Andrew Mikula

The prospect of lowering or eliminating requirements to provide off-street parking spaces in new residential development seems to be getting a lot of airtime in Massachusetts policy circles these days, most recently in a Pioneer Institute report. And policymakers are starting to listen. On April 13, Boston City Councilors Sharon Durkan and Henry Santana proposed a zoning amendment that would eliminate residential parking requirements in most contexts. A pending bill on Beacon Hill would adopt a more modest cap on parking requirements statewide.

Many off-street parking requirements imposed by local zoning codes are excessive and outdated. They raise housing costs and reduce the scale and pace of new development. The Boston-based Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) has meticulously documented that many parking structures attached to large multifamily developments in the region go vastly underutilized.

At the same time, in most urban areas, drivers have alternatives to private off-street parking – i.e., public and on-street parking – that are usually provided at well below market-rate prices, contributing to what some observers have called a parking shortage in neighborhoods like South Boston. This cheap public parking probably reduces motorists’ willingness to pay separately for off-street parking, and thus likely reduces developers’ willingness to provide it – unless municipalities require them to.

But I’d argue that the solution to these perverse incentives is not to keep requiring property owners to provide parking that their tenants and patrons don’t need. Rather, it’s to price public and on-street parking closer to market rate. Academic research suggests that aligning parking prices with demand greatly limits some of the social costs associated with parking, such as added traffic and emissions from vehicles searching for it.

Parking Requirements Unfair to the Poor

Moreover, underpriced public parking often acts as a regressive government subsidy. Every resident of a city pays the taxes needed to provide and maintain public space dedicated to car storage. Thus, taxpayers who don’t own a car, who are disproportionately low-income, are likely subsidizing those who do.

A similar fairness argument applies to off-street parking requirements. In the words of the late UCLA professor Donald Shoup, “when cities require on-site parking everywhere, drivers pay nothing to park, and even the poor who cannot afford cars pay for off-street spaces they do not use. Directly charging drivers for their parking is much fairer than forcing everyone to pay for it indirectly.”

Lastly, this regressive subsidy is far more than a function of the price and availability of a given parking space.

In the immediate Boston area, there is a striking correlation between the price of on-street parking permits and the recent growth in registered motor vehicles. Namely, among jurisdictions the MAPC classifies as “metropolitan core communities,” every municipality that charges at least $25 for an annual parking permit saw the number of registered vehicles decline between January 2020 and January 2026.

But in urban communities where parking permits are free at least part of the year – Boston, Chelsea, Everett and Revere – vehicle registrations have risen in the same time frame, including by more than 10 percent in Chelsea and Revere.

Four Things Cities Should Do

A four-pronged approach to parking demand management would better ensure the sustainability of car-based travel in urban areas. First, as mentioned above, requirements for off-street parking in new developments should be eliminated. They exacerbate the region’s housing shortage while creating more asphalt than is needed.

Second, cities should charge residents for on-street parking permits, with vastly reduced prices for low-income households. This would make it easier for residents who most need a car to find a space. It would also make the elimination of off-street parking requirements more effective by reducing overall demand and minimizing spillover effects from parking-lite properties.

Third, metered parking in commercial areas should be priced at rates that vary throughout the day based on demand, helping ensure some availability at all times. In the busiest areas, this would raise parking space turnover rates, increasing patronage at local businesses and limiting the time and emissions of searching for a space. In 2017, Boston piloted such a program in Back Bay and the Seaport. Early results also showed reduced instances of illegal parking.

Finally, revenue from market-priced parking should be used to improve amenities in the local area. This could both make demand-based pricing more politically palatable and benefit nearby businesses – for example, by raising property values with beautification or improving signage for available parking. Designation of these “parking benefit districts” is already explicitly allowed under Massachusetts state law.

Managing demand for public and on-street parking is an important part of implementing reforms to off-street parking requirements. In congested areas, higher and variable pricing is an immediately actionable and easily adjustable way to improve parking availability and increase turnover of on-street spaces, ultimately benefitting adjacent property owners, taxpayers, and the environment.

Andrew Mikula is a senior housing fellow at the Pioneer Institute in Boston.