However, Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, says that some cities have shown efforts to reduce car use through parking enforcement.
One example is in Washington, D.C., where council member Tommy Wells introduced a performance parking pilot program almost three years ago that set higher meter rates around the city's baseball stadium.
"On every block there should be one vacant place," said Shoup. "If there's no vacant place, the price is too low."
Shoup is a leader in the field of limiting parking for smart growth. His 2005 book "The High Cost of Free Parking" has garnered ardent followers, or "Shoupistas," according to Lovaas.
He adds that city zoning rules have traditionally mandated a minimum amount of parking. Now, governments must instead demand a maximum number of spaces in order to cut car dependency.
"It isn't as though there wasn't any regulation; the regulation is to require a lot of parking," said Schoup. "We've been regulating badly; our regulations have done a lot of damage."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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7 Comments
Add CommentFollowing this brilliant line of reasoning, why not simply eliminate all urban parking?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust think - this generation could be the first to tear down a parking lot to put up a new building!
What they are not considering, at least in the article, is that fewer people may be going to the city center because a) you cant find a parking space or b) you've made it too expensive to park.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder how the local merchants feel about creating these parking obstacles? Less parking usually means fewer customers unless people are actually using the alternative transportation in the same volume that they are reducing parking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe automobile has not merely taken over the street, it has dissolved the living tissue of the city. Its appetite for space is absolutely insatiable; moving and parked, it devours urban land, leaving the buildings as mere islands of habitable space in a sea of dangerous and ugly traffic. ~James Marston Fitch, New York Times, 1 May 1960.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe car: biggest mistake of the 20th century.
Removing parking spaces in itself will do nothing but frustrate people, increasing pollution as they drive around looking for space. Increasing the price of parking will further separate the rich from everyone else. Removing parking spaces while at the same time providing excellent, well-planned, comfortable, safe, cheap, frequent and clean public transit will do the job perfectly. This is what cities such as Vancouver are completely failing to realize. Toll bridges, roads narrowed for bicycle lanes, transit hours just for day workers and neglect of people not in the City core have made a real mess.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn many city centres around Europe the main commercial streets are pedestrian-only. In fact, some cities like the one I come from have pedestrianised more than 50% of their city centres, with the only exceptions allowed being light resupply vans, and only off peak. Apart from the obvious reduction in car pollution and noise, this has also created a high value commercial area with guaranteed high people traffic, and thus more revenue. The extra commercial traffic also allows the city to get a bigger amount of taxes, ensuring the health of the system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for commuting, the local buses quite efficient at covering the city and the price of the bus ticket is much cheaper than the cost of petrol (at 0.90€ for every route, it is a bargain).
I suspect that since the city centers of most major European centers were never designed for automobile traffic that this had an impact as well.
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