Parking in
Downtown

Parking

Parking has been shown to be one of the most enigmatic factors in downtown revitalization. Should there be more parking? Should there be parking meters to control the length of time spaces are used by customers? How important is parking to commercial vitality? These are questions that are asked over and over.

In some American cities, so much of the center has been cleared to make way for parking that there is more parking than there is city. Some cities... have gone so far as to reach a tipping point. If they clear away any more of what's left, there would not be much reason to go there and park.

A first step to liberation would be a reduction in the additional amounts of parking required. Communities... still indulge the parker to an excessive degree, smaller cities in particular...

What would happen if additional parking was not provided? In New York, the South Street Seaport brought approximately 300,000 square feet of retailing to its site and it is jammed with customers. Not one additional parking space has been provided. Some people take the subway; some, the bus. The bulk, mostly office workers, walk to the place.

So far, the only hopeful action has been not adding more parking. Before long, we may actually start cutting it. It might make economic sense. In their zeal to woo the car, developers and municipalities grabbed off some of the best-located parcels of downtown... There is a lot of valuable land under that concrete. 2

Is this true? Is parking overrated? And has it received too much attention in the past as a tool of downtown revitalization? One way to consider this question is to think of a city where you like to visit--do you make the decision to go there because of convenient parking? This is not likely. More to the point, you would choose to go there because of the goods and services offered. This is the key to downtown revitalization, not convenient parking.

The following quote presents one view of parking.

"In cities most dominated by parking lots and parking garages a key civic issue is the lamentable lack of parking. Let me cite Dallas. It has the highest ratio of parking spaces to office space in the country. But studies continually call for more parking... Supply has so conditioned demand that parking has become an end in itself, with people in a bondage to it more psychological than physical."

William H. Whyte. Inland Architect (July/August 1989). p. 54.

This argument on the "myth" of parking is looked at in the article, "The Lies of Downtown: A Look at the Myths That Keep Downtowns from Engaging in Effective Revitalization."

How important is parking?

The Tyler study of Michigan downtowns looked closely at parking as a downtown characteristic. This study found that in small to medium sized cities there is little correlation between convenient parking and downtown health. Indeed, the importance of convenient parking may be highly overrated by city planners and merchants. Other surveys have shown that merchants consider parking to be very important to their downtown businesses, but shoppers rate it as a much lower priority. A survey of Dearborn, Michigan asked both merchants and shoppers whether parking was a problem. Sixty percent of the merchants said it was, but only 20 percent of their customers saw it as a problem. Similar findings came from a survey in Manistee, Michigan.

Should parking meters be removed?

In Holland, Michigan, after many studies and months of debate the decision was made to remove downtown parking meters. Although the removal encouraged more downtown shopping, the biggest problem resulting from this change was that downtown workers who arrived early in the morning claimed the most convenient spaces and filled them all day. To counter this, the city instituted a policy of inserting notices on these car windshields explaining the prime spaces were reserved for customes, not for downtown employees. The strategy was effective, and using only the honor system most employees began parking in free lots surrounding the downtown area.
Suggested other pages...
Automobiles and Pedestrians Need More Parking?
Contacts:
Parking:
Erik Ferguson,
ETF Associates
Contacts
WebAuthor: Norm Tyler