Which U.S. Cities Are Lowering Parking Minimums?

The folks over at Strong Towns have been vociferous in their opposition to parking minimum laws. Rachel Quendau writes, "The proliferation of parking minimums over the last several decades has resulted in the demolition of beautiful historic buildings and the ruin of productive commercial districts—giving us communities filled with empty asphalt instead of homes and businesses."

Last year, the team wanted to dig deeper. "What if we tried to track parking minimum laws in every city in the nation? We knew they were prevalent and problematic almost everywhere, but we wanted to get an idea of the scale and learn the details of each municipal code." The result: a crowdsourced map of the country showing where parking minimums have been eliminated, lowered, or are under discussion. 

In some denser locales, however, cities are subbing in parking garages for lots. Quendau quotes a Pittsburgh contributor to the project: "While the submitter may be correct that parking minimums have been eliminated downtown [...] the city and our urban development organization have actively, quite actively in fact, worked to subsidize tons of structured parking in the downtown zone."