Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

This week, I ran a short training session about parking policy and challenged the participants with four questions that prompted them to examine their parking assumptions. 

In this edition of Reinventing Parking I share the questions with you and discuss some lessons we can learn from them. As you read or listen, think about your own answers. You might get some insight into your own parking mindsets.

You can read the written version of this episode here.

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

This edition of Reinventing Parking was prompted by a recent bonus episode of the War on Cars podcast which featured listener origin stories. Parking Reform Network President, Tony Jordan, suggested I try something similar here.

I sent out an appeal to PRN members and quickly received messages from the diverse set of people you will hear from here. I hope you enjoy them.

You can read a lightly edited transcript here. 

Reinventing Parking this time is 25 minutes of edited highlights from my appearance on the OoruLabs Talking Heads podcast.

OoruLabs is an Indian podcast and Youtube channel hosted by Sathya Sankaran and Knerav Kodolikar, who kindly gave permission to adapt the interview, which was their episode 16. 

But that means it's also relevant for almost any middle income and lower income city or anywhere where private motor vehicle ownership is surging but for now remains relatively low. 

For cities in that situation, parking policy choices are potentially pivotal and will likely play a big part in choosing each city's urban mobility destiny.

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

That was a central theme of a Parking Reform Network round table event on "Parking Reform, Aging and Disability" which took place a few months ago. The event had four guests with a wealth of experience and insight on these issues.

The original was long, but this podcast version has just the highlights. I hope you find it as interesting and informative as I did. 

For the full video and for more detail on the event and its four panelists, Cassie Wilson, Corallete Hannon, Megan Lynch, and Anna Zivarts, head over to the excellent article by Taylor Griggs on the PRN website.

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

Ten years ago Beijing's parking problems were among the most extreme I had ever seen. 

How the situation improved is an encouraging story.

I learned about it from the article "How Beijing Is Rethinking Parking and Reclaiming Public Space" by Liu Shaokun and Bram van Ooijen in the Nov. 2022 edition of Sustainable Transportation Magazine from the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). 

I reached out to Shaokun and Bram, as well as Shaokun's colleague Huang Yangwen, for this month's Reinventing Parking podcast.

[My apologies for the sound issue - an echo - at the 44 second mark, just after the intro music. Fortunately this lasts for only about 20 seconds or so.]

Find out more HERE.

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

This episode of Reinventing Parking is full of encouragement for parking reformers. 

It's a lively chat with the Parking Reform Network's enthusiastic president, Tony Jordan.

I checked in with him to talk about the encouraging progress and momentum that we are seeing on parking reform and for the parking reform movement. 

Our conversation left me feeling energized and upbeat about the difference we are making and I hope it does the same for you. 

Find out more HERE.

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Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

If you found this podcast, you are probably interested in parking reform. 

But what do you know about the idea of "park-once-and-walk districts"? Have you heard of the Walkable Parking mindset on urban parking? 

These ideas are an important part of escaping the belief that every building should have on-site parking. But they are not yet getting very much attention in parking reform circles. 

So, I decided to prepare a series of short Reinventing Parking episodes on park-once-and-walk districts and Walkable Parking. This is the first in that series. 

This episode will look at park-once-and-walk in city centres (aka Downtowns). These are the heartland of the park-once-and-walk or Walkable Parking approach.

Find out more HERE.

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I am a great fan of Dr Liz Taylor's research on parking so it was wonderful to interview her recently.

We had a long discussion but, for this edition I chose a selection of segments that are mostly about the collision between parking reform and anti-development sentiment in residential areas. I think you will find Liz's insights on this both important and entertaining.

Find out more HERE.

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Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

Singapore is quite a weird country. I know. I have lived here for more than 20 years now.

But is its parking weird too? And is Singapore a parking reform model to copy?

These are important questions, since Singapore is often held up as a policy-making model, especially in middle-income countries. 

So this edition of Reinventing Parking takes a look. 

Find out more HERE.

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Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

Oregon recently enacted the most aggressive statewide parking reforms in the United States. 

The Parking Reform Network webinar about those reforms was such a great "masterclass" on reforming costly parking mandates that we just had to turn it into an episode of Reinventing Parking.

