Reading between the Regulations: Parking Requirements, Planners’ Perspectives, and Transit

Abstract

This article reports on local planers’ perspectives on metropolitan parking requirements. Workplace parking requirements, which are often in excess of demand, influence parking pricing and urban form. In turn, these affect transit demand and transit service potentials. These connections have led researchers and policy-makers to call for changes, but the perspectives of planners who create the parking requirements are not well understood. Using southern California cities as a study area, a telephone survey revealed that most parking requirements are driven by concerns about traffic mitigation, spillover parking, and risk avoidance. These factors push parking requirements in the direction of oversupply. The article proposes methods to reduce the risk of changing parking requirements and develops a typology of approaches for change. Transit agencies will benefit if they play a role in reforming local parking requirements.