Parking Reform Network

Events

Event: Tackling Parking Reform in Hawaii – Taking Down Parking Lots and Unpaving Paradise.

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This free event will take place via Zoom on Thursday, May 20th beginning at 4PM Pacific (7PM Eastern).
To attend this event you must register here.

In February of 2021, the City of Honolulu overhauled its parking regulations for the first time in three decades, making history and eliminating minimum parking requirements. This was largely led by Kathleen Rooney, the Director of Transportation policy and programs at Ulupono Initiative, an organization that invests, educates and advocates to support locally produced food, renewable energy, clean transportation, and wise management of freshwater and waste in Hawaii.

Hawaiian Themed Event Details Graphic. Details are all in Post.

The Parking Reform Network will talk to Kathleen about just how she was able to achieve such a major policy change, exploring the impact parking policy reform has on the community’s climate and transportation goals, discuss the road to passing this ordinance, and highlighting lessons learned, successes, and more! 

Minimum parking requirements make market rate housing more expensive, reduce the number of affordable housing units, decrease the amount of space for non-parking uses, encourage people to own more cars and drive more, and disproportionately burdens the poor, old, young, and disabled, who subsidize transportation for the relatively more affluent. Eliminating minimum parking requirements is critical to parking reform in any city, allowing for more affordable housing costs, achieving climate goals, and creating a more walkable environment for all. 

Don’t miss your chance to hear how Kathleen passed one of the larger examples of off-street parking reform in the country, unusual for the size of the population it impacts and the range of geographic landscape it covers in Hawaii!

We’ll have a Q&A and breakout session with Kathleen after her presentation. 

This free event is made possible by Parking Reform Members, if you would like to support events like these join the network or donate today.

Registration is required for this FREE event. Click here to RSVP.

More about our speaker: Katie is the Ulupono Initiative’s lead on transportation-related policy and programs in advancement of cleaner, multi-modal transportation in Hawai‘i and reducing our dependency on cars. Her current projects include rightsizing parking policies and helping expand immediate transportation choices and access to those choices.

Kathleen Rooney at a bike share station, there is a #66 AIKAHI bus in the background.
Kathleen Rooney – Ulupono Initiative

She brings 15 years of national experience in the transportation and planning, combining both to advance community visions and goals in many diverse communities across the nation. For example, using a combination of analytics and storytelling, she helped two West Virginia towns strategize around health, leading to two trail program implementation grants. She also helped to conceptualize a resiliency center in Washington State, operationalize multimodal accessibility metrics in Florida, and develop a statewide transportation demand management framework for New York State.

Prior to joining the Ulupono team, Katie served as a project manager of Renaissance Planning in Orlando, Florida, and as a senior manager at ICF International in Washington D.C.

Katie holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Maryland and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Tulane University in New Orleans. 

You can support a parking reform movement. Join the network or donate today.

Event: How we won parking cash-out for Washington, D.C., and how you can too!

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Date: March 30th
Time: 7-8pm Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Cheryl Cort
Cheryl Cort

The Parking Reform Network is excited to welcome Cheryl Cort, the Policy Director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth to speak about the campaign for a Washington D.C. bill to require parking cash-out as part of employee commuter benefits. The “Transportation Benefits Equity Amendment Act” passed in April 2020 requires employers who provide free or subsidized parking to also offer benefits to employees who choose other ways to commute to work, such as taking transit, walking or biking. In a city where most residents don’t even drive to work, this is a big victory!

Why should parking reformers pay attention to parking cash-out? For starters, parking cash-out can reduce the need for new or existing employee parking and the costs of leasing more space. Secondly, parking reform policies sometimes can clash with drivers who want free or plentiful parking, or communities that have limited transportation options, as it may be unclear what the immediate benefit is to them. However, parking cash-out is one idea that may quickly find supporters from more diverse groups. As Donald Shoup (who first developed the idea) wrote, parking cash-out comes close to the goal of pareto optimality:

Parking cash-out makes many people better off while making few, if any, worse off. Commuters are better off because they get a flexible new fringe benefit, one that allows each person to choose the commute option best for her or him. Employers are better off because offering the new fringe benefit costs them little or nothing, and helps to attract and retain workers. The government is better off because tax revenues increase with no change in the tax rates. Finally, society is better off with less traffic and cleaner air. Economists describe a change as “Pareto optimal” if it makes some people better off without making others worse off—a great asset in public policy.

Shoup, Donald “Parking Cash Out”

Sounds like a win-win for all! Join this free event and get some insights on how parking cash-out can be won in your city: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcoce2srzMuH9HdHfw-w5BelLGF-guiwhnM

We’ll have a Q&A and breakout session with Cheryl after her presentation.

This free event is made possible by members like you.