How Much Parking is Enough?

Getting the amount of parking wrong can negatively impact our community spaces

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope that your holiday plans and shopping are going smoothly so far. In this mad dash for shopping and large gatherings at places like parades or community events, perhaps you have come across instances where the parking situation was not handled well or at least not to your liking. Maybe there wasn’t enough or maybe there was a ridiculous surplus that makes the place feel empty. Figuring out how much parking a place will need is a very tricky matter and if you get it wrong, it is usually an expensive mistake that is also expensive to correct.

Before we can start to understand how to plan for parking, we need to understand the actual problem that parking solves as well as the cost it imposes on us. You might hear the word “cost” and think money, but I want to expand that word to include the opportunity cost for choosing parking as a type of land use. It should be no secret to anyone that land is very valuable and dedicating it towards temporary vehicle storage is only one of numerous ways to use land and thus creates an opportunity cost.

Planning a Place for Success

In our car-dominated transportation system, parking is frequently considered a necessity for a business or place to be successful and the idea of building a place without parking, or even to perchance not build enough of it, is considered to be an obvious mistake. I frequently see people online complain about parking in places such as Downtown Portsmouth or Downtown Dover or about having to pay for parking at these places. While there is an argument to be made that these places are not properly handling parking policy, I would like to suggest that the idea that I will sum up as, “less parking is worse than more parking” is a misunderstanding of what makes a successful place and misses the problem that parking actually solves.

What does parking do? It allows for non-congested places to collect congestion. This congestion is very valuable to our places because it how people collaborate and build wealth together. People coming and going, resolving their economic and social needs, and creating community in their participation is the vibrancy and success that we want to see in our places. Note that I said the congestion is valuable, not the parking.

Downtown land use patterns favor more places for people instead of more parking for cars and by doing so feel more inviting and desirable to spend time in

For the places that we build our goal is not to just create parking and assume success will follow. No, our goal is to create a successful place for people regardless of how those people choose to arrive. A place where people want to go, to be, where they can do all those wonderful things I mentioned before. Now, with that goal stated, does abundant parking create successful places? While it can be a factor, I think we all understand that the answer here is “no” because each of us can point to an empty parking lot surrounded by dying or dead businesses. Parking alone cannot create success for a place, and it can even be an obstacle to achieving it.

This abundantly sized parking lot pretty much always has large empty sections that could be used more productively.

If the recipe for success is more than just parking, then adding too much can be like adding too much salt or sugar to the mix. Even the best cake recipe is ruined by adding too much sugar making it an unpalatable desert that people would skip over rather than eat. There is an art to creating places that people want to be at, and this is what we should actually be focusing on when we build. Few people want to be at a parking spot, they want to be at the places near the parking. With that fact we can recognize that abundant parking can actually diminish the success of a place because it creates non-places that get in the way of the things we actually want such as housing or retail space. When you add too much parking you can end up with a place that’s easy to arrive at, but not worth going to.

There’s No Such Thing as Free Parking

Parking is an expensive commodity to provide and guess what? When parking is “free”, those costs are simply passed onto you, even if you don’t drive. The groceries you buy have the cost of the parking built into them and those high rent prices are the same. “Free” parking is actually just socialized by the public in the prices that we pay. Should we socialize other costs of driving such as gasoline and oil changes? I don’t think those would lead to great outcomes and likewise, “free” parking is not a great outcome either due to its other cost, land.

This parking lot on First Street in Dover was converted into an apartment building with retail on the first floor. Which do you think provides more value to the community?

One of the Strong Towns principles is that land is the base resource that wealth is created from. A single parking space is around 8.5’ by 18’, or ~150 square feet. That means that 8 parking spaces is a 1200 square foot apartment or an outdoor dining area for a restaurant. There are many other land uses that are much more valuable to a community other than parking. Consider then, why should we have abundant, “free” parking in our cities while housing is expensive? It makes no sense.

Every parking spot costs money that makes the cost of operations higher that then get passed on to customers

Parking does not create additional value outside of allowing people to arrive at a place by vehicle and in reality there are much cheaper ways to facilitate that outcome. I think that we should modify our view on parking to consider it as an additional cost of doing business. A cost that can and should be reduced over time.

Needing Less Parking Lets Us Keep More of It

So, how much parking is enough? I would say as little as is necessary to facilitate congestion and no more. That might sound crazy, but remember that it doesn’t actually matter how many parking spaces a place has in total. What actually matters is how much available parking there is. You can have 10 spots or 1000 spots total, but if both of those places have spots available, then they have accomplished the same result.

Because this place is walkable, bikeable, and served by transit, the need for parking is reduced and they can successfully collect congestion with less of it

When the only option to get to a place is to drive, parking is very valuable, but but that also means that it becomes drastically less valuable once we have viable transportation alternatives. If you can walk, bike, or take transit to arrive at a place, then the demand for parking at a place is likewise reduced and we can keep parking available for those that choose to drive.

Outside of providing viable alternatives to driving, another way of preserving available parking is to charge the right price for it. You may not want to hear that, but supply and demand apply to parking and pricing is how a market regulates scarcity. Parking is no special exception here and directly charging prices for parking is fairer that socializing it into everyone’s costs. Figuring out the right price can be a difficult task, but generally you know you have the right price when most of it is filled up, but there are still a few empty spaces.

If you find that your place is struggling to maintain available parking, then demand is outpacing supply and the prices should go up. That is how a market responds to scarcity and preserves its supply. Alternatively if you find yourself with excess parking, lower your prices for it, or if it is “free” then look into replacing it with something that will draw more people in. Make a better place and don’t be afraid to sacrifice your abundance in parking for more valuable things. Using this type of approach ensures that parking is available to those who want it and you don’t end up with drivers circling your streets looking for a place to store their vehicle.

So, when should you actually build more parking? When you have no opportunities to create viable alternatives to driving, you can’t keep your current parking available, and your place isn’t congested enough to support it. If you find that your place already has enough congestion, then you don’t need more parking.

Conclusion

Parking is a tough topic to tackle because lots of people have strong opinions on it and the well being of our places seemingly hangs in the balance if we get it wrong. I know that I had a hard time with writing this because I wanted to be clear on how I think about the subject. I do believe that the people who complain about parking in our downtown areas may just be voicing a frustration they have, but in reality if our downtowns are congested, our streets populated, and our businesses doing well, then why would we need more parking? Which businesses should we demolish to make room for it? Which places should we get rid of to create a non-place parking lot? I think that the very draw that pulls us to these places is the fact that instead of abundant parking, they offer us much much more than that. They offer us a place to be.