This episode also has a video version. You can view it here!

Find out more HERE.

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Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

In mid-2020, Edmonton's city council amazed many of us in the parking reform scene by voting to comprehensively remove minimum parking requirements.

Edmonton had a unique name for its reform: Open Option Parking.

This month's Reinventing Parking is an interview with Ashley Salvador, who was a key participant in the campaign for Edmonton's 2020 parking reform. 

Together we explored the Edmonton Open Option Parking story.

Read more HERE.

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This month's Reinventing Parking features an encouraging case of a non-profit organization taking the initiative on parking policy in its home city of Delhi. 

I spoke with Sonal Shah of the Centre for Sustainable and Equitable Cities (C-SEC), which carried out a small but sophisticated investigation of parking in the vicinity of the Green Park Metro Rail Station in southern Delhi.

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Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

The United Kingdom has been both a bold parking reformer and a parking reform disappointment.

But which is the more important story? That's the focus of this month's episode of Reinventing Parking episode. 

The nationwide abolition of parking mandates in 2001 and the shift to parking maximums was amazing and of great interest to parking reformers elsewhere.

Yet, parking management has often failed to rise to the challenge, leading to problems and then to some backsliding on parking standards.

For more insight and lessons from UK parking, I turned to Andrew Potter, who is Director of Parking Perspectives, a parking focused consulting firm based in Chelmsford in the southeast of England.

Here is an outline of our discussion: 

• About my guest: Andrew Potter
• Basics about on-street parking management - where it is strong [2:20]
• Where is parking enforcement weak and parking behaviour worst? [3:59]
• Pavement parking is not even an offence in England (but is in London and Scotland
• Parking standards and the history of reforms [6:10]
• Maximums dealt with a parking arms race [7:23]
• Problems emerged in new residential developments with limited parking under maximums [8:39]
• Why wasn't strict parking management expanded to such areas? [10:01]
• Fundamental problem with the approach to on-street parking management outside city cores [11:31]
• These problems led to pressure on government to change the approach to parking for residential developments [12:21]
• Is London a counterfactual to refute the idea that these problems mean abolishing minimums and imposing maximums was foolish? [13:34]
• What has been happening recently with parking standards, minimums and maximums? [16:40]
• Trend for car free developments in city centre areas and this is generally successful since the streets are well controlled [19:50]
• Residents of inner city car free developments are usually not eligible for parking permits in the local CPZ [20:21]
• Are maximums still popular, despite the problems mentioned earlier? [20:54]
• Suggestion: maximums at levels to make urban supermarkets viable, but not out-of-town ones [22:05]
• Advice for other places thinking of abolishing parking mandates and or imposing parking maximums? [24:32]
• Wrapping up [25:31]

You can read a lightly edited transcript here. 

Reinventing Parking this time tackles the issue of sidewalk parking (or pavement parking or footpath parking). It features me and several other people from around the world.

One lesson is to act quickly if sidewalk parking emerges. Try hard to not let it become a serious problem in the first place!

If sidewalk parking does become rampant in an area, there don’t seem to be quick and easy answers. But many places HAVE successfully tackled this menace. To a great extent, this is a matter of priorities. Change is certainly possible. But we need to get organized!

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Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

Around 90 percent of New Zealand's people now live in areas where parking mandates have been abolished. 

This bold step was part of national efforts to tackle one of the world's worst housing affordability crises.

The episode is a lively discussion on the inspiring parking-reform progress in New Zealand and in its main cities.

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Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

This episode features edited highlights from an excellent panel discussion on parking reform that took place at the YIMBYtown 2022 conference in Portland, Oregon.

YIMBY stands for 'yes in my backyard', referring to supporting housing development within existing urban areas, and YIMBYtown was all about abundant housing advocacy.

The panel, Parking Reform: from theory to practice, was moderated by Catie Gould of the Sightline Institute. She was in our March 2022 episode.

The panelists were:

Martha Roskowksi, transportation and mobility consultant in Boulder, Colorado and author of 'Ideas to Accelerate Parking Reform in the United States'

John Bauters, Mayor of Emeryville, California and also chair of the Alameda County Transportation Commission and the vice chair of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

Tony Jordan, our Parking Reform Network President

Leah Bojo, land use consultant, formerly worked on land-use, transportation and parking at Austin City Council, and author of a chapter on Austin's first Parking Benefits District in Donald Shoup's 2018 book, Parking and the City.

