I propose that your business or building might be affected by “parking lots” or “parking spaces”.

Note: This particular page is very much a draft of something, or perhaps operating as a “friend-catcher”.

In the greater united states, and elsewhere, the ‘resource’ known as ‘parking spaces’ is not well managed, for a variety of factors.

Some of you own buildings inside of which businesses operate, and lots of the people involved with the business make regular use of parking.

Parking meters, parking lots. Sometimes people get tickets. Sometimes they get towed. Sometimes staff are annoyed, sometimes customers. Obviously plenty of people visiting the space are not driving. They walk, they bike. They have their own collection of experiences.

Things feel one way when the sun is up, and another way when it’s dark.

The default parking/parking lot/parking space “experience” in the USA is not great, for anyone. I’m (boldly? humbly?) proposing that it can be vastly different, dramatically better.¹

There’s room for improvement, by “importing” ideas and norms from places in the world where they are currently functioning, and configuring them to work in/around your parking lot.

I’d like to be that importer for you. Could we discuss on the phone?

joshthompson@hey.com

I’ve already written some things about parking, and the mobility networks attached to parking spaces:

👉 All posts on this website tagged #parking

👉 My Substack Zoning Regimes Very Different Than Ours

👉 Hand-collected mobility data, gathered from all over the place

Resources I might mention #

If/when we talk, I’ll possibly reference a few books. Why does it matter? To show defensibility of my unusual propositions, and as a way to ‘show my work’.

First, parking really really is mismanaged. This is a professor who works at the American Planning Association, but plenty of city staff who are ‘planners’ have never heard of him. 🙄

The High Cost of Free Parking

It’s 700 academic pages. Fortunately you don’t need to read the whole thing. The author has a short “too long, didn’t read” implementation suggestion. Perhaps we’ll discuss it.

And:

Killed By A Traffic Engineer. The author, Wes Marshall, lives and works here in Colorado. Ask me about his recommendations for eliciting favorable decision-making from one’s local traffic engineer. here’s an interesting interview of the author

And

Order without Design

An argument that operational urban planning can be improved by the application of the tools of urban economics to the design of regulations and infrastructure. Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground—the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative—“sustainable,” “livable,” “resilient”—often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings. In this book, the eminent urban planner Alain Bertaud argues that applying the theories of urban economics to the practice of urban planning would greatly improve both the productivity of cities and the welfare of urban citizens.

examines the spatial distribution of land prices and densities; stresses the importance of mobility and affordability; and critiques the land use regulations in a number of cities that aim at redesigning existing cities instead of just trying to alleviate clear negative externalities. Bertaud concludes by describing the new role that joint teams of urban planners and economists could play to improve the way cities are managed.

And perhaps many more.

Reasons This Won’t Work #

I’m keen to try to accomplish this ‘fix parking and some other things’ project, but for a few reasons inherent in the problem I want to work on, it almost certainly won’t work quite as I will wish it did. It might still be fine, it might work better than expected.

Technically, I’m going to be advocating for changes involving things like ‘parking spaces’. Sometimes these are managed by a local municipal authority, sometimes they’re managed by a private individual or private lot. I’m going to propose importing some ideas and tools from other countries to see if we can solve some of your problems as elegantly as these ideas and tools solve other people’s problems.

I might be surprisingly picky about some details, and surprisingly uninterested in other details. Sometimes this makes for easy progress, sometimes not.

American parking is partially broken for the same reason that “Urban Renewal” programs in the USA in the 1960’s were broken. Or, alternatively, there are some ways that when parking feels broken, it’s working exactly as intended, for someone else. I might sometimes end up advocating for intentionally provocative and subversive ideas to be implemented. Sometimes I’m a ‘forgiveness over permission’ person. At other times, I’m a “absolutely nothing will be done until very clear permission is obtained” person.

Those energies are obviously tricky to deal with, but I think they’re also solvable. Surprisingly so, in some situations. Regardless of the currently-perceived solvability, it seems obvious that something ought to be done.

The parking situation in america gets worse, not better, and there’s no indication of things changing structurally for the better. So, it’ll be up to you to accomplish good things for your customers, your staff, because no one else can or will do this.

It shouldn’t have to be you, but as far as I can tell, if it’s not you, no one will do anything about this.

What Kinds Of Places #

There’s a common motif/pattern in american commerical establishments. Broadly, there are commercial establishments built after the normalization of parking minimunms, and thus a portion of the lot containing the business is a parking lot.

Alternatively, the other main pattern is that the business runs in a building built before the normalization of parking minimumns, and thus all parking is street-side parking and other forms of off-site parking. Adjacent parking lots, etc.

Here’s an example of the former, a Trader Joe’s in Denver:

And an example of the latter, The Spot climbing gym, also in Denver:

For both of these, ‘managing/improving the parking situation’ would have some similarities, and some differences, but both are amenable to similar patterns in the fixes.

What kinds of fixes #

Parking can be hard to find, hard to predict, can sometimes be abundant, sometimes unavailable.

I’m trying to leave breadcrumbs, sort of, for some of these pieces.

Some of the harms of parking come from things like “urban renewal” programs, which is basically how politically powerful european americans instituted visions of ethnic cleansing in american cities. oops.²

Pricing parking right (somewhere between free and $$$) #

Donald Shoup’s three-part fix is conceptually simple, a pattern well-used in all sorts of capacity management systems. (dealing with orders-of-magnitude differences in input/output, while holding steady other variables):

1. set the right price for curb-side parking, defined as “let the price float to ensure there is always at least 1 empty spot out of every ten”
2. Spend all collected dollars on the curb they’re collected. a sign could be placed next to the parking space: “The string lights under which you stand as you read this have been paid with the money collected from people who have parked here in the past. And your money is going towards future improvements, right where you’re standing. So thanks.”
3. Eliminiate mandatory parking minimums. aka no longer require other space to also be set aside for parking.

This solves just a part of the problem. I imagine you can see how it might solve some of the problem quite elegantly, but also raises a few additional issues, like the mix of authority structures so common on these sorts of spaces in america. For intance:

curb-side parking is “managed” by a local municipal authority, maybe jointly managed by two, and is usable by anyone, but tends to end up being used by/for the businesses fronting the parking. Sometimes but not always. It’s annoying to get tickets from enforcement regimes, either your customers or your staff.

Sometimes the businesses are owned and operated by a different person than the person who owns the building. This changes coordination norms, but isn’t a problem.

There’s obviously lots of expectations built into how parking operates.

What will not be part of the solution #

For a bunch of reasons, I despise energies related to “enforcement” and “punishment”, so out the gate, even as I am talking about money changing hands for parking, every step along the path will be devoid of ‘punishment’ energy, and will be designed to function perfectly without punishment or a fine or threat or anything being in the system.

This is in stark contrast to most paid parking regimes, where everything from towing a violator to issuing a fine (private or public) or booting or some other form of rather hostile action. None of that will be permitted. I’ll be advocating using cost as a way of ensuring there is always at least some availability, but that’s the only reason.

Ideally, the parking will often be free.

But when it isnt free, it will also be worth it.

It is ethical to take people’s money in this way, because you’ll be giving it back to them in other ways. This isn’t a scheme to make extra money for the business, it’s a scheme to solve problems with money, and to spend the money where it’s being generated, for the people that are doing the spending.

Footnotes #