How many parking spaces are enough? How much should parking cost? Why are decisions about parking vital to the future of our communities?
In this presentation, Donald Shoup will discuss how New York City and surrounding communities can cope with complex parking issues. Shoup argues that the average parking space costs more than the average car. When we shop, dine out, or see a movie, we pay indirectly for parking because its cost is included in the price of everything from hamburgers to housing.
He also shows that free parking has other costs: it distorts transportation choices, warps urban form, and degrades the environment. Shoup estimates that if all U.S. parking spaces were combined into one surface lot, it would be the size of Connecticut. He also estimates that every year we spend as much to subsidize off-street parking as we spend for Medicare or national defense.
Donald Shoup is a professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, where he has served both as Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and as Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies.
He teaches courses on transportation, land use, public finance, and urban economics. His recent research has centered on parking, and his book, The High Cost of Free Parking, was published by the American Planning Association in 2005.