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Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

Daniel Firth surprised me several times in the latest episode of Reinventing Parking as we discussed Stockholm and its parking policies.

I learned in December about Stockholm's pricey residential on-street parking. Sharing about that on social media connected me with Daniel, who turned out to be ideally placed to explain more.

It turns out that other cities have much to learn from Stockholm's parking approaches.

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More and more cities around the world have been abolishing their parking mandates. So should we describe parking minimums as "an endangered species" internationally?

I tackled that question in the March edition of the Parking Today magazine. With Parking Today's permission, here is the article as a short "extra" Reinventing Parking podcast episode (between our regular monthly episodes).

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Fayetteville in Northwest Arkansas abolished all of its commercial parking minimums. Benefits quickly emerged but no drama or problems. Fayetteville's story is an excellent reminder that parking reform is not just for large, transit-rich cities.

Reinventing Parking this month features a discussion between me, Catie Gould of the Sightline Institute and Quin Thompson, who was one of the city staff behind the reform.

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This edition of Reinventing Parking features a great four-way discussion with three Brazilians, Clarisse Linke, Hannah Machado and Fernando Franco, to help us understand São Paulo's bold parking reforms in the last 8 years or so.

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The Netherlands is less known for parking than for fostering astonishing levels of bicycle use.

But Dutch car parking policies and practices really are well worth your attention.

To find out more, I interviewed one of the Netherlands' top parking policy experts, Dr Giuliano Mingardo, a senior researcher at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Don't expect Nirvana. The Netherlands has parking politics and arguments like everywhere else. They are ahead of most others on many aspects but behind on others. It's an interesting story.

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Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

Reinventing Parking is now the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network!

Our first step is a joint fundraising effort and we could really use your help!

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Waverley council area in Australia has had zero parking minimums since 2018. I interviewed Sara Stace to find out more. Two keys to Waverley's success in nixing its parking minimums with little fuss seem to be: 

1. Before the decision, Waverley already had some experience with parking minimums set to zero in certain parts of the area. Data on the results of this reassured the councillors. 
2. The proposal for zero parking minimums across the whole council was also part of a broadly popular urban mobility strategy, the Waverley People, Movement and Places strategy, which is the council’s ambitious plan to prioritise walking, cycling, public transport and shared mobility.

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On November 2, 2023, the Austin City Council voted to end parking mandates, making Austin Texas the largest municipality in the USA to do so. So far. 

I had a discussion with three of the key people from the Austin Parking Reform Coalition who worked to make it happen. They were Leah Bojo, Jay Crossley and Adam Greenfield. 

Think of it as a Master Class for aspiring parking reform advocates!

Here is an outline: 

• Brief summary of the whole story, especially the beginnings [2:52]
• Were Austin's parking mandates unusual? [7:04]
• A broad coalition against parking mandates [7:44]
• Institutional and financial infrastructure for the coalition [9:49]
• How important was the parking reform network? [10:46]
• American Disabilities Act (ADA) parking when abolishing parking mandates [12:48]
• The role of people inside city hall, such as city staff [15:58]
• The time was right [17:24]
• Advice for newbie or disheartened parking reformers [18:45]
• Dealing with pushback [22:54]
• Link parking reform with wider reforms or do it as a stand-alone reform? [25:49]
• Which comes first, off-street reform or on-street parking management? [29:35]
• Support across the political spectrum? [32:47]
• If car dependent Austin can abolish parking mandates, any city can. [34:34]

You can read a lightly edited transcript here. 

Reinventing Parking this time looks at a successful parking reform campaign in Washington DC. 

The episode is a lightly edited recording of a Parking Reform Network event on 30 March 2021. 

The event featured Cheryl Cort, Policy Director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth which is a non-profit in the Washington DC region. 

Cheryl spoke about the long and difficult effort she led to persuade the DC Council to enact a parking cash-out law, the “Transportation Benefits Equity Amendment Act” which passed in April 2020.

