Who knew you could write 700 pages on how messed up our parking policies are in this country? While I have admittedly not read the whole thing, The High Cost of Free Parking is definitely worth seeking out. The author, Donald Shoup, criticizes current city planning practice regarding free off-street parking requirements. Incidentally, you could just ride COTA everywhere, but you’ll still subsidize parking because it’s included in everything you buy, basically the cost is everywhere except for the act of parking a car itself. He also offers a tri-fold solution; charge fair-market prices for parking on the curb, return revenue generated by parking to the neighborhood in which it was made, and remove zoning requirements for off-street parking. If the 600 pages plus 100 more in appendixes is too daunting, the 1st chapter is basically a summary of the whole book and is very readable. It’s not at all dry even though it is an in-depth urban planning book published by the American Planning Association. You can flip to any page and find an interesting tidbit of information.
August 1, 2007
Nothing in this world is free, especially parking.
Posted by columbusite under Urban Lit[2] Comments
August 1, 2007 at 6:05 pm
[...] has a post on a report analyzing parking by Donald Shoup. Columbusite sums it up: He also offers a tri-fold solution; charge fair-market [...]
August 1, 2007 at 7:32 pm
[...] Columbus-ite has posted up some thoughts on the state of parking. Very interesting to read, and I’m sure the book he links to would go much more in depth. [...]