Opinion.
Countries and cities have been removing minimum parking requirements from their regulations. In some cases, they have replaced them with maximum rates in order to limit supply. Unaware of this trend, which is widely supported, Portuguese legislation continues to impose minimum rates, which are hardly 'minimum'.
In 2005, Donald Shoup published a book - The High Cost of Free Parking - in which he related parking supply to its impact on urban form and daily life, which would become an essential reference. Over the course of 800 pages, Shoup demonstrates how the parking requirements demanded in planning instruments to relieve pressure and congestion (based on the 'predict & provide' ) end up distorting transportation optionsThis is a major factor in the decline of the urban environment, contributing to urban fragmentation, car dependency and environmental degradation; and representing a burden on the economy of the state and families. Since then, many similar studies have followed, such as this by Henry Grabar.
Aware of this effect and seeking to encourage a parking policy that is consistent with what is desired for the future of cities, the European Union has supported the publication of a series of brochures, 'Push & Pull'that justify the the need for authorities to take parking management into their own hands. Drawing on studies and experiences in different cities, it demonstrates in a simple and unequivocal way the need to combine measures to manage parking (and therefore discourage people from driving) with measures to promote active and sustainable mobility (which parking revenues help to finance). In other words, the aim is to 'push' cars out of the city and 'pull' citizens towards other forms of mobility.
One of the brochures shows a study which evaluates the regular use of cars in three French cities, comparing the mobility of employees who are offered free parking with those who are not. The conclusion is that 95% of the former use the car as a means of transportation, while only 46% of the employees without free parking opt for the car. If parking is as easy at the destination (company, commercial area or equipment) as it is at the origin (home), the choice of car becomes almost unavoidable, even if there are more reasonable transport alternatives. It follows that parking in buildings not only encourages the use of cars, but also compromises the state's ability to influence modal choices: private parking escapes any parking policy like sand through fingers.
In view of this, countries and cities have been removing minimum parking requirements from their regulations. And in some cases, they have replaced them with maximum rates, in order to limit the supply (a timid sample of this logic was tried in Lisbon's 2012 PDM, creating 300-meter radii around Metro stations with lower requirements and even restrictions on parking supply). At the same time, in Europe and also in the USA (a country with the highest level of car dependency), the following are beginning to emerge new neighborhoods where there is only space for shared vehicles. This paradigm shift with regard to parking is reported by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), an institute that has also been launch manuals that justify and support it.
Unaware of this trend, which is widely supported, Portuguese legislation (Ordinance no. 216-B/2008) continues to impose minimum rates, which have little 'minimum' about them. They are enough for the big shopping malls and facilities built in recent decades have basement parking spaces permanently closedThey are also enough to increase the cost of a building by around 30%, which in turn requires wide road access to separate them from their surroundings, making important centralities huge urban barriers. They are also enough to increase the cost of a building by around 30% and to ruin good architectural and urban planning projects: on the one hand, because by imposing parking minimums in the public space, the legislation forces high-rise construction to free up land, compromising density, human scale and the quality of the public space; on the other, because by imposing parking minimums on buildings, the legislation encourages large plots with blind embankments, contributing to boring urban environments without natural surveillance, which compromise mobility on foot and neighborhood life. Added to this are the road profiles imposed by the same ordinance for local streets (between 6.5 and 7.5 meters), which are often inappropriate within a neighborhood.
It's true that these requirements are dictated by national legislation. But it is also true that, until they are revised at source, municipalities can choose to override these metrics by no longer including them in their PDMs, repealing counterproductive requirements that may have been included in current municipal regulations and considering replacing these requirements with others that motivate and help finance sustainable mobility. It's a simple change, but it's crucial if we want to have more housing and a better city.
A version of this article was originally published in IntelCities magazine.
