Get rid of the parking mandate: why parking and street regulations do more harm than good

Zhan Guo & Luis Schloeter, "Street Standards as Parking Policy Rethinking the Provision of Residential Street Parking in American Suburbs," Journal of Planning Education and Research 33 (2013): 4

The take-away: This article lobbies for the removal of the parking mandate—which requires parking lanes and wide streets—in residential neighborhoods on the grounds that it oversupplies parking, does not provide substantial benefits for neighborhoods, and even comes with social and environmental costs.    

Abstract: This paper examines the parking mandate in residential street standards in the United States. Based on literature review and a national survey of ninety-seven principal cities in the top fifty-two metro areas, it reveals two unjustified assumptions behind the mandate: traffic lanes must maintain continuous alignment even with limited, slow traffic; and parking demand must be satisfied with dedicated parking lanes in absence of price. The mandate is likely to force markets to oversupply parking and undersupply housing. The paper calls for removal of the parking mandate from street standards and deregulation of the residential street parking market.

Full article (requires access)