Introduction

Parking requirements in zoning ordinances are particularly ill advised because they directly subsidize cars. At the dawn of the automobile age, suppose Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller had asked how city planners could increase the demand for cars and gasoline. Consider three options. First, divide the city into separate zones to create travel between the zones. Second, limit density to spread everything apart and further increase travel. Third, require ample off-street parking everywhere so cars will be the easiest and cheapest way to travel. Despite all the harm off-street parking requirements cause, they are almost an established religion in city planning. Reforms in planning for parking may be the simplest, cheapest, quickest, and most politically feasible way to achieve many important policy goals. Economic objectives are often said to conflict with environmental objectives, but parking reforms can easily serve both objectives at once.