Projects
Principal Investigator:
Michael ManvilleFunding Program:
Resilient and Innovative Mobility InitiativeProgram Area(s):
Access to Opportunities, Parking, Public TransitCalifornia has a strong interest in reducing the externalities of vehicle travel. Parking policy offers one possible lever. When parking is abundant and free, theory and evidence both suggest that driving will be more attractive, and transit use less so. Taking steps to make free parking less prevalent, therefore, could nudge travel behavior in a more desirable direction. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, moreover, there is interest in the future of telework. Here too, parking could play a role, although its influence is more ambiguous a priori. This project draws on the 2010-2012 California Household Travel Survey (CHTS) to revisit the potential of parking policy to influence travel behavior.
Principal Investigator:
Michael ManvilleFunding Program:
Statewide Transportation Research Program & Pacific Southwest Region 9 University Transportation CenterProgram Area(s):
ParkingA growing consensus among economists and economic geographers suggests that America’s most constrained housing markets, and in particular the constrained housing markets on California’s coast, impose high costs not just on people in those markets but on the nation as a whole, by inhibiting migration and placing a drag on productivity. Strict zoning regulations prevent people from moving to areas where they would be most productive, imposing costs that are quiet and atomized but that collectively are large. Despite gaining increasing attention in the last ten years, parking requirements remain relatively overlooked in the literature on land use restrictions. Existing attempts to quantify land use restrictiveness do not measure the stringency of minimum parking requirements, even though parking requirements are often the binding constraint on dense development.The research team proposes examining the relationship between minimum parking requirements, urban land markets, and travel behavior, using Silicon Valley as a case study. The team will specifically examine how minimum parking requirements: (1) Shape the locations and characteristics of new development, (2) Distort the location of firms and weaken agglomeration economies, and (3) Make driving less expensive.