Wednesday’s Headlines: Less Parking Equals Lower Rents
Tenants are paying hundreds of dollars a month for parking they may not even need.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on April 29, 2026
- Cities that have ended parking mandates, such as Austin and Minneapolis, have seen construction booms that brought down rents. Underground parking can cost up to $100,000 per space. The next step is to start charging a fair market rate for valuable curb space, as Donald Shoup suggested decades ago. (Governing)
- Congress would have to slash all surface transportation spending in half — both roads and transit — to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent without a new source of revenue, according to an Eno Center for Transportation report.
- A bipartisan bill would streamline federal permitting for rail and transit projects, putting the expedited process on par with highway construction. (Smart Cities Dive)
- Drivers don’t seem to care as much about $4 gas as they used to, partially because inflation means $4 isn’t that much these days, and partially because cars get better mileage. (Heatmap)
- The New York Times did a deep dive into how the Trump administration dismantled an elite group of scientists at the EPA who studied the health effects of pollution without political interference.
- More young people are riding the Los Angeles Metro because it’s free for college students, and Uber has gotten too expensive. (LAist)
- Ridership on San Francisco’s Muni reached its highest level in March since the COVID-19 pandemic. (NBC Bay Area)
- The Charlotte Area Transit System is looking for ways to extend the Silver Line further east, but reaching Matthews as originally planned probably won’t happen. (WCNC)
- Philadelphia transit agency SEPTA is replacing a parking garage near a train station with housing. (Inquirer; paywall)
- A soon-to-be-demolished Houston mall could be the site of a station serving a future bullet train to Dallas. (Chron)
- Utah is breaking ground on a statewide network of paved bike and pedestrian paths and trails that is eventually planned to stretch 2,600 miles. (Axios)
- Sales at Seattle’s Pike Place market rose 6.5 percent since car access was limited in 2024. (The Urbanist)
- A new 14-mile nature corridor in East London could cool surrounding neighborhoods by 7 degrees Celsius. (Metro)
- A Hong Kong bill would standardize regulations for future transit projects. (South China Morning Post)
- Canadians are paying for fossil fuel consumption with their health. (The Narwhal)
Blake Aued has been doing Streetsblog's daily national news digest for years. He's also an Atlanta Braves fan, which enrages his editor in New York.
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