A Parking Kerfuffle in Downtown Dallas

Robert Wilonsky recently reported that the city of Dallas is seeking consultants to study Downtown Dallas' parking needs and develop a plan to meet parking demands. According to Wilonsky, "[t]he request for qualifications…blames a lack of parking on some companies choosing to move to the suburbs rather than the city center." The RFQ elaborates on how the rebirth of downtown "into a globally competitive urban center has placed strains on the ability to meet parking demands and expectations, resulting in some desired investment and development choosing to forego downtown Dallas for locations in outlying suburban areas."

The parking plan follows from the update of the Downtown Dallas 360 plan, approved in 2011 and currently amidst an update. Wilonsky notes that the city is also underway with a study examining on-street parking and about to launch another parking study in the Bishop Arts District neighborhood.

Enter Mark Lamster, Dallas Morning News architecture critic, who provides his critical take on the trends favoring parking in downtown: "This is not the best use for such precious spaces with the urban center." Lamster is bluntly skeptical that the city's new study will achieve anything other than more reinforcement for the parking status quo: "What it will do is reinforce the cycle of looping logic that has bred the very problem it would resolve. Because downtown Dallas doesn’t principally have a parking problem. It has a downtown Dallas problem, and the parking situation is only an exacerbating consequence of that reality."

Lamster provides a long list of specific shortcomings in the public realm of downtown to elaborate that point that it will take much more than a parking study to understand parking in Dallas.

Peter Simek follows Lamster's commentary with some of his own, including the additional point that the city's downtown buildings suffer from historically low vacancy rates, which creates a catch-22 of parking demand.