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Let me tell you about the new Parking Reform Atlas.

It is a project to make it easier for parking changemakers to find noteworthy parking policies and parking reforms from all over the world.

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The latest episode of Reinventing Parking features more from Patrick Siegman.

This time we discussed on-street parking fee success stories in two California cities, San Francisco and Ventura. 

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Patrick Siegman is one of my inspirations as a parking policy changemaker and a skilled practitioner and consultant on parking (and much more). He also has a great knack for communicating about parking policy reform.  

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"Join the new Parking Reform Network!" was the key message Lindsay Bayley, Jane Wilberding and I had in mind when we planned our discussion for this edition of Reinventing Parking. 

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The Reinventing Parking podcast is back after a few months' break! 

The focus this time is a new report from Centre for London, entitled "Reclaim the Kerb: the Future of Parking and Kerbside Management in London". Thanks to my guest, Joe Wills.

This report has lessons for parking change-makers all over the world.  Find out more here. 

The ongoing pandemic and its impacts get only a brief discussion this time. We will likely tackle it in future episodes. 

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The Japanese approach to parking, despite its uniqueness, has much to teach the rest of us.

I (Paul Barter) discussed Japanese parking with Rebecca Clements, who is investigating it as she works towards a PhD at the University of Melbourne.

Find out more here.

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Adaptive Parking aims to be the answer to this question: How can my city defuse real parking problems without making car dependence worse, while fostering liveable cities, while reaping more value for the community from the space now used for parking and while gaining enough public support?

Adaptive Parking is a package of parking reform agendas that complement and reinforce each other, bringing together various ways that cities can do better on parking.

Find out more here.

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This edition of Reinventing Parking offers answers to people's concerns that abolishing parking minimums will cause shortages of on-site parking and that such shortages will cause wider problems.

Find out more here.

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This month's Reinventing Parking is on minimum parking requirements and draws on relevant highlights from many episodes since the podcast was launched a year ago.

I actually created it as an episode last month of my other podcast, Reinventing Transport.

Find out more here.

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Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network! Why not join?

This month I want to share some parking reform ideas that will probably be new to you. There are six ideas, so I only describe each one briefly. 

1. What if we require private off-street parking to report regularly on usage levels? [4:02]
2. Should we turn every decent-sized building and its parking into a mini Parking Benefit District? [8:35]
3. Project to create many city maps of areas with paid parking [12:00]
4. Alternative to maximums: make parking count as floor area [14:05]
5. Parking moratorium (or maybe even parking draw-down) [18:39]
6. Please abolish parking mandates, but it you must have them, make them Japan-style [22:41]

Some of these may seem a bit wacky. But I think they are worth investigating. I hope they are at least thought provoking.

If some of the ideas seem radical, be aware that they are inspired by a post-parking-reform vision of a near future that looks something like this (and is not so very radical, in my opinion):

The users of parking cover its costs. Governments don't boost parking supply but instead want to prevent oversupply. Less space than now is devoted to parking and more to more important things. Parking regulations will not be a barrier to affordable housing or to corner stores. All parking is well managed. Motorists will have no parking hassles. But they will almost always have to pay a parking fee appropriate to the location. Parking gluts will no longer undermine our mobility options. There will be less traffic but everyone will enjoy better urban mobility.

But please look away if you expect parking to mostly be free of charge and plentiful at the end of most trips. These ideas will not give you that!

Paid parking is the most useful tool in parking management and this edition of Reinventing Parking provides 30 suggestions for making on-street parking fees less unpopular. 

Find out more here.

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Jakarta is no parking policy model yet! But middle-income cities everywhere will certainly relate to its parking difficulties and to the reforms it is considering. Paul Barter spoke with Yoga Adiwinarto of ITDP Indonesia about parking policy in Jakarta. 

Find out more here.

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Reinventing Parking #11 is an interview with Fabian Küster, lead author of a report on car and bicycle parking from the European Cyclists' Federation (ECF). It sees minimum bicycle parking requirements as a good thing. For cars, it wants minimums replaced with maximums.

Find out more here.

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Paul's guest this month is Tony Jordan, founder of Portlanders for Parking Reform, which is an example of a rare beast - a non-profit advocacy group dedicated to parking policy reform. 

