April, 2011

Let Prices Do the Planning

by Donald Shoup
The Conversation
April 30th, 2011

The point of cities is multiplicity of choice.—Jane Jacobs Randal O’Toole and I agree that governments should eliminate minimum parking requirements and charge fair market rates for on-street parking. Still, there are areas of disagreement between us. O’Toole says, “Shoup thinks that these changes would have dramatic effects on the amount of driving people do. [...]

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On the Use, or Misuse, of Shoup’s Research

by Randal OToole
The Conversation
April 27th, 2011

Dr. Shoup and I agree that governments should eliminate minimum-parking requirements and charge market rates for on-street and other public parking. That said, we have two areas of disagreement. First, Shoup thinks that these changes would have dramatic effects on the amount of driving people do. I think the effects would be trivial, and that [...]

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Are Minimum Parking Requirements Social Engineering?

by Donald Shoup
The Conversation
April 26th, 2011

Were an alien visitor to hover a few hundred yards above the planet, it could be forgiven for thinking that cars were the dominant life-form, and that human beings were a kind of ambulatory fuel cell, injected when the car wished to move off, and ejected when they were spent.—Heathcote Williams Sanford Ikeda makes many [...]

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Market Power and Market Creativity in Transit

by Sanford Ikeda
The Conversation
April 25th, 2011

While I do largely agree with Professor Shoup’s proposals, and I’m pleased that he seems to like my case for fuller privatization, I did list six points on which, to a greater or lesser degree, I take issue with him. Unfortunately, Professor Shoup evidently thinks them not worth addressing. Does he really believe, to take [...]

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The Right Price for Curb Parking

by Donald Shoup
The Conversation
April 25th, 2011

It is no doubt ironic that the motorcar, superstar of the capitalist system, expects to live rent-free.—Wolfgang Zuckerman I agree with Cliff Winston’s call for more research on the effects of charging for parking, but I don’t worry that, without research, the discussion of parking prices will “degenerate into advocacy.” The discussion of parking prices [...]

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Letters: Parking, Cars, and Mobility

Editors’ Note: Michael Manville is a colleague of Donald Shoup’s at the Urban Planning Department of the University of California, Los Angeles. He sends the following contribution. Somewhere in the world a straw man has received the beating of his life. Randal O’Toole has delivered a powerful rebuttal to a series of points Don Shoup [...]

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Best of the Blogs: There Ain’t No Such Thing as Free Parking

Here’s a roundup of some of the most noteworthy conversation stemming from this month’s issue. Lewis McCrary comments at The American Conservative: Much of America is chained to the steering wheel because postwar sprawl — created by government mandated parking lots and interstate highways — made the car the only pleasant way to get around [...]

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Further Research Is Needed to Advance the Conversation about Parking Charges

by Clifford Winston
The Conversation
April 18th, 2011

The conceptual basis for parking charges is sound but further serious discussion requires careful and detailed empirical analysis of the efficiency and distributional effects of the policy. I appreciated Professor Shoup’s references to empirical research that has assessed the effects of minimum parking requirements. I hope to see similar work assessing parking charges in the [...]

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