That is starting to change in professional city planning circles, although it is a long way from being a hot topic at cocktail parties. Our bad memories of those occasional parking shortages tend to blind us to the day-in, day-out reality where most parking lots we visit are at least a third empty, and many are far more underutilized than that. No one really knows how many parking spaces there are in the U.S. but estimates range from four to eight spaces for each and every car. That means that for every parking space which always seems to be full, there are several spaces which are almost always empty.
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| Half Full Suburban Office Parking Lot |
The Hidden Hand of Government
Most people assume that the size of the parking lot at your neighborhood shopping center was determined by the developer who built the center, perhaps with some input from the businesses that are located there. The developer does have some say in the matter, but the primary force in determining parking lot size is the local government through its zoning regulations. Just about every city in the country has a section in their zoning ordinance that specifies the minimum number of parking spaces that are required as part of the development process, generally based on the zoning district, the land use being proposed, and the amount of floor area being built. The developer might build more than is required or might appeal the requirement in hopes of getting a slight reduction, but most parking lots are within a few spaces of the number required by the zoning ordinance.
Minimum parking requirements started out – as most requirements do – as a solution to a vexing problem. Going back to horse and buggy days, cities have struggled with a transportation space problem. Particularly as buildings got larger, finding space for people to park their horse, buggy, or (eventually) car was difficult. Initially, people simply parked in the street in front of the building they were visiting. But as motor vehicles became more popular and buildings became taller and closer together, that approach no longer worked. Citizens demanded a solution and that solution became the mandatory parking lot for each new building.
This is particularly true in midwestern cities and in suburban areas pretty much anywhere. In those locations, parking is seen as an essential element of any new development because the car is the predominant mode of transportation to the exclusion of just about anything else. If private development didn’t provide parking, then the convenience of car travel would plummet and we would all be whining to our city council members. Hence, the minimum parking requirements that are nearly universal throughout the midwest. The problem is that the minimum requirements, which were wildly approximate to begin with, are now badly out of date. So cities end up requiring developers to build parking lots that are unlikely to be anywhere near the correct size.
There are a variety of reasons for our current predicament, but four are particularly relevant in my opinion. To begin with, nearly all parking requirements can be traced back to a thick book called the Parking Generation Manual published by the Institute of Traffic Engineers. This manual has parking demand estimates for a wide variety of land uses based on field surveys done in a variety of cities. All of this detail is useful information but it tends to get simplified for ease of administration. Plus, it is all based on averages from small sample sizes that are assumed to be relevant for a wide variety of cities and an even wider variety of business characteristics. The surveys often yield parking rates that vary widely, but that variation is masked by utilizing the average. The end result is that a 50,000 square foot Kroger’s, a 20,000 square foot Trader Joe’s, and a 7,500 square foot Asian specialty market may all be subjected to the same parking ratio despite notable differences in the number and timing of the trips that each will attract.
Second, the parking surveys that form the basis for the Parking Generation Manual’s recommendations are based on observations of businesses in largely suburban locations that offer their customers free parking. If you have something of value (i.e. a parking space) and you give it away for free, then you can’t expect a survey of usage to give you an accurate measure of demand. This is Economics 101. If I want to open a business selling hamburgers for $4 each, but I estimate my potential market by counting the number of people who show up when I give my hamburgers away for free, I haven’t really gained much useful information. The same is true for parking studies, but it gets even worse if I only survey suburban locations with little or no transit service. Applying these rates to denser locations or to mixed use developments where transit, walking or biking are viable options is just silly but it happens all the time because this is the best information available and planners use it without enough critical thinking.
Third, most parking requirements were originally developed decades ago which means they aren’t based on the most recent edition of the Parking Generation Manual but one that is probably fifty or sixty years old. Zoning ordinances get updated from time to time but many parking requirements have simply been copied from prior versions. In fact, many cities don’t even consult the ITE Manual directly, they just copy the requirements from the zoning ordinances in places that they consider to be their “peer” cities. Laziness leads to errors being replicated from city to city.
Fourth, cities have to simplify the application of parking ratios to actual development requests because no one really knows exactly what businesses are going to end up in a development when the initial plans are approved. Is the anchor tenant going to be a supermarket or a furniture store? Is the strip center space going to house an insurance agent or a bar and grill? Is the office building going to be filled with lawyers who have large offices and conference rooms or a call center filled with 6-foot by 8-foot cubicles? It is rare to know the initial tenants when design decisions are being made and certainly no one knows who the tenants will be 10 years into the future.
