75 years after the first meter was installed in Oklahoma City, cities are beginning to rethink traditional parking regulation strategies. Tom Vanderbilt considers the options.
Cities are notoriously incompetent when it comes to extracting money from their parking meters, as demonstrated by Donald Shoup and others, says Vanderbilt. In recent years, many have turned to public-private partnerships to regulate meters like Chicago, which sold 75-year rights to their meters to Morgan Stanley in 2008. However, such strategies are a missed opportunity to capture revenue for transportation improvements, says Vanderbilt. Instead, cities should focus on using new technologies to simplify payment and collection of parking fees.
Vanderbilt writes:
'Parking meters, a seemingly mundane fact of the urban landscape, remain as fraught and controversial as when they were first installed...the time has finally come for a sweeping rethink of the parking meter-in part because of changes in technology, and in part because of an emerging change in the way we think about parking in cities.'
FULL STORY: The end of the parking meter
How Parking Meters Turned Around a Struggling Downtown
The revival of Old Pasadena is one of the truly great urban success stories from the past few decades. The area's comeback was not based on shifting demographics or "political will", writes Colin Marshall, but a less sexy foundation: parking reform.
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USDOT employees, who are required to go back to the office, will receive free parking at the agency’s D.C. offices — flying in the face of a growing research body that calls for pricing parking at its real value.
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Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
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The Vast Potential of the Right-of-Way
One writer argues that the space between two building faces is the most important element of the built environment.
Florida Seniors Face Rising Homelessness Risk
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
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Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Gallatin County Department of Planning & Community Development
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
JM Goldson LLC
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Jefferson Parish Government
Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Claremont