UCLA Professor of Urban Planning Dr. Donal Shoup argues that many cities' parking policies distort transportation choices, debase urban design, damage the economy, and degrade the environment. He also proposes policies designed to undo the damage caused by a decade of bad planning for parking. Shoup will discuss strategies that Buffalo and other cities can use to make parking reforms politically popular tomorrow during a presentation at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. The event starts at 5:30.
Shoup has extensively studied parking as a key link between transportation and land use, with important consequences for cities, the economy, and the environment. His influential book, The High Cost of Free Parking (2005, American Planning Association), is leading a growing number of cities to charge fair market prices for parking, dedicate the resulting revenue to finance public services in the metered districts, and reduce or remove off-street parking requirements.
Professor Shoup is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He has been a visiting scholar at Cambridge University and the World Bank, and has served as Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA.
The High Cost of Free Parking
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Hohn Lecture Hall
Research Studies Center, Elm and Carlton Streets
They [off-street parking requirements] produce a local benefit--ample free parking--while harming the whole city. Free parking increases the demand for cars, and more cars increase traffic congestion, air pollution, and energy consumption. More traffic congestion in turn spurs the search for more local remedies, such as street widenings, more freeways, and even higher parking requirements. Off-street parking requirements quietly create citywide problems that are far worse than the local ones they are meant to solve.
The High Cost of Free Parking. Pg. 10
Entry image courtesy of carsharingus.blogspot
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it is time for buffalo to go on a parking diet.
it is time for buffalonians to discover that free parking is not in the declaration of independence, the bill of rights, the ten commandments, or the sermon on the mount.
it is time for our land use decisions to be made by people, not by cars.