Thursday’s Headlines Are Circling the Block

(Stocksy / Chelsea Victoria)
(Stocksy / Chelsea Victoria)
  • The cost of “free” parking seeps into everything, from rent to concert tickets. (Washington Post)
  • In a country with more than a billion parking spaces, why is it so hard to find one? Henry Grabar has theories: Parking is usually free, it’s too hard to find, and very little of it is shared. (Slate)
  • More reviews of Grabar’s new book, “Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.” (City Lab, Resilience)
  • GrubHub is offering e-bike credits to 500 New York City delivery workers. (Smart Cities Dive)
  • Bike lanes play a crucial role in the future of sustainable transportation. (Momentum Mag)
  • The suburbs aren’t all as bad for biking as some people think. (Outside)
  • D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s car-friendly changes to plans for K Street undercuts her opposition to raiding the project to fund fare-free transit. (Washington City Paper)
  • A new cap-and-trade emissions program in Washington state will cut pollution and help fund transit as well. (Governing)
  • A Republican bill in the Wisconsin state assembly would prohibit Milwaukee from using sales tax dollars to expand its streetcar. (WTMJ)
  • Denver is reducing the speed limit on local streets to 20 miles per hour. (CBS News)
  • Des Moines city council members want to see a more aggressive Vision Zero plan. (Register)
  • Curbside dining is here to stay in Baltimore. (Sun)
  • Record numbers of people used Kansas City’s streetcar and e-scooters during the NFL Draft. (Fox 4)
  • Almost 100 years before Rosa Parks, a Black man integrated New Orleans streetcars — at least for a while. (Mississippi Today)

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“Less Parking, More City”

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Adding parking spaces might seem like the answer to traffic problems, but it ends up making them much worse. That’s the message in this video produced by the Mexico branch of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, which Paul Barter shared at his blog, Reinventing Parking. Mexico City has been adding parking at a feverish pace — […]

Shoup to O’Toole: The Market for Parking Is Anything But Free

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We’re reprinting this reply [PDF] from UCLA professor Donald Shoup, author of the High Cost of Free Parking, to Randal O’Toole, the libertarian Cato Institute senior fellow who refuses to acknowledge the role of massive government intervention in the market for parking, and the effect this has had on America’s car dependence. It’s an excellent […]

Comparing the Price of Parking Across U.S. Cities

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This article was cross-posted from City Observatory.  How much does it cost to park a car in different cities around the nation? Today, we’re presenting some new data on a surprisingly under-measured aspect of cities and the cost of living: how much it costs to park a car in different cities. There are regular comparisons of […]