Auto-Oriented Land Uses

Bike enthusiasts argue that bikesharing programs can be an important element of sustainable mobility planning in the urban cores of large metropolitan areas. However, the objective longterm impact of bikesharing on reducing auto-dependence is not well-examined, as prior studies have tended to rely on self-reported subjective mode substitution effects. We use a unique longitudinal dataset containing millions of geo-referenced vehicle registrations and odometer readings in Massachusetts over a six-year period - the Massachusetts Vehicle Census - to examine the causal impact of bikesharing on various metrics of auto-dependence in the inner core of Metro Boston.

Many studies have noted that denser and more accessible environments with higher level-of-service (LOS) tend to encourage higher levels of walking and bicycling activity. As streets are increasingly designed to facilitate safe cycling through built environment interventions, little has been done to evaluate perceptions of safety on different typologies, particularly one vs. two-way corridors. Theory would suggest that many individuals frame their commutes based in-part on the perceived safety of the environment, yet little research looks at varying street design and this perception. This study uses a moving camera approach to evaluate the perceived cycling comfort for drivers and cyclists on different roadway designs (multi-lane, one way; two-way, bidirectional street; single-lane, one-way).

Automobile-dependent planning has changed automobiles from a luxury into a necessity. Excessive vehicle costs leave many households without money to purchase essential food, shelter and healthcare. They need more affordable transportation options.

Re-allocating space on streets to accommodate new uses – particularly for walking, biking, and being – is not new. COVID-era needs have accelerated the process that many communities use to make such street transitions, however. Many communities quickly understood that the street is actually a public place and a public good that serves broader public needs more urgent than the free flow or the storage of private vehicles. This book captures some of these quick changes to city streets in response to societal needs during COVID, with two open questions: 1) what changes will endure post-COVID?; and 2) will communities be more open to street reconfigurations, including quick and inexpensive trials, going forward?

The Urbanism Next Center at the University of Oregon, in partnership with Alta Planning + Design, Spirit for Change, and Metro hosted the Future of Public Spaces and Placemaking workshop on January 24th, 2020. This one-day workshop, supported by the Knight Foundation, brought together a wide range of community activists, government officials, policymakers, urbanists, planners, designers, technology representatives, and other professionals to share ideas and concerns, and to discuss emerging technologies such as new mobility, Mobility as a Service (MaaS), autonomous vehicles (AVs), and e-commerce, and their impacts on urban space and placemaking. The workshop concluded with a site-specific charrette aimed at investigating how communities can best prepare for these changes and adapt their public spaces to create places that are resilient, dynamic, equitable, and sustainable.

This zoning amendment aims to prepare the City of Chandler, Arizona for changes in land use as a result of changes in transportation behavior resulting from an increase in ride sharing and autonomous vehicles.

This paper examines the relationship between ride-hailing and parking demand by looking at ride-hailing trips that otherwise would have needed parking.

This article questions the effects of parking minimums and policies on residential renters in the U.S. by analyzing a sample of rental housing units from the 2011 American Housing Survey.

Parking drives up the cost of development and puts the burden on tenants who purchase or rent housing in these developments. Most zoning codes and practices require generous parking supply, and tenants are forced to pay for parking regardless of if they are using it. This reduces housing affordability which has a disproportionate effect on lower-income households.

Ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft are reducing the need for parking, which negatively affects parking companies but is otherwise beneficial for cities.

This report studies curb use at five typical locations in Greater Downtown Seattle to understand how cities can effectively manage curb access.

Large San Diego parking company Ace Parking has reported lower parking rates due to the increasing popularity of Uber and Lyft.

The city of Chandler, Arizona is preparing for autonomous vehicles’ impact on parking by allowing developers to provide less parking if they provide accommodations for ride-sharing and autonomous vehicles.

Buffalo has become to first major city to completely remove its outdated minimum parking requirements citywide.

A study of five U.S. cities, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Des Moines, and Jackson, Wyoming was conducted to analyze how much land and money is being devoted to parking.

This article outlines a case study of Los Angeles parking requirements, studying whether parking requirements impact the amount and type of housing that is developed, particularly in housing developed in old vacant and commercial buildings.

The City of Houston removed its minimum parking requirements for property owners in east downtown and part of Midtown. Developers in those neighborhoods will now be able to decide how much parking is needed for businesses and residences.

Cities around the country are beginning to change their parking minimums in order to reduce vehicle dependency, lower construction costs, gain back valuable real estate and make urban areas more desirable.

A map locating cities that have removed laws requiring minimum parking. The map differentiates between cities that have completely eliminated minimums in at least one area of the city, removed or lowered minimums for certain uses, and cities that are discussing their minimum parking laws.

In this book, Donald Shoup reports on the progress cities have made on the principles outlined in book The High Cost of Parking. Remove off-street parking requirements, charge the right prices for on-street parking and use that revenue towards improving public services.

Since John Bela and his collaborators installed the first temporary park on a parking space in San Francisco in 2005, Park(ing) Day has become a global event.

