost. This …

Parking infrastructure is pervasive and occupies large swaths of land in cities. However, on-demand (OD) mobility has started reducing parking needs in urban areas around the world. This trend is expected to grow significantly with the advent of autonomous driving, which might render on-demand mobility predominant. Recent studies have started looking at expected parking reductions with on-demand mobility, but a systematic framework is still lacking. In this paper, we apply a data-driven methodology based on shareability networks to address what we call the “minimum parking” problem: what is...

Transport planning and policy is increasingly being called to action in ways that differ from practices of yesteryear. Varied segments of society are …

(2021). The Width and Value of Residential Streets. Journal of the American Planning Association. Ahead of Print.

In the pursuit of sustainability, the concept of ‘car-reduced neighborhoods’ promises to decrease car ownership and increase car-independent mobility.…

(2021). What do cars do when they are parked? Material objects and infrastructuring in social practices. Mobilities. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Political Partisanship and Transportation Reform. Journal of the American Planning Association. Ahead of Print.

Many towns and cities have reallocated street space in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was done to allow more social distancing for physical activity and to provide space for restaurants to...

The aim of this study was to explore effects of a major urban reconstruction on physical activity (PA) behavior by comparing PA intensity hotspots bef…

The urban heat island (UHI), which describes the warmer temperature over urban landscape, is the most studied climate effect of cities. Most studies f…

Parking policies are a key factor in reducing car usage and improving liveability in urban neighbourhoods, as they link transport and land use. Howeve…

Purpose of Review Parking is a ubiquitous feature of the built environment, but its implications for public health are under-examined. This narrative review synthesizes literature to describe pathways through which parking may affect population health. Recent Findings We begin by contextualizing the issue, outlining key terminology, the sheer scale of land dedicated to parking, and the historical factors that led to this dominant land use. Next, we delineate four pathways linking parking with public health: 1) Promoting driving and car dependency, affecting air pollution, greenhouse-gas emissions, physical activity, traffic-related injuries and fatalities, and accessibility; 2) Creating impervious surfaces, with consequences for urban heat, flooding, water pollution, and green space; 3) Affecting housing affordability and associated health outcomes of this social determinant; and 4) Design, construction, and maintenance, the health impacts of which include on-street parking’s positive and negative impacts on safety for all roadway users, air-quality effects of parking’s construction and maintenance, and the potential for green parking lots to mitigate some health consequences of impervious surfaces. Summary While evidence supports each pathway, additional empirical research is needed to evaluate impacts of parking on public-health outcomes. As a dominant feature of the built environment with many health implications, parking warrants attention by public-health research and practice.

INRIX Research launched the first ever study to quantify costs of parking pain and found the problem isn't parking - it's parking information.

U.S. Department of Transportation, Climate Change Center Climate Strategies that Work

The Parking Management Jump Start Guide is offered by the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) and funded by the Climate-Friendly and Equitable Communities program. Printing is funded by Oregon’s Transportation and Growth Management program, a joint effort of DLCD and the Oregon Department of Transportation. DLCD would like to thank the Guide’s Project Management Team and the city staff members from throughout Oregon who participated in our outreach process for their invaluable contributions to this Guide.

There are an estimated two billion public parking spots for about 280 million cars nationwide—an unprecedented waste of public space that contributes to traffic and congestion, dangerous conditions for pedestrians and cyclists, and unsustainable costs for residential and commercial development. And this is not just an urban issue. Rural communities across the country also have … Continued

Minimum parking requirements are paving over Washington, regardless of how much parking residents or businesses actually need.

About “If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places." — Fred Kent, urbanist Parking reform is on the rise in cities around the world, as many look to repeal parking minimums and better manage and price their on-street

Last year, we reported on the accelerating pace of state-level housing supply reform, with major victories in four states and laws being enacted across the country. This year, state legislatures kept up the pace, with 263 individual bills under consideration that would contribute to easing the regulatory burdens on homebuilding, touching on areas from accessory dwelling unit (ADU) permitting to building code reforms. With most state legislatures having adjourned for the year, we can take stock of this year’s successes and failures:

A growing consensus argues that minimum parking requirements (MPRs) make housing more expensive. This paper examines two claims from this discussion: (1) that MPRs discourage the construction of small units; (2) that the costs of building required parking are "passed on" to buyers and renters in the form of higher prices and rents. However, the mechanisms behind these two effects have never been made explicit in the literature. This paper proposes, for each claim, a plausible mechanism relying on the specific choices of housing suppliers and consumers. We propose that MPRs discourage small units because they eliminate the most profitable floorspace/parking bundle to supply to relatively lower-income households. We propose that parking costs may be passed on by reducing the supply of housing on offer at a given price.

Current European parking policies do not seem to steer towards a future where urban transport meets the climate goals. Prominent in current housing an…

Where curb parking is overcrowded, drivers who are searching for a rare open curb space congest traffic, pollute the air, and produce carbon dioxide. To avoid these problems, some cities have established Parking Benefit Districts that charge market prices for curb parking and spend the revenue to pay for public services on the metered blocks. A case study of Manhattan’s Upper West Side found that charging market prices for the currently unmetered curb spaces would eliminate 22 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per block per year and yield at least $1,025 per household per year to improve public services.