The bane of planning departments across the United States is how to calculate the parking needs for a new development.

A multi-family project has a requirement for so many spaces per unit. Depending on the retail involved, there could be several different parking requirements. Medical offices may have several depending on specialty. Offices, entertainment venues and single-family homes have other requirements. And what is this based on? Is it science or research?

Parking calculations are driven by the political not the scientific. Even practical considerations are put aside when parking is considered. In this country, the average amount of livable square footage per person is 800 sq. feet while each car has 900 sq. feet of parking. Since the 1950s, America has been more concerned about where to park cars than almost any other requirement that goes into erecting new projects.

This preoccupation with parking has resulted in designing our homes, businesses and entertainment venues for the auto instead of people. When you require setting aside a requisite number of parking spaces for each development, you are substituting bureaucratic planning for market forces. This is proven over and over when you witness the vast empty parking lots around malls and office parks.

Before the beginning of modern America (after 1945), parking requirements were not generally considered in cities. In 1946, 12% of cities with a population of 10,000 or more had parking requirements. In 1952, 22.5% of cities did so and by 1972, 96% of cities had such requirements. This obsession with parking and the automobile “drives” people to have a car. Citizens begin to substitute cars for other alternatives in transportation. An example of this was the tearing up of the streetcar lines in Los Angeles. Patterns in where we work, shop and dine are affected.

Population densities are lower because municipalities demand that builders set aside as much space for autos as people. New York City, one of the cities with higher densities in the U.S., had its first comprehensive zoning plan in 1916 but had nothing on the books about parking until 1950. Since 1982, in most of Manhattan, there is no longer any parking requirement for residential development. New York City has further reduced the amount of municipal parking lots in an effort to discourage cars, especially in its core business areas.

Further studies have proven that having free street parking discourages the use of paid parking. As someone who began driving as a resident of Manhattan, I can tell you that several hours a week were spent finding on-street parking instead of paying.  But is free parking actually free? A study by the Milkin Institute stated that there is a definite monetary value to on-street parking that is not charged for. When parking is not charged by municipalities, all citizens absorb the cost.

San Francisco, which is one of the most expensive cities in which to live, has a parking requirement that adds $22.00 per square foot to construction costs. As to that supposed free spot at the mall, for each 1000 sq. feet of retail space, there are 6 to 8 parking spaces required which translates to more than 1000 sq. feet. So, when the price you pay for an item is calculated, the cost to provide that supposed free parking space is in the mix.

In downtown cores, requiring so much parking per residential unit, office space, or retail store is even more absurd. Buying on-street parking or construction of parking spaces within the project only makes the traffic situation worse. If one were to let the developer determine what parking is needed for his project, the market would decide what is necessary.

Instead of bureaucrats and politicians dictating needs, markets will. This results in the end user, the motorist, paying the cost of the space his auto is occupying. This only works if, in these denser areas, the on-street parking spaces have a cost. By charging for the space, the municipality can use the revenue to help pay for transit or street improvements.

It is not a municipality’s obligation to build garages or other parking amenities. Developers, businesspeople and residents themselves will decide how much parking is needed. This will have the immediate effect of allowing for more density in downtown corridors. It will promote more intermodal use, and, if need be, a private solution to any parking inadequacy by the private sector building parking facilities.

For the past 75 years, our development patterns have been dictated by cars. This has allowed sprawl, less use of mass transit, and a separation of our work, entertainment and residential life. It is imperative that we not have the auto dictate how we function as a society. If we are to have true cities, then we need to have markets decide. If we ignore parking requirements, almost immediately the costs of new projects will be less, allowing more diversity in our housing, retail and office tenancies.

Study after study has proven that there is no such thing as a free parking space. There are unintended, and mostly bad, consequences to our parking obsession. In an effort to foster transparency, let’s make sure everyone knows the facts.