This might be the most interesting book I have ever read, and definitely one of the most fun to talk to people about. Filled with amazing statistics and appeals to common sense that are impossible to argue with, it makes a fairly compelling argument that parking requirements and poor parking management cause the vast majority of America’s problems.

Quotes

(I had hundreds of excellent quotes on my Kindle from this book, these are just a few semi-arbitrarily selected ones)

Paying at a parking meter is like taking out an insurance policy against getting a parking ticket.

In the beginning the earth was without parking. The planner said, Let there be parking, and there was parking. And the planner saw that it was good. And the planner then said, Let there be off-street parking for each land use, according to its kind. And developers provided off-street parking for each land use according to its kind. And again the planner saw that it was good. And the planner said to cars, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And the planner saw everything he had made, and, behold, it was not good.

Some cities require bicycle racks to encourage cycling, but most planners and elected officials do not seem to recognize that parking requirements will likewise encourage driving.

Consider how the zoning ordinance in SeaTac, Washington, prevents parking lots from degrading the urban design and pedestrian ambience of commercial districts: No parking shall be located between the building and the front property line. On corner lots, no parking shall be located between the building and either of the two (2) front property lines.76 This requirement puts on-site parking spaces either beside or behind buildings, rather than in front.

This policy really stuck out to me from this book: a policy like this feels like it has the potential to transform main streets of small towns from suburban hellscapes to very nice places.

In practice, paved surfaces provide few of the amenities that make lower densities desirable, such as privacy, noise reduction, aesthetics and access to greenspace. Thus, increased parking results in the worst of all worlds: lower density, automobile-oriented communities with degraded environments.

By increasing the cost of housing, parking requirements make the real homelessness problem even worse. People sleep in the streets, but cars park free in their ample off-street quarters. In city planning, free parking has become more important than affordable housing.

The resulting estimates depend on the locations studied, but between 8 and 74 percent of the cars in traffic were cruising for parking, and the average time to find a curb space ranged from 3.5 to 13.9 minutes.

To end cruising, the price of curb parking needs to be only high enough to create a few vacancies because at that level cruising becomes pointless.

Cruising is an odd form of vehicle travel because it adds VMT without adding either vehicles or travel

In short, the right price for curb parking: (1) ensures that everyone can park without cruising; (2) encourages short-term parking, thereby increasing turnover; and (3) favors shoppers who arrive in higher-occupancy vehicles. Right-priced curb parking can therefore attract more customers who collectively spend more money while shopping.

If cities established minimum hotel requirements to meet the demand for free hotel rooms, they would soon need the help of tourism demand management consultants. Camping or staying with relatives would come to be called “alternative accommodation,” just as walking and cycling are now called “alternative transportation,” without the need for anyone to ask “alternative to what?”