Find out more here.

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Embracing Walkable Parking (park-once-and-walk planning) may be much more useful for ending parking minimums than most of us have realized. Parking reformers have a huge opportunity here.

https://www.reinventingparking.org/2016/09/walkable-parking-why-most-parking.html"> Find out more here.

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Episode 8 is a chat with Matt Lowrie of the Greater Auckland blog about Auckland, New Zealand, and its bold with parking reforms.

These include abolishing most of its parking minimums and success with demand-based on-street parking pricing.

Find out more here.

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Episode 7 of the Reinventing Parking podcast looks at Mexico City, which abolished its parking minimums in July 2017. There are lessons here for all opponents of minimum parking requirements. 

Paul Barter spoke with Andrés Sañudo, who was a key player in the successful campaign in Mexico City to get rid of the parking minimums and to improve parking policy more generally.

Learn more and read the show notes here. 

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Paul Barter spoke with Jos Nino Notz about parking policy in Berlin, Germany. It is a mixed story. On the one hand, Berlin boldly abolished its parking minimums more than 20 years ago and has strong parking management in the urban core. On the other hand, parking management, especially enforcement, is weak beyond the core. The reasons for this are surprising. This is Reinventing Parking episode 6. For more information see: https://www.reinventingparking.org/2018/10/Berlin-model-or-warning.html

Carlos Felipe Pardo and Paul Barter had a nerdy parking policy conversation as they tried to wrap their minds around some of the surprising features of parking in Colombia. Show notes: https://www.reinventingparking.org/2018/09/colombia-carlos.html

Parking change is a key to improving public space in cities. Paul Barter shares the key points from his talk at a Berlin conference organized by the German sustainable transport thinktank, Agora Verkehrswende. Detailed show notes at https://www.reinventingparking.org/2018/09/parking-public-space.html

My guest this month is an active Parking Reform Network member with unique insights at the interface between the parking owned by buildings and the world of parking reform. 

Most buildings fail abysmally to manage their parking efficiently. It hurts building owners. It hurts tenants. It hurts residents. It hurts the whole community.

Yet most building managers have little clue that there are now tools to help them easily do much better.

Evan Goldin is co-founder and CEO of Parkade, a company which provides an amazing app and system that makes it simple for buildings to better utilize their parking. Parkade says it is "on a mission to create a more livable, more affordable more mobile world - with far fewer parking spots". 

Evan himself is a really helpful presence in the Parking Reform Network Slack so I was thrilled when he agreed to share his insights with Reinventing Parking listeners and readers. 

Todd Litman and host, Paul Barter, discuss the surprising power of parking management to ease seemingly difficult problems (and not just parking problems). Show notes are at https://www.reinventingparking.org/2018/08/parking-power-litman.html 

Interview with Shreya Gadepalli of ITDP India on how several Indian cities are working towards improved on-street parking management, with lessons for other cities struggling with parking chaos.

Show notes: https://www.reinventingparking.org/2018/08/India-on-street.html

This is the trailer for the new Reinventing Parking podcast. 

The aim of this short episode is to let you know what to expect from future episodes, which will start in a few weeks after this one. 

Show notes are at https://www.reinventingparking.org/2018/07/new-podcast-option.html

I spoke with Dana Yanocha about an encouraging, readable and helpful new report from ITDP that focuses on off-street parking reform. 

"Breaking the Code, Off Street Parking Reform Lessons Learned" is aimed at parking reformers and potential parking reformers all over the world.

Dana, who is research manager for ITDP Global, led the team that prepared the report and was co-author of the report along with Mackenzie Allen.

Visit Reinventing Parking for more information and a lightly edited transcript. 

Here is a summary of our conversation:

• The report in a nutshell
• Was it difficult to motivate ITDP or funders to work on parking?
• Was there anything that surprised you?
• Change comes slowly but small wins often lead to big wins
• Make data powerful!
• Link parking reform with other popular goals!
• Push at any level of government that works!
• Which should come first, on street parking management improvements, or off street parking reforms?
• Maximums dilemmas and complications
• Dana is not yet sick of parking reform