Donald Shoup and Allison Yoh Testify on Reducing Congestion and Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Parking Policy Reform
posted: Jun 02, 2009

Invited by California Senator Alan Lowenthal, ITS faculty member Donald Shoup and Lewis Center Associate Director Allison Yoh testified before the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing at a February hearing on reducing congestion and greenhouse gas emissions through parking policy.

Donald Shoup reported that free parking and minimum parking requirements distort urban form, skew travel choices, raise the cost of housing and other goods, and harm the environment. He proposed that cities charge the right prices for curb parking that leave one or two spaces open at all times, return meter revenues to neighborhoods that generate them, and reduce or remove off-street parking requirements. Allison Yoh presented parking strategies for reducing congestion, based on a recent RAND report that she co-authored. She reported that the use of pricing - including the pricing of parking - is critical to meeting congestion reduction goals. Although often controversial, pricing strategies are cost-effective to implement, equitable when implemented widely, and can raise revenues to address impacts on lower-income drivers and support other alternatives such as transit.

Senator Lowenthal subsequently authored and introduced Senate Bill 518, which passed in the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee in April. The bill requires that cities and counties adopt various options from a menu of parking-related policies, ranging from unbundling parking prices in residential rental developments with five or more units, to eliminating minimum parking requirements.

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