Free Market Parking

Most Cities mandate free parking for all new buildings — hardly a free market practice, and a policy that heavily subsidizes automobile use over other forms of transportation. Just think if free bus lines were required with all new buildings instead. It is also a practice that has left our cities looking like swiss cheese, pitted with open fields of parking.

Photo of Hillcrest Central Business District

What if cities allowed the free market to determine parking demands?  How could that be achieved and what would that look like?   What if cities let developers and builders decide how many parking spaces they thought would be needed to sell a condo, or maintain and healthy business?  If developers think they can sell condos with only few or no parking spaces, shouldn’t that be their risk to take?  

Here are three easy steps to implementing such a policy
1.  Convert all mandated minimum parking requirements to MAXIMUM parking requirements.  This will insure that excessive parking will not be built.
2.  Implement form-based codes that require buildings to form a street wall and parking to be shielded from pedestrian view.
3.   Meter all street parking in higher density areas, making parking prices market sensitive.  This should help create an equilibrium between developer provided parking and street parking.  If developers force more users to street parking, street parking will rise in price (supply and demand), making it an unattractive option to users and creating higher demand for developer created parking.  At some point the market will find an equilibrium.  It will also help fund the City infrastructure.

As was note in a previous post, if an urban neighborhood is interesting and desirable enough, people will want to come to that area regardless of parking availability. One finds that with any popular urban area.  On the other hand, if the neighborhood is no more interesting than the local shopping mall, then yes, that neighborhood will be competing with the mall that offers free parking.  Perhaps it is time for a little free market competition to improve our neighborhoods, and free market solutions to parking problems.  The current government subsidies for parking is definately not working.