My quest to rid the world of minimum parking requirements got another boost this week, with The Atlantic Cities reporting a study in London which showed how removing minimum parking requirements had made a massive difference to the amount of parking supplied. Here are the main findings:
In an upcoming issue of Urban Studies, researchers Zhan Guo and Shuai Ren of the Rudin Centre for Transport Policy and Management at NYU consider two core questions when it comes to London’s reform. First, does the parking minimum truly create more parking than people want? Second, is a parking maximum necessary to promote sustainable transport, or will the market alone take care of it?
On the first question, Guo and Ren returned a pretty definitive yes. They examined parking supply at 216 residential developments in London approved from 1997 to 2000, when the parking minimum was in effect, and then roughly 8,250 developments approved from 2004 to 2010, after the minimum was removed and the maximum imposed. Before parking reform, developers created 94 percent of the required minimum; after it, they created just 52 percent of the old minimum.
In other words, parking reform reduced the parking supply roughly 42 percent, the researchers report. Additionally, about two-thirds of developers provided a supply below the old minimum — further evidence that the minimum encouraged the construction of excessive parking spaces. Guo and Ren conclude that 98 percent of the reduced parking supply came from removing the parking minimum.
While London is certainly a different world to Auckland when it comes to urban form and transport, what the study really highlighted was how interested developers were in cutting the number of parking spaces they provided, once they had the opportunity. Furthermore, the removal of minimums seems to have been much more important than the application of maximum parking requirements – I guess because the market wanted to provide the lower number already. The Atlantic Cities article also pontificates whether the maximum rates were a bit too generous.
What’s perhaps a bit more surprising is the second finding of the study, which looked in more detail at where the removal of minimum parking requirements had resulted in the biggest changes to the level of parking provision:
Onto question number two: the effectiveness of the new maximums. Since the purpose of London’s parking reform was to promote alternative transportation, the researchers looked at how parking supply fluctuated in areas with high density and transit access after 2004. What they found is that that the actual parking supplied was higher in Central London, where density and access are greatest, compared to adjacent outer areas.
Guo and Ren call this finding “unexpected.” They suspect that local authorities may want to keep a high maximum (and therefore allow more spaces) to avoid a parking spillover onto already crowded streets in Central London. Another explanation is that the market simply wants more spaces there: people who can afford to live downtown are willing to pay a premium for parking.
What the second finding highlights to me is that perhaps the removal of minimum parking requirements will have benefits in the places we don’t quite expect (lower density places with less access to public transport), potentially (and this time it’s me pontificating a bit) in places where the provision of affordable housing is assisted by the removal of minimums. This reinforces that ultimately we should get rid of minimums everywhere, because it really does make a positive difference.
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