Reinventing Parking

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network ! Why not join? This week, I ran a short training session about parking policy and challenged the participants with four questions that prompted them to examine their parking assumptions.  In this edition of Reinventing Parking I share the questions with you and discuss some lessons we can learn from them. As you read or lis...

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network ! Why not join? This edition of Reinventing Parking was prompted by a recent bonus episode of the War on Cars podcast which featured listener origin stories. Parking Reform Network President, Tony Jordan, suggested I try something similar here. I sent out an appeal to PRN members and quickly received messages from the divers...

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network ! Why not join? The United Kingdom has been both a bold parking reformer and a parking reform disappointment. But which is the more important story? That's the focus of  this month's episode of Reinventing Parking episode .  The nationwide abolition of parking mandates in 2001 and the shift to parking maximums was amazing an...

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network ! Why not join? On November 2, 2023, the Austin City Council voted to end parking mandates, making Austin Texas the largest municipality in the USA to do so. So far.   I had a discussion with three of the key people from the Austin Parking Reform Coalition who worked to make it happen. They were Leah Bojo, Jay Crossley and A...

Reinventing Parking is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network ! Why not join? This month I want to share some parking reform ideas that will probably be new to you. There are six ideas, so I only describe each one briefly.  What if we require private off-street parking to report regularly on usage levels? [4:02] Should we turn every decent-sized building and its parking into a mini Par...

My guest this month is an active Parking Reform Network member with unique insights at the interface between the parking owned by buildings and the world of parking reform.  Most buildings fail abysmally to manage their parking efficiently. It hurts building owners. It hurts tenants. It hurts residents. It hurts the whole community. Yet most building managers have little clue that there are now to...

I spoke with Dana Yanocha about an encouraging, readable and helpful new report from ITDP that focuses on off-street parking reform.  "Breaking the Code, Off Street Parking Reform Lessons Learned" is aimed at parking reformers and potential parking reformers all over the world. Dana, who is research manager for ITDP Global, led the team that prepared the report and was co-author of the report alon...

Several years ago, I gamified on-street parking management using a board game. It brings home to players the amazing power of parking fees  in a surprising and fun way .  And the Urban Works Institute in India has adapted and improved the game. Shreya Gadepalli and her team have been using the game to great effect in parking reform workshops and parking policy trainings.   For this episode of Rein...

People keep claiming that parking reform and the Parking Reform Network are "anti car".  So I thought I should make an episode to try to answer the question, is parking reform anti-car?  But, since that's a loaded question not usually asked in good faith, I decided to instead look at a similar but more constructive question:  Can parking reform help cities avoid or escape having cars dominate thei...

This month's Reinventing Parking episode looks at parking lot maps.  Parking lot maps might seem an unlikely viral hit but Parking Reform Network's maps of downtown parking across the USA really did make a splash this northern Spring. They convey a compelling message, with many downtowns having more than 20 percent of their land devoted to parking. That's without even counting podium, underground...

Reinventing Parking this time is 25 minutes of edited highlights from my appearance on the OoruLabs Talking Heads podcast . OoruLabs is an Indian podcast and Youtube channel hosted by Sathya Sankaran and Knerav Kodolikar, who kindly gave permission to adapt the interview, which was their episode 16.  Our topic was parking reform for the Indian context.  But that means it's also relevant for almost...

Can parking reform co-exist with justice for frail aging people and for people with disabilities? That was a central theme of a Parking Reform Network round table event on "Parking Reform, Aging and Disability" which took place a few months ago. The event had four guests with a wealth of experience and insight on these issues. The original was long, but this podcast version has just the highlights...

Ten years ago Beijing's parking problems were among the most extreme I had ever seen.  How the situation improved is an encouraging story. I learned about it from the article "How Beijing Is Rethinking Parking and Reclaiming Public Space" by Liu Shaokun and Bram van Ooijen in the Nov. 2022 edition of Sustainable Transportation Magazine from the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (I...

