Accessible policy recipes and examples to help your community take parking reform from theory to practice.
Edition 1.0
Last Updated March 20, 2026
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About the Policy Cookbook
In a broad sense, parking reform consists of a few key recommendations:
• Eliminate arbitrary and inflexible mandates to provide private off-street parking
• Manage the public curbs to ensure orderly access to destinations, avoiding unwanted traffic and spillovers
• Encourage the efficient use and management of off-street parking while discouraging oversupply and waste
• Mitigate the negative impacts of both on-street and off-street parking on the safety and quality of the surrounding environment
In practice, parking reform policies can take extremely varied forms, as they respond to specific, local needs and conditions. This leaves policymakers often wondering, “Where do I start?”
We hope this book of “recipes” is a helpful tool to begin answering this question. This collection of policy profiles is not a comprehensive guide to all things parking reform, and no individual program or policy captured here is perfect in concept or execution.
Each of these recipes is an accessible, non-technical overview of a policy concept and a look at how it was applied in a particular location to address a parking-related challenge. They are idea generators for local policymakers and planners, and conversation starters for advocates who seek to improve parking policy where they live.
Help Us Grow This Resource
The first edition of the Policy Cookbook contains recipes for managing on-street parking and the public curb. In future editions we plan to expand upon this collection to include off-street parking reform and management, approaches to eliminating parking mandates, statewide parking policy, and more.
This collection of recipes is intended to grow over time, and if you have one you would like to submit for consideration and/or help us write, we welcome the contribution!
Submit a case study recommendation here.
Email us to report an update or correction.
Citations
Click here to view the bibliography for the Policy Cookbook.
Acknowledgements
Many people contributed research, interviews, and expertise to the policy case studies in this collection. It was primarily written and compiled by Nani Wolf, AICP; Danny Harden-Ramella; Daniel Herriges; and Tony Jordan. Special credit is due to Nani Wolf for the original concept and framework.
Graphic design and layout is by Erin Zipper.
Many thanks to the local governments and public agencies whose staff agreed to interviews and provided firsthand knowledge of the policies and communities profiled.
About the Parking Reform Network
The Parking Reform Network educates the public about the impact of parking policy on climate change, equity, housing, and traffic. In partnership with allied organizations, we accelerate the adoption of critical parking reforms through research, coalition-building, and direct advocacy.
If this resource has been helpful to you, please support our work with a monthly donation.