Transit Supportive Parking Policies and Programs

Abstract

Parking is a significant factor influencing transit access and ridership. Many communities and transit agencies have been revising their parking policies to encourage the use of transit and to minimize resources expended on parking. This synthesis documents transit agency parking policies and parking management at transit stations using three primary resources: a scan of current research on transit-supportive parking policies, an original survey distributed to a sample of transit agencies, and several brief agency profiles based on interviews and existing available data. Participating transit agencies represent a broad spectrum of service type, jurisdiction, ridership, mode, types of parking, and parking policy. A primary finding of this synthesis is that there is limited research that documents the impact of parking policies on transit ridership. Within the existing literature there are inconsistent findings regarding which parking policies support and promote the use of transit. The survey results also indicate that there are differing approaches to parking management to attract transit riders. Opposing approaches to achieve the same objective furthers the notion that parking management is highly contextual, as well as suggests that further research is warranted.