Parking Reform Network
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parkingreform.org
Parking Reform Network
@parkingreform.org
13K followers 220 following 240 posts
An org with a mission to educate the public about the impact of parking policy on housing, climate, equity, and traffic.

https://parkingreform.org/
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parkingreform.org
Minimum parking requirements create financially insolvent land use patterns.

The two apartment buildings on the right generate six times more in property taxes than the big box store on the left, while occupying almost half the space!

#BlackFridayParking
Satellite image of a commercial development along a stroad. On the left there's a big box store that says "Property taxes: $102,485, Parcel Size: 17,766 meter square. On the right there's two apartment buildings that read "Property taxes: $626,002, Parcel Size: 10,930 meter square"
November 28, 2025 at 9:08 PM
parkingreform.org
Places for people > Places for cars
October 27, 2025 at 7:04 PM
parkingreform.org
Turns out the real political spectrum is just how people feel about free parking 😂

Tag yourself!
A political compass chart titled "Parking Reform Political Compass." The horizontal axis is labeled "Pro-Free Parking" at the top and "Pro-Parking Reform" at the bottom. The vertical axis is labeled "right wing" on the right and "left wing" on the leftmost border. The chart is divided into a grid of 25 boxes, each featuring a persona and a humorous quote representing different viewpoints on parking policy. On the left side of the compass, personas range from "Free Parking Revolutionary" and "Anti-Capitalist Car-User" at the top left corner, to "Anarcho-Urbanist" and "YIMBY Keyboard Warrior" at the bottom right corner. On the right side, personas range from "Conspiracy Theorist" to "Freedom Loving Business Owner." In the middle are personas like "Burt-Out," with the quote: "We'll form a committee to study the committee that studied the parking reform study. The report will be due never." Overall, this political compass satirizes perspectives across the political spectrum, including left-wing, right-wing, centrist, libertarian, and niche cultural stances like "Anti-Gentrification Warrior" and "Data-Driven Dad."
October 24, 2025 at 4:44 PM
parkingreform.org
So far in 2025, 11 cities have clearly signaled that the era of mandatory parking is coming to an end! 🎉

parkingreform.org/mandates-map/
A table titled "Cities That Abolished Parking Mandates in 2025". It lists cities and the dates they removed mandatory parking requirements. The cities are Toledo, OH (Sep 9); Oak Forest, IL (Aug 26); Shoreline, WA (Aug 11); Denver, CO (Aug 5); Boulder, CO (Jul 24); Botnell, WA (Jul 8); Bremerton, WA (Jun 4); Fairview, OR (Jun 4); Franklin, WI (May 6); Fitchburg, WI (Apr 8); and Sherbrooke, QC (Apr 8).
October 14, 2025 at 5:51 PM
parkingreform.org
There's definitely been some improvements since then, but even today, more than a quarter of Houston's downtown core is still just parking!
Map of downtown Houston with a red overlay showing areas with parking. The headline reads "Parking: 26% of central city".
September 18, 2025 at 7:49 PM
parkingreform.org
Here's what a Brazilian restaurant owner did after city hall banned sidewalk patio tables 😎
Image of a parked truck that has a complete patio on its truck bed. It's parked on the street in front of a restaurant. Customers are enjoying themselves and having a good time.
July 22, 2025 at 7:22 PM
parkingreform.org
Theologians still argue: Was it harder for Christ to turn water into wine, or for Vatican planners to justify turning their largest renaissance courtyard into a parking lot.
A picture of the Belvedere Courtyard in Vatican city shows a parking lot filled with cars encapsulated within pristinely ornate renaissance walls.
July 2, 2025 at 5:46 PM
parkingreform.org
33% of downtown Las Vegas is already a parking lot.

parkingreform.org/parking-lot-...
Parking lot map of downtown Las Vegas with red overlays indicating the locations of the parking lots.
June 27, 2025 at 2:24 PM
parkingreform.org
The triangular shape of the building facilitates a double-loaded corridor "hack," allowing for larger, cross-ventilated, four-bedroom units at the corners.
floor plan of the corner unit, showing a 4 bedroom unit with a total of 969 square feet.
June 6, 2025 at 4:12 PM
parkingreform.org
Parking lot ➡️ 70-unit midrise in Ottawa, Canada
Before and after pictures showing an image of a parking lot that then transforms into a mid-rise apartment building.
June 6, 2025 at 4:04 PM
parkingreform.org
You love to see it 😎

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
A screenshot of a wiki page titled 'List of topics characterized as pseudoscience.' The following section is highlighted: Minimum parking requirements -- system for assigning an optimal number of parking spaces to a given land use. It is characterized as a pseudoscience by UCLA planning professor Donald Shoup, especially as practiced by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. He argues that the ITE's calculations are arcane, overly specific and typically based on minimal data and approximations that cannot be widely applied to other businesses, even of the same type, and yet are presented as science=backed.
May 21, 2025 at 4:07 PM
parkingreform.org
The world’s first no-parking sign came with a death penalty.

Today? A $35 ticket. Progress? 😅
Screenshot of a page in L. Sprague de Camp's 1974 book "The ancient engineers" describing the regulations surrounding ancient Assyrian paved processional roads. Text reads: "Sennacherib, the Assyrian engineer-king set up the the first no-parking signs. He placed posts along the processional way in Nineveh, inscribed ‘ROYAL ROAD. LET NO MAN LESSEN IT.’ Not yet satisfied, Sennacherib decreed that any scoundrel who parked a chariot or other vehicle along this boulevard should be slain and his body impaled on a stake before his house. Perhaps such measures would be helpful in coping with modern parking problems".
May 9, 2025 at 5:43 PM
parkingreform.org
Americans waste an average of 17 hours per year searching for parking. Nationwide, this amounts to $72 billion in wasted time, fuel, and emissions.

