A parking space can cost much more than the value of the car parked in
it, and there are also several parking spaces for every car. Using aerial
photographs of all the off-street parking lots in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,
and Wisconsin, Davis et al. (2010) found between 2.5 and 3 off-street
surface parking spaces per vehicle registered in these states. In addition,
Zhan Guo and Luis Schloeter (2013) estimated that suburban streets alone
contain more than enough on-street parking spaces to park all the passenger
cars in the United States.
Parking spaces outnumber cars, and each space can cost much more
than a car parked in it, but planners continue to set parking requirements
without considering this cost. If I buy the average American car for $5,200,
cities require someone else to pay many times more than that to ensure that
parking spaces will be waiting for me whenever and wherever I drive.
Minimum parking requirements amount to an Affordable Parking Act.
They make parking more affordable by raising the costs for everything
else. So who does pay for all these required parking spaces?
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