Street Standards as Parking Policy: Rethinking the Provision of Residential Street Parking in American Suburbs

This paper examines the parking mandate in residential street standards in the United States. Based on literature review and a national survey of ninety-seven principal cities in the top fifty-two metro areas, it reveals two unjustified assumptions behind the mandate: traffic lanes must maintain continuous alignment even with limited, slow traffic; and parking demand must be satisfied with dedicated parking lanes in absence of price. The mandate is likely to force markets to oversupply parking and undersupply housing. The paper calls for removal of the parking mandate from street standards and deregulation of the residential street parking market.