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Books

Win a signed copy of Parking and the City (and more) and support the Parking Reform Network

December 21, 2021 By Tony Jordan Leave a Comment

If you’re interested in transportation, urbanism, climate change, or land use you don’t want to miss this opportunity to support the Parking Reform Network and win books signed by Donald Shoup, Todd Litman, Richard Willson, Nolan Gray, and more!

Donate Now For a Chance to Win!

The Parking Reform Network, which recently released an updated map of cities that have eliminated parking mandates, has partnered with Reinventing Transport’s Paul Barter to make the Reinventing Parking Podcast the official podcast of PRN. With our backing, the podcast will have monthly episodes featuring great parking reform news and case studies and interviews with the folks making a difference in this critical policy area.

We need $6,000 to produce a year’s worth of Reinventing Parking podcasts and you can help by donating to our campaign.

And to sweeten the deal, we’ve got a growing list of autographed books you can win! For every $10 you donate, you’ll be entered into a raffle to win one of these great prizes:

Win this copy of Parking and the City signed by Donald Shoup!
  • Parking and the City – signed by editor Donald Shoup
  • New Mobilities – signed by author Todd Litman
  • Parking Reform Made Easy, Reflective Planning Practice, or Parking Management for Smart Growth (winner’s choice) – signed by author Richard Willson
  • The Quirky World of Parking – signed by author Larry Cohen
  • Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It – by M. Nolan Gray (coming in June 2022)

If you’re looking to become a member or renew your membership in the Parking Reform Network, your donation to the fundraiser can be applied towards a membership or renewal, too!

So don’t wait! Let’s tackle parking policy reform and have fun doing it, support the Parking Reform Network today!

Donate Now For a Chance to Win!

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Filed Under: Books, Fundraising, Podcasts

A Parking Reform Bookshelf

December 23, 2020 By Tony Jordan 4 Comments

What would a comprehensive parking reform bookshelf look like? If your local independent bookstore had a “Parking Reform” section, what would it contain? I’ll share what I’ve got and what I know about, and we’ll crowdsource a comprehensive list of books about parking.

I have four books which are specifically about parking: Donald Shoup’s The High Cost of Free Parking and Parking And The City, Eran Ben-Joseph’s Rethinking A Lot, and Bridget Brown’s book for children Spot’s Parking Lot. I recommend all of them.

I have a few other books in which parking plays a role, Janette Sadik-Kahn’s Streetfight, Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit, and Randy Shaw’s Generation Priced Out. I have Jeff Speck’s Walkable City on audio-book.

I’ve read through Cal Poly Pomona Professor Richard Willson’s books Parking Reform Made Easy (arguably the best title of all) and Parking Management for Smart Growth, they’re more technical in nature, but great books.

There’s a book that looks amazing: Parking: An International Perspective which came out in November 2019. I think a truly complete parking bookshelf would have a copy.

There are a few books I know of which focus on the design of garages. I spied a copy of The Parking Garage: Design and Evolution of a Modern Urban Form by Shannon S. McDonald on Professor Shoup’s shelf. The Architecture of Parking by Simon Henley is another one.

Of course, there are the real heavy tomes of ITE’s Trip and Parking Generation, various editions and supplements, but I think Professor Shoup presents most of the information a reformer would need from these resources.

Links to learn more about these books, and others are below. The Parking Reform Network has a “bookshop” set up at Bookshop.org where you can purchase several of these books and our organization will receive 10% of the sale price. You can find our bookshop here.

What did I miss? Let me know in the comments.