In Seattle, a suburban shopping center’s parking lot is being transformed into a new walkable neighborhood.

Gas stations around the country have been in declines for the past couple decades due to shifting fuel sources away from gasoline and changing land value in cities.

As parking demand declines, some developers and designers are thinking about the long term uses of parking garages and designing them to be able to adapt to changing future land use needs.

An increasing number of architects, developers, and engineers are designing new parking garages that can be converted into other uses in the future if needed.

Gas stations can be tricky sites to redevelop because they are often contaminated. However, developers around New York have recognized the potential in their often desirable locations and converted them into a variety of uses such as shops, offices, housing and places for generating renewable energy.

The owners of a parking garage in downtown Boston have proposed constructing a 20-story tower on top of the existing parking structure.

“Donald Shoup argues that free parking has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems.”

As people are relying more on ride-hailing services instead of driving themselves, cities are seeing a reduction in parking demand.

"This paper explores the relationships between transportation, land use and taxation. It investigates how current land tax and regulatory practices affect the amount of land devoted to roads and parking facilities, and how this affects transport patterns. It discusses ways to measure the amount of land devoted to transport facilities, examine how this varies under different circumstances, estimate the value of this resource, evaluate how tax policies and regulations policies treat this land, and analyze whether current practices are optimal in terms of various economic and social objectives."

The main objective of this research project is to provide FDOT with information and guidance on how best to begin to prepare for a future in which AV technology first takes root and then takes over the market. The FSU Research Team is investigating the potential impacts of widespread adoption of AV technology on the transportation network and urban form for four key land use and transportation nodes that are vital to the welfare of the State of Florida: Downtown, Office/Medical/University Center, Urban Arterial, and Transit Neighborhood. To accomplish this, the FSU Research Team engaged one-hundred planners, engineers, industry professionals, and public officials in a facilitated visioning session at the 2015 Florida Automated Vehicle Summit (FAV Summit). During this session the research team gathered input on how AVs will impact our communities and how the built environment will need to adapt to accommodate AVs in the coming decades.

The continued use of minimum parking requirements is likely to encourage automobile use at a time when metropolitan areas are actively seeking to manage congestion and increase transit use, biking, and walking. Widely discussed ways to reform parking policies may be less than effective if planners do not consider the remaining incentives to auto use created by the existing parking infrastructure. Planners should encourage the conversion of existing parking facilities to alternative uses.

Autonomous vehicles will have a major impact on parking facility designs in the future. Compared to regular car-parks that have only two rows of vehicles in each island, future car-parks (for autonomous vehicles) can have multiple rows of vehicles stacked behind each other. Although this multi-row layout reduces parking space, it can cause blockage if a certain vehicle is barricaded by other vehicles and cannot leave the facility. To release barricaded vehicles, the car-park operator has to relocate some of the vehicles to create a clear pathway for the blocked vehicle to exit. The extent of vehicle relocation depends on the layout design of the car-park. To find the optimal car-park layout with minimum relocations, we present a mixed-integer non-linear program that treats each island in the car-park as a queuing system. We solve the problem using Benders decomposition for an exact answer and we present a heuristic algorithm to find a reasonable upper-bound of the mathematical model. We show that autonomous vehicle car-parks can decrease the need for parking space by an average of 62% and a maximum of 87%. This revitalization of space that was previously used for parking can be socially beneficial if car-parks are converted into commercial and residential land-uses.

Using data from the recently released American Community Survey, this report examines population change in the 51 metropolitan areas with 1 million or more population, and focuses on the change in population in close-in neighborhoods, those places within 3 miles of the center of each metropolitan area’s primary central business district.

Lawyers of a luxury condo in New York City have been brought into the debate surrounding the construction of a new bike lane that over took city parking in front of the condos.

Everyone—from ride-hailing cars to delivery trucks to bikes and scooters—wants a piece of the curb. How can smart cities map and manage this precious resource?

As private mobility services such as car-sharing, ridehailing, and micromobility have rapidly expanded in cities, the public sector has historically had limited access to data on how these vehicles are changing travel patterns and the movement of people. Populus has launched a platform to change that.

For 50 years, American geography and land use has been centered on the personal car. The three revolutions in vehicle sharing, automation and electrification present new challenges and also great opportunities for land use and transportation planners. Absent policy reform, the three revolutions may contribute to more sprawl, but a sustainable planning approach that supports both higher-density development and lower single-occupant (or zero-occupant) driving can once again put people first rather than their cars.

In many cities, distinguishing between parking spaces, loading zones, and passenger drop-off sites is headache-inducing (and complicated for AI to understand). This new digital tool that maps curb use in real time will help.

This study looks at the potential for a shift away from curb use focused on street parking to more flexible allocation that includes pick-up and drop-off zones for passengers and freight. It presents the results of quantitative modelling of alternative curb-use scenarios and discusses their relative efficiency, contribution to wider policy objectives and implications on city revenues. The work builds on a workshop held in September 2017, and outreach to numerous experts. It also provides insights from a modeling exercise to quantify the impact of re-allocating curb space from parking to pick up and drop off zones.