March 14, 2006

Better Solutions to Parking Problems

CHICAGO — Communities are challenged to satisfy parking demands while preserving planning objectives related to affordability, traffic management and smart growth.

Todd Litman's new book, Parking Management Best Practices, published by the American Planning Association's Planners Press, offers practical solutions to this challenge. The book details more than two dozen management strategies that promote efficient use of parking supply and guide communities in developing a comprehensive parking program.

Todd Litman is founder and executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, based in British Columbia, Canada. The institute is an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative solutions to transport problems. Litman's research is used worldwide in planning and policy analysis.

In the book, Litman recommends changing the way communities think about and solve parking problems: "Conventional planning often results in excessive parking supply, which increases development costs, traffic problems and sprawl, yet fails to solve many parking problems. A better approach is to supply just the amount of parking needed at each location, and implement management programs to encourage efficient use of these facilities."

The heart of the book is a menu of management strategies and implementation tactics, including detailed descriptions, impact discussions, and examples. It includes strategies that:

• Increase parking facility efficiency through sharing, regulating, pricing, and implementation of overflow parking plans.
• Reduce parking demand by encouraging use of alternative transportation modes and more accessible land use development.
• Improve enforcement and control of parking regulations, and address spillover problems.
• Enhance parking facility design and operation to improve user convenience and safety, and reduce negative impacts.

Litman stresses that the effect of parking strategies is cumulative. Individually, strategies typically reduce parking requirements by five to 15 percent. However, he says that a cost-effective, integrated parking management program can often reduce parking requirements by 20 to 40 percent and improve user convenience. A comprehensive strategy may help achieve larger planning objectives, such as supporting more compact development, encouraging use of alternative transportation, and increasing development affordability. This can increase profits and help address a wide range of transportation and land use problems.

Conventional planning practices require developers to accommodate the greatest parking demand that might ever occur at each location. This provides a greater supply of parking than actually needed. Litman argues that focusing on supply and not efficient management fails to address real parking needs, resulting in both excessive costs and user inconvenience.

Parking management allows greater design flexibility and huge cost savings by applying "contingency-based planning," which identifies specific solutions that will be implemented if problems develop in the future. For example, rather than building 100 parking spaces at a particular destination, based on conventional parking standards, a contingency-based plan might initially build 60 spaces, and identify various management strategies that will be implemented as needed if that proves to be inadequate in the future.

Litman's clear and precise writing style provides detailed guidance on how to evaluate parking management strategies and develop an effective program. It describes the types of parking management strategies that are most appropriate for implementing in various situations, including downtowns and commercial centers, campuses, office buildings and new developments.

Contact

Roberta Rewers, APA Public Affairs, 312-786-6395; rrewers@planning.org