The Parking Book List

(Updated 12/19/2021)
Parking Reform and Policy

  • The High Cost of Free Parking – Donald Shoup
  • Parking and The City – Edited by Donald Shoup
  • Parking: An International Perspective
  • Parking Reform Made Easy – Richard Willson
  • Parking Management for Smart Growth – Richard Willson
  • Trip and Parking Generation Manuals – ITE
  • A Guide to Parking – IPI
  • Lots of Parking – John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle
  • Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities – Will Toor and Spencer W. Havlick
  • Parking Management Best Practices – Todd Litman
  • Parking Policy in Asian Cities – Paul Barter

Parking Design, Architecture, and Culture

  • Spot’s Parking Lot (children’s book) – Bridget C. Brown
  • The Architecture of Parking – Simon Henley
  • Rethinking a Lot – Eran Ben-Joseph
  • The Parking Garage: Design and Evolution of a Modern Urban Form – Shannon S. McDonald
  • Carchitecture: When the Car and the City Collide – Jonathan Bell
  • Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges – June Williamson and Ellen Dunham-Jones
  • The Quirky World of Parking – Larry Cohen

The books above are those that specifically focus on parking. For other city-building books, there are so many to cover that we couldn’t do them justice. Others have already made those lists, including those specifically by women, anti-racist urbanist books, urbanist books by authors of color, and your annual book list from Planetizen.

This final group of books are not entirely about parking, but do make strong reference to the impact of parking on the built environment.

Urbanism, Housing, Transportation, Transit, and more.

  • Walkable City – Jeff Speck
  • Walkable City Rules – Jeff Speck
  • Streetfight – Janette Sadik-Kahn
  • Human Transit – Jarrett Walker
  • Generation Priced Out – Randy Shaw
  • Sustainable Transportation Planning – Edited by Jeffrey Tumlin
  • The Car and the City – Alan Durning
  • Increments of Neighborhood -Brian O’Looney
  • Reflective Planning Practice: Theory, Cases, and Methods – Richard Willson
  • New Mobilities: Smart Planning for Emerging Transportation Technologies – Todd Litman

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Filed Under: Books

Spot’s Parking Lot teaches kids just how much space parking takes

August 21, 2020 By Bridget Brown Leave a Comment

Hi. Bridget Brown, here, author of Spot’s Parking Lot, a children’s picture book wherein a terrier considers alternative uses for parking spaces (preview available here).

Cover of Spot's Parking Lot by Bidget C. Brown artwork of a red dog's head in front of a large empty parking lot. a sofa is in one of the spots.

It’s a little weird to be writing this in the midst of a pandemic, when the concept of how much space people need is so much on our minds as we try to minimize spread of the virus.

Flipping through “Spot,” for example, there are some edits that should be made for safety. About halfway through, there are 20 people doing yoga in a parking spot, and on the next page 5 people dancing in one. For adequate social/physical distancing, the yogis would probably need at least 3 or 4 spaces (and masks if they were indoors), and the dancers might as well. 
Farther on, though there are only two people in the bus shelter, they should probably be giving each other a little more space on the bench and also masking up. 

The cafe table spacing, on the other hand, almost works, though maybe only two rather than three to a spot. And this set-up is one that we’re seeing more often in the wild these days than usual. As long as they’re not parked on with cars or trucks, these big spaces offer an opportunity to help people spread out. And maybe some of their re-uses will become permanent.

At any rate, I’ve donated copies of the book to the Parking Reform Network for new members who can use them (while supplies last): parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, caregivers. Current members can enter a drawing for a copy when they fill out the membership survey.

Hopefully the pandemic will pass before too awfully long and we’ll be able to gather closer again. I look forward to the day, for instance, when 20-some 2nd graders can sit together cross-legged again for story time in just one space. 

Following is a  “Spot activity” to try.

Materials

  • Open floor or ground space
  • Measuring tape
  • Masking tape
  • A copy of Spot’s Parking Lot
  • Print-outs of empty spots or lots (or draw your own if you don’t have a printer)

Instructions

  1. Measure out 8-1/2 by 19 feet and apply masking tape on 3 sides of the area to represent a parking space (this can pair well with a lesson plan on inches, feet, and yards).
  2. Measure a safe distance for kids to sit within the area, depending on circumstances.
  3. Story time!
  4. Have kids draw out their own ideas of what to put in a space, or even a lot.
  5. If you’d like, submit photos of your favorite drawings to be added to an online gallery.

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Filed Under: Books

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