Local Leaders Know Parking Reform is a Good Idea. What’s Stopping Them?

Parking reform is going mainstream. Over 100 U.S. cities have fully abolished arbitrary off-street parking mandates for all building types (that number, by the way, was 0 a mere decade ago). Many more have taken incremental steps. It’s a live conversation in virtually every large American city at this point.

In light of the spread of these ideas, what we’re seeing at PRN is that local elected officials increasingly understand and accept the merits of parking reform. Even those who aren’t full-blown Shoupistas are less likely to need a 101-level education, and more likely to agree that, for example:

Parking is generally overbuilt in American cities and wastes large amounts of land
Parking requirements are arbitrary and not based in sound science
Parking mandates can add hundreds of dollars per month to rents
Rigid parking quotas are a major obstacle to local entrepreneurs and homebuilders

And yet, many of those same local leaders will hedge when asked if they would introduce an ordinance to abolish these costly and antiquated rules.

“Well, I’d like to get there, but I don’t think we’re quite ready for it.”
“Obviously we can’t fully eliminate these mandates, but I’d love to tackle reducing some of the most problematic ones a bit.”
“I’d love it, but people around here would never go for it.”
“Well, I suppose we could do a study….”

Here’s what to say to five common objections from those who agree with parking reform on the substance, but are hesitant to champion it based on notions of politics or feasibility.

Myth #1: “Parking reform is unpopular.”

Reality: Parking reform has widespread appeal, when people learn about the case for it.

The myth that parking reform is politically toxic persists for two reasons. One is that parking conversations are often emotionally charged, and most people in local politics have experienced this. Parking, as Henry Grabar observes in Paved Paradise, represents nothing more or less than many people’s access to the rest of the world. It’s no surprise they’ll fight for it, and over it.

It also doesn’t help that a few misleading research findings have led people in the policy and advocacy world to believe that parking reform is risky to pursue. When you look closely at this research—for example, these survey findings from the Searchlight Institute—what you see is that parking reform polls terribly when the question is framed in a way that accentuates people’s fear and loss aversion. “Allowing new housing units to be built without parking spaces” was the least popular of a set of housing-related policies in the linked survey, and no wonder! Ask the question that way, and what respondents hear is “NO PARKING.”

Research we helped conduct in collaboration with the Sightline Institute and Welcoming Neighbors Network offers a better way to talk about parking reform to voters. The key is to show people the harm that is occurring right now as a result of existing parking mandates, from mom-and-pop businesses that cannot open up, to daycares and affordable senior housing projects downsized or canceled. Connect that harm clearly to existing parking policies, which many people don’t even know exist. And then offer a remedy: eliminating arbitrary bureaucratic mandates and giving people the flexibility to determine how to meet their own parking needs.

Broad message testing and randomized controlled trials consistently showed that these messages, which emphasize what people have to gain from parking reform, are actually popular. In fact, virtually every message tested proved effective in increasing audiences’ support for parking reform, relative to before they heard it.

Political viability is borne out in the real world by the remarkable variety of places where parking reform has succeeded—from small towns to big cities, from red states to blue states, from transit-rich metros to car-centric suburbs. The repeal of costly parking mandates often passes by bipartisan and even unanimous votes.

Myth #2: “People who live here are too attached to their cars and won’t walk or ride transit.”

Reality: Parking reform need not be about getting anyone out of their car.

The first principle of communicating about parking reform is that it is not an anti-car or anti-driver policy.

Research consistently shows a significant oversupply of parking, even in places where nearly everyone drives. For example, a study from Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council  found that 3 out 10 parking spaces at apartment buildings throughout greater Boston sit empty in the middle of the night (i.e. when nearly everyone is home). And this was seen in walkable urban neighborhoods and driveable suburbs alike.

There is ample room to reduce excess parking, saving money and bureaucratic hassle, without making it hard for those who drive to find a parking space when they need one. Places as varied as Fayetteville, Arkansas, and even tiny towns like Sandpoint, Idaho, have embraced parking reform for the boost to small businesses and neighborhood vitality—not out of any intention to discourage driving.

And as for the politics of reform? There’s simply no evidence we’ve seen that parking reform is more politically viable in places with robust alternatives to driving, such as rapid transit, than in places that lack such alternatives. Here are a few U.S. cities that no longer have off-street parking mandates:

Austin, Texas
Raleigh, North Carolina
Birmingham, Alabama
La Crosse, Wisconsin
Anchorage, Alaska
South Bend, Indiana

And here are a few that, as of this writing, have not repealed all of their parking mandates:

New York City
Boston
Washington, D.C

Does it look to you like parking reform is only, or even primarily, politically viable in dense, walkable cities with top-tier transit? It doesn’t to me.

Myth #3: “My constituents will reject anything that makes it harder to park.”

Reality: Parking reform, done right, makes it easier to park.

One more time for the people in the back: parking reform does not make it harder to park.

If anything, good parking management makes it easier and faster to find a space. By identifying and charging the right price for on-street parking—not too low, not too high—cities can keep about one space, on average, vacant on every block. Complaints about difficulty finding parking, in fact, often come from those places where curb space is barely managed, if at all. When parking is free in a very high-demand location, that all but ensures that it will fill up and drivers will be left circling block, frustrated.

Counterintuitively, off-street parking mandates can exacerbate this problem, by requiring an oversupply of private parking and cementing the expectation that it will be free. Because on-street parking spaces are often the most conveniently located and desirable, they will fill up (even when there is space in nearby lots and garages) and drivers will be left hunting for a parking spot.

Sometimes in life, you get what you pay for. Flying in first class is more comfortable than flying coach; it’s not “harder” than flying coach. Parking can be a better experience when its price is allowed to reflect its value. Communicating these benefits to the public requires some effort, but it’s important to convey that parking reform is for drivers, too.

Myth #4: “Parking reform sounds nice, but it’s not effective enough to be worth the political capital.”

Reality: Parking reform is one of the most effective and important local land-use reforms.

Parking reform is one of the simplest ways to unlock new housing and new local investment. True, it can be hard to draw a perfect cause-and-effect line between zoning changes and subsequent decisions (which may occur years later) to build homes or open businesses. But a growing body of evidence aligns with what many small-scale builders will already tell you: parking reform matters.

Minneapolis’s 2018 zoning overhaul attracted national attention for eliminating single-family-only zoning, but it’s increasingly become clear that the most impactful change in terms of actually creating new housing was the elimination of parking mandates. In Buffalo and Seattle, too, in the wake of major parking reforms, most of the new homes built were in buildings that would have been illegal under the prior code.

In fact, a Colorado study tested the theoretical effect of several zoning reforms by modeling the development potential of individual lots across the state, and found that parking reform was the most effective policy by far, increasing the potential number of market-viable homes by a stunning 71%.

Myth #5: “We can do parking reform here, but it has to be baby steps.”

Reality: Full repeal of arbitrary parking mandates is the most coherent and intellectually sound policy.

The belief that there are some places that are “ready” for full elimination of parking mandates, and other places where incremental steps are more appropriate, is widespread but ill-founded. One of the first conclusions one draws from looking at our reform map is that there is no threshold of “ready” that a community must cross.

One of the most compelling arguments against parking mandates, however, is that they are arbitrary and unfounded: the property owner is better suited to know how much parking they need than a bureaucratic formula. As soon as you begin to advocate for piecemeal reforms or for tweaking the formulas rather than removing them, you risk undercutting your best argument.