10.2 - Travel impacts
10.2 - Travel impacts
Parking reduction
Overseas experience suggests that the ability to reduce or limit car mode share to an area, workplace or institution is dominated by the availability of private vehicle parking.
A comprehensive parking management programme that includes several strategies (shared parking, more accurate parking requirements, pricing, cash out, etc) can often reduce private vehicle trips and therefore parking requirements. With appropriate parking management motorists still have adequate parking, although they may need to walk somewhat farther and/or pay directly rather than indirectly for parking.
Parking spill-over impacts
Abundant, free parking encourages driving and helps create dispersed, private vehicle-dependent land use patterns. Parking management can significantly reduce private vehicle travel, particularly if implemented as part of a comprehensive TDM programme.
Parking spill-over problems can be addressed directly with management, pricing and enforcement strategies. On-street parking can be limited to residents, which can be enforced by issuing permits to residents, or simply in response to complaints. Residential neighbourhoods can be designated ‘parking benefit districts,’ where on-street parking is priced (residents can be exempt), with revenues used for neighbourhood enhancement or to reduce property rates. Another approach is to provide some sort of compensation to residents who experience parking problems.
Parking elasticity
Private vehicle travel tends to be quite sensitive to parking supply and price. The price elasticity of parking is −0.1 to −0.3, meaning that a 10 percent increase in parking charges reduces driving by 1 to 3 percent. Charging cost-recovery prices (ie rates that recover the full costs of providing parking facilities) reduces drive alone commuting, particularly if implemented with other commute trip reduction strategies.
Parking management can help shift private vehicle travel to alternative modes, and improves access by creating more clustered, multi-modal land use patterns. As the number of parking spaces per employee in a commercial centre declines, use of alternative modes tends to increase.
