The High Cost of Free Parking

Book info: The High Cost of Free Parking (Hardcover, 752 pages) – Routledge, 2005. Language: English.

Off-street parking requirements are devastating American cities. So says the author in this no-holds-barred treatise on the way parking should be. Free parking, the author argues, has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems. Planners mandate free parking to alleviate congestion, but end up distorting transportation choices, debasing urban design, damaging the economy, and degrading the environment. Ubiquitous free parking helps explain why our cities sprawl on a scale fit more for cars than for people, and why American motor vehicles now consume one-eighth of the world's total oil production. But it doesn't have to be this way. The author proposes new ways for cities to regulate parking, namely, charge fair market prices for curb parking, use the resulting revenue to pay for services in the neighborhoods that generate it, and remove zoning requirements for off-street parking. Editorial Reviews Review George Costanza, the quintessential New Yorker, once said, "My father didn't pay for parking, my mother, my brother, nobody. It's like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay when, if I apply myself, maybe I can get it for free?" The High Cost of Free Parking, Donald Shoup's 733-page tour de force, has the answer. With the exception of a Monopoly board, there is no such thing as free parking. In fact, free parking turns out to be the biggest problem you never thought about. "We all want to park free," Shoup writes. "But we also want to reduce traffic congestion, energy consumption and air pollution. We want affordable housing, efficient transportation, green space, good urban design, great cities and a healthy economy. Unfortunately, ample free parking conflicts with all these other goals."

But is this beach reading? Yes. Shoup is witty and profound. The Yoda of urban planning, he compares the current national parking situation to the overfishing of communal waters, an outbreak of cicadas, the Ptolemaic view of the universe, and all-you-can-eat buffets. The book inspired me to begin building an SUV-size apartment on wheels and park it in the Manhattan neighborhood of my choice. Call it "Alternate Side of Street Living." Why should cars be the only ones to get free, fully subsidized housing in New York City?
- Aaron Naparstek, New York Press
About the Author Donald Shoup (University of California - Los Angeles, USA) (Author)