So educated guesses are made and the standards that seem so precise on the surface:
For example, 3.4 spaces per 1,000 square feet times 5,480 square feet equals 18.63 spaces (rounded up to 19)
are actually averages on top of assumptions on top of simplifications, and the result is almost always designed to err on the side of too many spaces rather than too few.
The Times They Are A Changin’
The issues discussed above are bad enough by themselves, but to top it off the past five or ten years have seen societal changes that make traditional parking ratios even more obsolete. For example, e-commerce has reduced the number of retail shopping trips that most people make, and consequently reduced the demand for parking spaces in most retail locations. Not all retailers are affected to the same degree, however, so the change cannot be represented as a universal adjustment factor. Coffee shops and hair salons, for example, are pretty much unaffected by e-commerce trends, while stores that sell clothing or office supplies have seen a significant drop in in-person visits.
The pandemic accelerated the work-from-home trend substantially and even though the pandemic is largely behind us, remote work is still popular with many employees. Consequently, many office businesses reduced their floor area needs and their parking space demand over the last few years. Despite a growing economy focused mainly on white collar work, office building vacancy rates remain stubbornly high, averaging roughly 20 percent in most major metropolitan areas. [1] Return-to-the-office mandates have garnered some headlines in the press in recent months, but the reality is that relatively few employers have gotten 100 percent of their white-collar employees back in the office 100 percent of the time. Hybrid work schedules are common (and very popular) which means that a typical employee does not need a parking space Monday through Friday, 8 AM through 5 PM. 
Half Full Target Parking Lot (the week before Christmas)
Rideshare companies such as Uber, Lyft – and increasingly robotaxi companies such as Waymo – are providing door-to-door transportation similar to driving a car but without the need for a parking space at either end. This is particularly significant for nightlife businesses such as concert venues, restaurants and bars where parking is often a hassle and where people are reluctant to drink and drive.
The bottom line is that parking requirements which were sketchy to begin with are now sketchy and out of step with reality. No wonder parking lots increasingly look like urban wastelands. Parking is still needed because most of us still drive, but the frequency, timing and destination of our trips has changed and parking lots have not made the transition. As I mentioned earlier, this has become at least a moderately hot topic among urbanists across the country. Go on Instagram, Facebook, X or similar social media sites and search for #BlackFridayParking to see pictures of mostly empty parking lots taken on what is presumably the busiest shopping day of the year. The system is broken and people are starting to take notice.
Why It Matters
The concept of a separate parking lot for each store, office building, church, hospital, factory or apartment building has become so ingrained in our way of life that we don’t give much thought to whether there is a better way. Before we start building a better mousetrap, however, it might be instructive to analyze the problems with our current situation. Entire books have been written on the problems associated with our current approach to parking requirements, but here are my top four issues:
Parking lots are expensive to build. The cost to build a surface parking lot can range from $2,000 to $10,000 per space depending largely on the cost of the underlying land and the amount of site work that needs to be done. The cost of a parking garage is typically $20,000 to $35,000 per space, but can be much more in some circumstances. Since the majority of parking spaces in midwestern cities are “free” and are empty for much of the day, this turns out to be a significant – and relatively unproductive – expense for most businesses. The developer, of course, passes the cost along to the owner, who passes the cost to the tenants, who pass the cost to you and me in every product or service that we buy. The amount might not be significant for any given transaction, but it adds up over time.
Parking lots take up an inordinate amount of land. In newer, suburban developments, parking lots are often huge – typically taking up more land area than the buildings that they serve. In fact, parking lots for office buildings are often several times larger than the building footprint. To the degree that parking requirements are too high, it means that everything is more spread out than it needs to be. Many people drive from one store to the next within the same shopping center rather than make the unpleasant trek across a massive parking lot.
Even in relatively dense downtown areas, parking takes up a lot of land. In my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, an estimated 29 percent of developable land in the downtown core is used entirely or predominantly for parking. [2] This number does not include parking garages that are underneath buildings. This is some of the most valuable land in Kansas City, which means that there is untapped potential for economic growth. If parking ratios are too high by even 25 or 30 percent, then that equates to roughly 20 to 30 acres of development that could take place which would not only bolster the local economy but produce a significant bump in property tax revenue – potentially millions of dollars worth. The amount of land dedicated to parking in downtown Kansas City is typical for most midwestern cities. Only very large cities such as Chicago, New York or Boston dip below 10 percent.
