WHAT HAPPENS AFTER PARKING MANDATES ARE ELIMINATED?

Rejoice CAPPs, CPP, and parking professionals. Your future is secure!

More and more cities are beginning the process of eliminating parking mandates from their development code and as a parking manager, I will have to chart a course to turn a potential problem into an opportunity. Unfortunately, many parking reform advocates rarely look beyond the initial act of eliminating or reducing the parking mandates or just point to “parking districts” as the solution. My city has had a small downtown parking district for almost twenty years, and it functions on the basic principle of attempting to insure the right parkers are in the right spaces. Trying to apply parking management citywide will be a good test of parking management solutions that can be a win-win for all stakeholders.

In the summer of 2022, the State of Oregon adopted administrative rules designed to reduce emissions. These rules are referred to as “Climate Friendly and Equitable Community (CFEC)” rules. You can read about CFEC here. CFEC rules aim to make cities climate-friendly and equitable cities with a focus on EV charging infrastructure, urban housing, alternative transportation to single-occupancy vehicles and, you guessed it, parking rules. According to the State of Oregon, “The rules strengthen Oregon's transportation and housing planning in regions with populations over 50,000 people.”

Parking reform is at the heart of the CEFC parking rules, which in short means eliminating Parking Minimums. Parking reform and the focus on removing parking minimums is not a new idea. The Parking Reform Network (PRN) among others has advocated for this for years. Some cities have eliminated parking minimums partially, yet, out of approximately 20,000 US cities, according to PRN under 50 cities in the US have adopted rules that eliminate parking minimums completely.

I admit that I am skeptical of some of the proposed benefits of removing parking minimums. I do cheer the effort because I believe it is one of the greatest, if not the greatest opportunity to shine for parking professionals like me since the invention of the Parking Meter.

You read that right. LPR, frictionless access, and parking sensors are all amazing, but won't even begin to compare to the opportunity for innovation that the elimination of parking minimums can bring to our industry. The question will be, are we willing to innovate!

It appears many parking experts or non-experts, and those in between believe this is a crazy idea that will harm cities, prevent developments and lead to trouble on the streets. All good points, after all, people love their cars and will continue to drive them for years. This means there will be the need to park those cars as well then. And while we all can see an increase in micro-mobility options and especially in the private use of e-bikes. I don't think I am alone to assume that those options are not yet for everyone and will not replace the car in the foreseeable future.

I like Donald Shoup. I believe he has a lot of great insights and a great parking understanding. I must admit that I have never read his book ("The High Cost of Parking"). Sure, I have glanced and skipped through it. I occasionally utilize it to learn and confirm some stuff but have never actually read it in its entirety. So it’s fair to say I am not a “shoupista". However, I feel as if he is telling each of us this one thing:

“What happens after parking minimums are eliminated depends on you, you’re the parking guy!”.

Are we, the parking people, ready to shine and flex our parking management muscles?

Are we ready to step up to a conversation about the end of parking minimums, or will we join the doomsday predictions that this is the end of the [parking] world (or city) as we know it?

As a high "I" in the DISC profile, it's probably easier for me to be all in and find the positive side here. I realize this might be more difficult for others.

A few weeks ago I read that “The problem, ……, is that almost no one has training in how to manage street parking in a way that is both effective and politically popular. On-street parking management is not part of the core curriculum for planners or transportation engineers”.

I think that’s true and a huge part of the negative opinion about this subject. The conversation about eliminating parking minimums is almost completely done among planners and engineers. Rarely are operators and parking managers included.

I wonder why that is?

I don’t want to believe that planners and engineers don’t respect parking people. Neither do I believe that parking people are status quo lovers afraid of change.

I do believe great policy and lean code can be written when planners, engineers, developers, and parking people put their heads together to overcome policy inertia and work together to drive us into the future.

Imagine what level of parking happiness we would bring to our customers!

This work begins with us. Now is the time to roll up our sleeves, dig deep, and push through boundaries that say we’re just the parking people. We are not just the parking people. We are the parking people!

I am The Parking Guy in my city and I know my stuff (well, most of it). I am willing to get my hands dirty and grow my skills to help my city understand what can be done. And more than that… I love parking, and when parking mandates go away, I can do what I love, get people to park in smart and innovative ways that will create more parking happiness.