Minimums to maximums: lessons from the UK
Reinventing Parking
Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the ! Why not join? The United Kingdom has been both a bold parking reformer and a parking reform disappointment. But which is the more important story? That's the focus of . The nationwide abolition of parking mandates in 2001 and the shift to parking maximums was amazing and of great interest to parking reformers elsewhere. Yet, parking management has often failed to rise to the challenge, leading to problems and then to some backsliding on parking standards. For more insight and lessons from UK parking, I turned to Andrew Potter, who...
info_outline
Austin did it. Your city can too!
Reinventing Parking
Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the ! Why not join? On November 2, 2023, the Austin City Council voted to end parking mandates, making Austin Texas the largest municipality in the USA to do so. So far. who worked to make it happen. They were Leah Bojo, Jay Crossley and Adam Greenfield. Think of it as a Master Class for aspiring parking reform advocates! Here is an outline: Brief summary of the whole story, especially the beginnings [2:52] Were Austin's parking mandates unusual? [7:04] A broad coalition against parking mandates [7:44] Institutional and...
info_outline
Six Surprising Parking Reform Ideas
Reinventing Parking
Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the ! Why not join? that will probably be new to you. There are six ideas, so I only describe each one briefly. What if we require private off-street parking to report regularly on usage levels? [4:02] Should we turn every decent-sized building and its parking into a mini Parking Benefit District? [8:35] Project to create many city maps of areas with paid parking [12:00] Alternative to maximums: make parking count as floor area [14:05] Parking moratorium (or maybe even parking draw-down) [18:39] Please abolish parking mandates, but it you...
info_outline
Most buildings run their parking badly. Let's fix that
Reinventing Parking
is an active member with unique insights at the interface between the parking owned by buildings and the world of parking reform. Most buildings fail abysmally to manage their parking efficiently. It hurts building owners. It hurts tenants. It hurts residents. It hurts the whole community. Yet most building managers have little clue that there are now tools to help them easily do much better. Evan Goldin is co-founder and CEO of , a company which provides an amazing app and system that makes it simple for buildings to better utilize their parking. Parkade says it is "on a mission to...
info_outline
Parking reform around the world: a new report from ITDP
Reinventing Parking
about an encouraging, readable and helpful new report from ITDP that focuses on off-street parking reform. "Breaking the Code, Off Street Parking Reform Lessons Learned" is aimed at parking reformers and potential parking reformers all over the world. Dana, who is research manager for ITDP Global, led the team that prepared the report and was co-author of the report along with Mackenzie Allen. for more information and a lightly edited transcript. Here is a summary of our conversation: The report in a nutshell Was it difficult to motivate ITDP or funders to work on parking? Was...
info_outline
We Gamified Parking Reform
Reinventing Parking
Several years ago, I gamified on-street parking management using a board game. It brings home to players the amazing power of parking fees in a surprising and fun way. And the Urban Works Institute in India has adapted and improved the game. Shreya Gadepalli and her team have been using the game to great effect in parking reform workshops and parking policy trainings. For this episode of Reinventing Parking, I spoke with Shreya, who leads the Urban Works Institute and is one of India's foremost urban mobility experts. She regularly leads parking game sessions for...
info_outline
Is Parking Reform Anti Car?
Reinventing Parking
People keep claiming that parking reform and the are "anti car". So I thought I should make an episode to try to answer the question, is parking reform anti-car? But, since that’s a loaded question not usually asked in good faith, I decided to instead look at a similar but more constructive question: Can parking reform help cities avoid or escape having cars dominate their transport systems? And the short answer is that parking reform can help do this as much or as little as you want it to. You can . Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the ! Why not...
info_outline
Powerful Parking Maps
Reinventing Parking
looks at parking lot maps. Parking lot maps might seem an unlikely viral hit but really did make a splash this northern Spring. They convey a compelling message, with many downtowns having more than 20 percent of their land devoted to parking. That's without even counting podium, underground or street parking. The maps were created by and a team of PRN volunteers. To discuss the PRN Parking Lot Map project, I spoke with Thomas along with PRN President, Tony Jordan, and PRN Communications Coordinator, Etienne Lefebvre. Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the !...
info_outline
Parking reform and newly motorizing cities
Reinventing Parking
is 25 minutes of edited highlights from my appearance on the . OoruLabs is an Indian podcast and Youtube channel hosted by Sathya Sankaran and Knerav Kodolikar, who kindly gave permission to adapt the interview, which was their episode 16. Our topic was parking reform for the Indian context. But that means it's also relevant for almost any middle income and lower income city or anywhere where private motor vehicle ownership is surging but for now remains relatively low. For cities in that situation, parking policy choices are potentially pivotal and will likely play a big...
info_outline
Disability, Aging and Parking Reform: Win-Wins and Trade-offs
Reinventing Parking
Can parking reform co-exist with justice for frail aging people and for people with disabilities? That was a central theme of a Parking Reform Network round table event on "Parking Reform, Aging and Disability" which took place a few months ago. The event had four guests with a wealth of experience and insight on these issues. The original was long, but this podcast version has just the highlights. I hope you find it as interesting and informative as I did. For the full video and for more detail on the event and its four panelists, Cassie Wilson, Corallete Hannon, Megan Lynch, and Anna...
info_outlineReinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?
The United Kingdom has been both a bold parking reformer and a parking reform disappointment.
But which is the more important story? That's the focus of this month's episode of Reinventing Parking episode.
The nationwide abolition of parking mandates in 2001 and the shift to parking maximums was amazing and of great interest to parking reformers elsewhere.
Yet, parking management has often failed to rise to the challenge, leading to problems and then to some backsliding on parking standards.
For more insight and lessons from UK parking, I turned to Andrew Potter, who is Director of Parking Perspectives, a parking focused consulting firm based in Chelmsford in the southeast of England.
Here is an outline of our discussion:
- About my guest: Andrew Potter
- Basics about on-street parking management - where it is strong [2:20]
- Where is parking enforcement weak and parking behaviour worst? [3:59]
- Pavement parking is not even an offence in England (but is in London and Scotland
- Parking standards and the history of reforms [6:10]
- Maximums dealt with a parking arms race [7:23]
- Problems emerged in new residential developments with limited parking under maximums [8:39]
- Why wasn't strict parking management expanded to such areas? [10:01]
- Fundamental problem with the approach to on-street parking management outside city cores [11:31]
- These problems led to pressure on government to change the approach to parking for residential developments [12:21]
- Is London a counterfactual to refute the idea that these problems mean abolishing minimums and imposing maximums was foolish? [13:34]
- What has been happening recently with parking standards, minimums and maximums? [16:40]
- Trend for car free developments in city centre areas and this is generally successful since the streets are well controlled [19:50]
- Residents of inner city car free developments are usually not eligible for parking permits in the local CPZ [20:21]
- Are maximums still popular, despite the problems mentioned earlier? [20:54]
- Suggestion: maximums at levels to make urban supermarkets viable, but not out-of-town ones [22:05]
- Advice for other places thinking of abolishing parking mandates and or imposing parking maximums? [24:32]
- Wrapping up [25:31]
You can read a lightly edited transcript here.