Source: inrix.com/blog/parking...
A screenshot of a section of the article. The text reads: "But when you start to see it, and you end up in one of those colossal parking lots outside the mall, you start seeing this bleak, treeless, lifeless space. You think, my God, the waste, the waste! Is this the way that we have to get around? You write for The Economist, and one of the great and important concepts of economics is opportunity cost: what do you give up by having something else? I went out to Arizona to interview Noam Chomsky a couple of years ago, and I went to see one of his classes. I rode with him in his car and was in the back seat, and he had to spend ages looking for parking. This great mind, Noam Chomsky, just like everyone else, is hunting for parking. What thoughts could this mind have thought if he hadn’t been thinking about parking? What have we lost by becoming so dependent on cars?"
April 23, 2025 at 6:03 PM
parkingreform.org
We like to think of parking reform and single-stair reform as the salt and pepper of infill development. That's why PRN is a proud sponsor of the 2025 National Single Stair Design Competition, which is now accepting submissions!

Learn more and register: www.singlestair.com
Image that contains the following text: 2025 National Single Stair Architectural Competition. Deadline June 30. Prizes: Three $10K Awards. Register at singlestair.com.
April 15, 2025 at 12:26 AM
parkingreform.org
A parking lot transforms into a flexible parklet hosting a weekly farmers market in Ottawa, Canada

2015 ➡️ 2021 ➡️ 2024
Three pictures showcasing the progression of an intersection over time. The first picture shows a parking lot, the 2nd picture shows that the intersection was resurfaced with new raised sidewalks that also include bollards and picnic tables. The last picture shows a lively scene where people are attending a farmers market.
April 11, 2025 at 2:39 PM
parkingreform.org
The more land we exclusively dedicate to parking, the less land there is for housing. It's that simple.
Venn diagram that says on the left 'I want Abundant Free Parking", in the middle it says 'Does Not Exist', and on the right it says 'I Want Affordable Housing'
April 1, 2025 at 6:25 PM
parkingreform.org
Wait till you see downtown San Bernardino😅
parkingreform.org/resources/pa...
Image showing the percentage of downtown San Bernardino, CA that's dedicated to parking. A red overlay representing the area dedicated to parking represents 49% of the central city.
March 25, 2025 at 4:27 PM
parkingreform.org
Effective pricing and management of on-street parking make it easier to restore street space to the people and activities that give cities their soul.

London 💂‍♂️ (2008 ➡️ 2024)
The top image shows a street in London in 2008 prior to pedestrianization. The bottom image shows a lively street in London after pedestrianization.
March 25, 2025 at 4:14 PM
parkingreform.org
Minimum parking requirements have decimated what used to be vibrant & human-scaled cities.
Side-by-side comparison of the Cincinnati Union Terminal and the surrounding area in the 1950s and 2022. The top side shows a bustling scene with lots of housing and pedestrians, while the bottom side depicts a modern view with the many parking lots and highways. The handle '@cars.destroyed.our.cities' is visible at the bottom.
March 20, 2025 at 9:18 PM
parkingreform.org
“The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar, in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle, is actually the right to destroy the city.”

- Lewis Mumford
An illustration showing the impact of parking requirements on land use. From left to right, the image depicts a gradient of increasing parking mandates: 'No Parking Required' allows for dense, walkable development; '1 Space per 500 Square Feet' introduces some parking; '1 Space per 250 Square Feet' adds more parking lots; and '1 Space per 100 Square Feet' results in sprawling, car-centric infrastructure with large parking lots dominating the landscape. The logo 'PRN' and 'PARKING REFORM NETWORK' are visible at the bottom.
March 10, 2025 at 8:04 PM
parkingreform.org
In this campaign, the real boss fight is against arbitrary parking mandates.

Roll to see if your coffee shop is required to have 5 parking spaces or 50.
An image of a meme styled like a Dungeons & Dragons game scenario. Above the Dungeon Master the text reads: 'PLANNING DEPARTMENT'. The other four players are named: APARTMENT, DAY CARE, COFFEE SHOP, and BOWLING ALLEY. At the bottom of the image the text reads: 'ROLL FOR A PARKING MANDATE.' The meme humorously critiques the arbitrary nature of parking minimums by framing it as a dice roll decision, typical in D&D games.
March 6, 2025 at 9:54 PM
parkingreform.org
Parking costing $167k is precisely what makes it a walkers paradise.
February 20, 2025 at 10:37 PM
parkingreform.org
This brilliant obituary from the @nytimes.com honors Donald Shoup’s legacy. With well-chosen quotes, it captures his unwavering quest to make parking policy engaging, relatable, and even fun. A fitting tribute to a true visionary.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/b...
February 20, 2025 at 12:03 AM
parkingreform.org
We have a lot of work to do.
Map of downtown San Bernardino, CA, highlighting in red the parking spaces, which make up 49% of the central city. It includes labels for streets such as West 8th Street, West 5th Street, and West 3rd Street.
February 18, 2025 at 8:11 PM
parkingreform.org
When a city forces bars to build parking spaces but tells people not to drink and drive, it’s a bit like if a school handed out candy while teaching kids about healthy eating 🤡
February 13, 2025 at 6:12 PM