Parking at Mixed-Use Centers in Small Cities

Abstract

The debate about parking has shifted in the past decade, as some places attempt to move from conventional development patterns to urban centers modeled on new urbanism and smart growth concepts. There is now less focus on providing sufficient parking to meet demand and more on ensuring that the issue of parking does not undermine the creation of vibrant places. The goal for the presented project is to understand parking and parking provision better as it relates to smaller cities and towns with mixed-use centers. Specifically addressed are how a dense, walkable, mixed-use center affects parking supply and demand and how mixed-use centers compare with centers designed along more conventional lines. These questions were addressed by conducting case study assessments of six sites in New England. In general, the three mixed-use study sites provided much less parking per square foot than the conventional control sites. The study sites thrived by making much more efficient use of land for parking. The study sites also furnished a significant amount of on-street parking and relied more on shared municipal parking lots and parking garages. Given these differences, it is surprising to note that the towns with mixed-use centers demanded almost as much parking for new construction as did the towns in which the conventional sites are located. On average, the amount of parking mandated by base regulation in these six towns is about two and a half times greater than the peak use.