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.

Victoria Transport Institute, 2009