This episode of Reinventing Parking is full of encouragement for parking reformers.  It's a lively chat with the Parking Reform Network 's enthusiastic president, Tony Jordan. I checked in with him to talk about the encouraging progress and momentum that we are seeing on parking reform and for the parking reform movement.  Our conversation left me feeling energized and upbeat about the difference...

If you found this podcast, you are probably interested in parking reform.  But what do you know about the idea of " park-once-and-walk districts "? Have you heard of the Walkable Parking mindset on urban parking?  These ideas are an important part of escaping the belief that every building should have on-site parking. But they are not yet getting very much attention in parking reform circles.  So,...

I am a great fan of Dr Liz Taylor's research on parking so it was wonderful to interview her recently. We had a long discussion but, for this edition I chose a selection of segments that are mostly about the collision between parking reform and anti-development sentiment in residential areas. I think you will find Liz's insights on this both important and entertaining. Find out more HERE . Follow...

Singapore is quite a weird country. I know. I have lived here for more than 20 years now. But is its parking weird too? And is Singapore a parking reform model to copy? These are important questions, since Singapore is often held up as a policy-making model, especially in middle-income countries.  So this edition of Reinventing Parking takes a look.  Find out more HERE . Follow Paul Barter on Twit...

Oregon recently enacted the most aggressive statewide parking reforms in the United States.  The Parking Reform Network webinar about those reforms was such a great "masterclass" on reforming costly parking mandates that we just had to turn it into an episode of Reinventing Parking. This episode also has a video version. You can view it here ! Find out more HERE . Follow Paul Barter on Twitter . R...

In mid-2020, Edmonton's city council amazed many of us in the parking reform scene by voting to comprehensively remove minimum parking requirements. Edmonton had a unique name for its reform: Open Option Parking. This month's Reinventing Parking is an interview with Ashley Salvador, who was a key participant in the campaign for Edmonton's 2020 parking reform.   Together we explored the Edmonton Op...

This month's Reinventing Parking features an encouraging case of a non-profit organization taking the initiative on parking policy in its home city of Delhi.  I spoke with Sonal Shah of the Centre for Sustainable and Equitable Cities (C-SEC), which carried out a small but sophisticated investigation of parking in the vicinity of the Green Park Metro Rail Station in southern Delhi. Read more here ....

Reinventing Parking this time tackles the issue of sidewalk parking (or pavement parking or footpath parking). It features me and several other people from around the world. One lesson is to act quickly if sidewalk parking emerges. Try hard to not let it become a serious problem in the first place! If sidewalk parking does become rampant in an area, there don't seem to be quick and easy answers. B...

Around 90 percent of New Zealand's people now live in areas where parking mandates have been abolished.  This bold step was part of national efforts to tackle one of the world's worst housing affordability crises. The episode is a lively discussion on the inspiring parking-reform progress in New Zealand and in its main cities. Read more details here .  Follow Paul Barter on Twitter . Reinventing P...

This episode features edited highlights from an excellent panel discussion on parking reform that took place at the YIMBYtown 2022 conference in Portland, Oregon. YIMBY stands for 'yes in my backyard', referring to supporting housing development within existing urban areas, and YIMBYtown was all about abundant housing advocacy. The panel, Parking Reform: from theory to practice , was moderated by...

Daniel Firth surprised me several times in the latest episode of Reinventing Parking as we discussed Stockholm and its parking policies. I learned in December about Stockholm's pricey residential on-street parking. Sharing about that on social media connected me with Daniel, who turned out to be ideally placed to explain more. It turns out that other cities have much to learn from Stockholm's park...

More and more cities around the world have been abolishing their parking mandates.  So should we describe parking minimums as "an endangered species" internationally ? I tackled that question in the March edition of the Parking Today magazine. With Parking Today's permission, here is the article as a short "extra" Reinventing Parking podcast episode (between our regular monthly episodes). Read mor...