High parking ratios make us more dependent on cars. In previous posts, I have argued that cities would function better, and we would be healthier and more connected to our community if there were several viable transportation options at our disposal for the routine trips we take each day. Oversupplying parking makes every transportation option – except for driving a car – less desirable. This happens because too much parking means that everything is more spread out, and greater distances between the places we want to visit make walking, biking or transit harder. It actually makes driving slightly less desirable as well, but stepping on the gas for an extra minute is much easier than having to walk another five or ten. In addition, seeing parking lots everywhere we go sends the subliminal message that driving is the “normal” mode of transportation and everything else is somehow “abnormal.”
Parking lots are ugly. No one says “Hey, I saw a really cool parking lot the other day. Let’s go hang out there.” When you read articles on fun places to visit, do the pictures ever show parking lots? No, they show cute shops, sidewalk restaurants, and walkable areas filled with people. Parking lots are not an urban feature, they are a necessary evil. We need them for our cities to function but they are a destroyer of any “sense of place” so we certainly don’t want any more parking than we really need. City planner Jeff Speck once wrote “. . . city engineers – worshiping the twin gods of Smooth Traffic and Ample Parking – have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to but not worth arriving at . . .”
How to Fix the Problem
You have probably guessed that one of my recommendations here is going to be “require less parking.” In fact, dozens of cities all across the country have done just that, and some have gone so far as to eliminate parking requirements entirely. I think, however, that simply reducing parking requirements across the board is only a partial solution, and one which might actually backfire in some situations. But it is a reasonable place to start and I think that many cities could reduce their requirements by 30 to 50 percent without causing major problems.
Furthermore, while reducing parking requirements is probably a good idea, I think eliminating parking requirements is a mistake. Yes, the private sector will generally supply parking in appropriate amounts simply because that will make it easier to get long-term financing and to lease their building in a reasonable amount of time. That will not be universally true, however, and the exceptions will be annoying enough that there will eventually be a push to reinstate parking minimums. Plus, eliminating parking requirements means that cities lose an important lever in getting what is really needed – parking reform.
The crux of the problem is not just the number of spaces but the common assumption that each building should have its own parking lot for the exclusive use of its tenants and customers, and that this parking should be provided for free. This is obviously not the case for every property, but it is the default assumption for most city officials and most parking regulations. And while it may seem like a reasonable assumption on the surface, it is in fact the underlying cause for parking dysfunction and needs to be discarded.
The second common assumption that needs to be abandoned is that parking requirements need to be uniform across the city for property of the same development type (e.g. retail, office, industrial, etc.) or in the same zoning district. The reality is that different parts of town may have similar land uses but different parking needs. My recommendation is that cities should adopt parking standards that specify a base requirement, but then allow that requirement to be modified using parking overlay districts for particular areas of town that have unique characteristics. A commercial center in a midtown location with good transit service, for example, doesn’t need as many parking spaces as a similar commercial center in a peripheral location that has no transit service.
Aside from transit service, what characteristics should cities incentivize through this parking overlay approach? Here are the factors that I think are most important:
Shared parking lots. Nearly every business would prefer to have several dozen parking spaces reserved exclusively for their own customers and located directly in front of their door. Traditional parking requirements actually encourage this type of thinking despite the fact that it results in a hugely inefficient parking layout when viewed at a community scale. Multiple businesses and organizations sharing common parking facilities is far more cost effective and less confusing for the general public. Shopping center developers figured this out years ago, but the principles of shared parking can be applied to many different development types. Neighborhoods or developments willing to share parking should be allowed to reduce the number of spaces that they need to provide as a reward for doing the right thing.
Mixed uses. Traditional parking standards require that a particular property contain “x” number of spaces all day long, seven days per week despite the fact that the actual parking demand is likely to fluctuate throughout the day and from one day to the next. An apartment complex, for example, has relatively low parking demand during the day (residents are mostly out doing things) but high demand at night (residents are mostly at home). An office building is almost the exact opposite – demand is high during the day and the parking lot is nearly empty after 5 or 6 PM. Restaurants have two peaks (noon and early evening) but relatively low demand at other times. Churches have a huge peak on Sunday mornings, but low demand on most other days.
