Studies

Exploring curbside pricing policies in Toronto

On-street parking meters, off-street parking lots, special events, motorcycles, and Pay or Permit blocks

Parking facilities are a critical part of a transportation system: vehicles are typically parked about 23 hours per day and require parking at every destination. These facilities impose various economic, social and environmental costs. This report describes how to estimate the number of parking spaces that exist in an area, their total costs, and optimal pricing. This information is important for many policy and planning decisions. Recent surveys indicate that typical North American communities have three to eight parking spaces per vehicle, including many seldom-used spaces. Considering land, construction and operating expenses, their total annualized costs per space typically range from about $600 for a basic surface lot on inexpensive land to more than $5,000 for high-amenity structured parking. Overall, their costs are estimated to average about $1,000 annually per space or $5,000 per vehicle-year, totaling more than a trillion dollars per year in the U.S. For every dollar a motorist spends on their vehicle somebody typically spends about a dollar on parking for its use. Most parking costs are external, resulting in higher taxes, rents and retail prices, plus significant environmental damages. These external costs are economically inefficient and unfair since they increase total parking and traffic costs, and force households that drive less than average to cross-subsidize higher-mileage motorists. More efficient parking management can provide larger savings and benefits than previously recognized.

Parking management refers to various policies and programs that result in more efficient use of parking resources. This guide describes and evaluates more than two-dozen such strategies. It investigates problems with current parking planning practices, discusses the costs of parking facilities and the savings that can result from improved management, describes specific parking management strategies and how they can be implemented, discusses parking management planning and evaluation, and describes how to develop the optimal parking management program in a particular situation. Cost-effective parking management programs can usually reduce parking requirements by 20-40% compared with conventional planning requirements, providing many economic, social and environmental benefits.

How More Efficient Parking Pricing Can Help Solve Parking and Traffic Problems, Increase Revenue, and Achieve Other Planning Objectives

The City of Victoria is currently engaged in a parking policy review which proposes reducing some off-street parking requirements (http://victoria.ca/zoningparking). These changes are good, but modest. This short report identifies much bolder reforms that would better align parking policies with other community goals. Although written for Victoria, the analysis and recommendations are appropriate for most municipalities.

The following pages demonstrate what we learned, and our understanding of the current demand for parking for affordable housing across the Front Range.

The sections that follow explore the housing crisis from five key perspectives. 1. historical overview 2. growth controls 3. political economy of housing policy 4. restrictive housing policy 5. solutions to the housing crisis

A new study attempts to come up with a dollar figure for how much cars, trucks and roads cost Massachusetts each year.

This piece is the third in a four-part series. It summarizes findings from a report written by Hannah Hoyt, published by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and NeighborWorks America.

Highlights from a new journal article on shared mobility and equity.

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

In recent years, cities across the United States have adopted a range of parking policy reforms to manage the existing parking supply, reduce traffic, cut pollution, and bolster city finances. Reforms include eliminating minimum parking requirements for development projects, enabling developments and businesses to share parking facilities, and using technology solutions to efficiently manage the supply of on-street parking. This interactive report allows users to access information on policies from cities across the U.S. A searchable, filterable database includes a range of recent policy examples that represent significant shifts from the status quo depending on the local context.

An overview of the benefits of good parking management practices and a collection of resources for communities looking to meet many goals by improving parking management. Curated by Oregon’s Transportation and Growth Management program.

The City conducted a study to better understand the safety benefits, effectiveness, and usage impacts of parking separated bike lanes.

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 Planning Report is the insider's guide to urban planning and infrastructure in Southern California

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 …

Harvard Medical School study comparing hospital car parks in 2019 to 2018 finds spike in October