Donald Shoup • The High Cost of Free Parking

The High Cost of Free Parking
Ten Parking Reforms for Healthier Cities and a Cooler Planet

Guest: Don Shoup Prof. UCLA, author.
Donald Shoup is Distinguished Research Professor in UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning. His research has focused on how parking policies affect cities, the economy, and the environment. Shoup is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and an Honorary Professor at the Beijing Transportation Research Center. The American Planning Association gave Shoup its National Excellence Award for a Planning Pioneer, and the American Collegiate Schools of Planning gave him its Distinguished Educator Award.

Summary of presentation:

At the dawn of the automobile age, suppose Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller had asked city planners to recommend policies that would increase the demand for cars and fuel. Consider three options. First, divide cities into separate zones (housing here, jobs there, shopping somewhere else) to create travel between the zones. Second, limit density in every zone to spread the city out. Third, require off-street parking everywhere. In this habitat, cars will be the default way to travel.

American cities have unwisely adopted these three car-oriented planning policies. Although planners did not intend to enrich the automobile and petroleum industries, they have separated land uses, limited density, and required off-street parking for almost a century. As a result, we have many drivable cities and few walkable neighborhoods. The dream of abundant free parking has turned into an urban nightmare.

What should planners do now? Parking reforms are the easiest, cheapest, and fastest way to start undoing the damage caused by a century of car-centered city planning. I will discuss parking reforms that can improve cities and the planet at almost no cost.