Are We Doing This Right? – Parking Minimums Edition
We’re back with another edition of our series “Are We Doing This Right?” This time around, we take a closer look at parking minimums. They might seem like a harmless feature of your zoning ordinance, but they play a huge role in shaping the physical environment of your community. Intentionally or not, parking minimums adversely affect the viability of public transit and local businesses, housing affordability, regional ecological health, and the fiscal strength of the cities that enact them.
In this episode, we dig into the history and consequences of minimum parking requirements, and then we talk about practical steps cities and towns can take to move beyond them. And of course, we always close by answering the question, “Are we doing this right?” (You might have guessed by now what the answer is on this one.)
Your hosts for this episode: Jordan Clark & AJ Fawver.
Want to read more? Here is just a sampling of what’s out there and what we found useful:
Parking guru Donald Shoup’s website, charmingly named shoupdogg.com
Don’t miss the extensive list of parking links
Book: The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup
Paper: Should Law Subsidize Parking? by Gregory H. Shill
Video: Adam Ruins Cars
Video: Review of Minimum Parking Standards (City of Ottowa)
People Over Parking (American Planning Association)
Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parking Minimums (NextCity)
Parking Reform Will Save the City (Citylab)
More Cities Than Ever Are Eliminating Parking Minimums (Strong Towns)
Smaller Cities Lighten Up on Minimum Parking Requirements (NAIOP)
Parking Requirement Impacts on Housing Affordability (Victoria Transport Policy Institute)
The Adaptive Parking approach to municipal parking policy (Reinventing Parking)
How to not worry about abolishing parking minimums (Reinventing Parking)
An Overlooked Contributor to the Affordable Housing Crisis: Parking Requirements (D Magazine)
Parking ReformMade Easy (Access Magazine)
In Mid-Density Zones, Portland Has a Choice: Garages or Low Prices? (Sightline Institute)
Who Parked in My Spot?! (Sightline Institute)
One Line of Your Zoning Code Can Make a World of Difference: Sandpoint, ID (Strong Towns)
How to Get Rid of Parking Minimums: Phoenixville, PA (Strong Towns)
We forbid what we value most (Strong Towns)
Want to discuss this further?
If you're in local government or part of a local agency, sign up for our FREE online community—the Community Cultivators Network. Join us and like-minded peers across the country to talk about the biggest challenges you face. We're discussing new things every week, and the experience only gets better with more awesome change agents taking part!
The newsletter you’ll actually look forward to
Would you like to get updates on new podcasts as well as a weekly digest of our favorite reads from the week (with nice little accompanying write-ups)—delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up right here.
The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity.
Like this one? Want to find more episodes? Head over to our podcast archives or subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, or anywhere else you find podcasts.