A mixed use district within a city can take advantage of these differing demand profiles by sharing parking so that spaces are utilized a greater percentage of the time while still providing adequate parking for all uses. It is rare for a district to get the ideal mix of uses which yields the most efficient parking demand pattern, but even a sub-optimal mix can still justify a parking reduction of 20 to 40 percent.
Fees in lieu of spaces. In areas where the city has the ability to provide public parking facilities, businesses should be given the option to pay the city a fee instead of providing a physical parking space on their property. This “in lieu of” fee can then be used by the city to expand public parking options in the area. Businesses benefit because the fee is often less than the cost of building a parking lot and cities benefit because they get a neighborhood with a more efficient parking layout that generally leads to greater tax revenue per acre of land. The problem is that this approach only works if the city can actually deliver the necessary number of spaces as new development causes an increase in parking demand.
Dynamic parking pricing. Basic economic theory tells us that providing a valuable commodity for free will result in people using that commodity inefficiently – in other words, using more of the commodity than they really need. This basic principle is as true for parking as it is for anything else and yet parking is frequently provided at no direct cost to the consumer. Worse still, when a charge is made for parking it is almost always done badly which makes cities reluctant to implement paid parking even when they know they should. The classic example of this theory is a traditional downtown district where there is on-street parking on the main business streets and off-street parking lots in peripheral locations a block or two away. The business owners all agree to have their employees park in the off-street lots so that the more convenient on-street spaces are available for their customers. Parking survey after parking survey reveals, however, that the on-street spaces are impossible for customers to find because they are heavily used by not only employees but the business owners themselves. This inevitably leads to complaints that there is not enough parking when in fact there is plenty of parking just a short distance away.
To make matters worse, some cities respond to this “parking shortage” by building a central parking garage with hundreds of spaces. Since the parking garage is expensive to build, a fee is charged for parking in the garage but not for parking on the street. The result, of course, is that hardly anyone ever parks in the parking garage, but people will circle the block endlessly looking for one of the free on-street spaces. If there were even a minimal cost for the on-street parking, the employees would park elsewhere and the customers would be able to find convenient parking and the “parking shortage” would disappear. If any parking should be free, it should be the peripheral spaces or even the ones in the parking garage in order to encourage people to use them despite being less convenient.
Many people resist the idea of charging for parking because they think the cost and inconvenience will drive customers away. That may have been true in the past when you had to have the exact change for parking meters or had to return to your car to plug more money into the meter in order to stay for more time, but times have changed. New payment, tracking and notification technology on our phones and in public spaces has made paying for parking almost frictionless, similar to the way highway toll booths have largely disappeared because electronic toll collection has gotten so effective. Plus, the technology can implement dynamic pricing so that the cost is low (or free) when demand is low and is high when demand peaks. The goal of dynamic pricing is not to maximize revenue but to ensure that there are always 10 to 15 percent of the parking spaces available for use.
The bottom line is that we have allowed parking to be the tail that wags the urban design dog. It is far too prevalent and far too visible in just about every corner of every midwestern city. Yes, there are places where there is too little parking, but that is the exception not the rule. The result costs us money, degrades the aesthetics of our communities, and warps the design fabric of our neighborhoods.
We can do better but it will not be a one-size-fits-all type of solution. Cities need to do individualized studies and hold community discussions to craft parking regulations that really make sense for their particular needs. There are a variety of cities that have done excellent work in this regard and their efforts can be a template for other cities wishing to move forward with parking reform. The example that I am most familiar with was implemented recently by the City of Overland Park, Kansas with the help of Stantec consulting (see Note 3 below), but there are numerous other examples. In the on-going struggle to improve the functionality and financial stability of our cities, parking reform is a small but crucial element.
Notes:
1. “A new working order: Reimagining offices in a hybrid world”; Moody’s; September, 2024; https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/about/insights/data-stories/us-commercial-real-estate-vacancies-downtown-vs-suburbs.html
2. “Parking Lot Map”; Parking Reform Network; https://parkingreform.org/resources/parking-lot-map/
3. “Overland Park Parking Standards Update & Community Parking Strategy;” Stantec and the Overland Park Planning & Development Services Department; September 2021; https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eCQ65p3zDQ8c6etUnq8EQSqM7bXxZAEK/view
