Here is a nice tribute to Donald Shoup, who is retiring from the University of California.

Shoup’s most notable contribution to America’s planning landscape is in highlighting the consequences of underpricing parking. In The High Cost of Free Parking, he demonstrated that minimum parking requirements artificially inflate building costs by adding the costs of accommodating parked cars to new development and then giving away those benefits to drivers who park for free. These costs can be substantial: As Shoup has pointed out repeatedly, free parking at work is often worth more than if employers filled up their workers’ gas tanks. Shoup highlighted the true price of this invisible subsidy and unveiled new ways for city planners to encourage public transit use and address environmental concerns.

As technology evolved, Shoup folded new innovations into his ideas. In April 2011 San Francisco launched SFpark, a system based on Shoup’s work that adapts the price of street parking spaces to match demand. Adjustments according to time of day, location and day of the week allow smart parking meters to change their prices, with a target of keeping 15% of spaces vacant on any block. Drivers searching for parking can use their smartphones to find a space at a distance from their destination at a price they’re willing to pay. By more closely matching the price of a space with demand, drivers waste less time and fuel circling the block looking for a spot to park. The system has helped the city manage meter occupancy effectively and has reduced circling for parking by 50%, according to a 2014 study, and “smart parking” programs are appearing in Los Angeles and other cities. “His ideas have largely defined what is considered best practice for much of the field of parking management, ideas that increasingly are being put in place in cities around the world,” SFpark program director Jay Primus says.

Removing parking minimums from the zoning code seems like such an easy, obvious step. But what causes political opposition, at least where I live, is the perception that if new developments are built without parking, then people will just buy cars anyway and crowd out on-street spaces for people who already live there. I don’t necessarily buy this. If parking is truly valuable to people, they should be willing to pay more for a development that includes a parking space. If they are not doing this, it tells us that the demand for parking is not actually there. If they can walk safely to work, school, and shopping, and parking is expensive, many people will make the choice not to own cars, especially with options like car share and Uber becoming more accessible every day. Where I live, this is definitely happening.

There is something else happening where I live though. On-street parking is incredibly cheap, and as a result there is more demand for it than supply. People feel incredibly indignant about this, which makes it politically very difficult to limit parking or raise parking prices. There is a legitimate argument that if you raise parking prices, the rich will be able to have cars and the poor will not. If the city provided excellent walking, biking, and public transportation in all neighborhoods though, this would not be a problem.

So here is my solution, right out of an economics textbook: completely deregulate parking prices so it is all market all the time, including street spaces. You might want to do this gradually and limit the fluctuations that can occur, just so it doesn’t get too crazy. Then take the public revenues, tax the private revenues, and invest the proceeds dollar for dollar in pedestrian infrastructure, bike infrastructure, and public transportation, making sure the benefits are highly visible in neighborhoods that need them most. To do this you probably need a single unified agency or authority in charge of parking and all modes of transportation, and under the control of local leaders with some guts. There are a few more policies that might nudge the system even more, like property taxes and stormwater fees that discourage land speculators from turning vacant lots into parking and holding onto them for decades.