I’ve come up with a solution for our parking woes. Not everyone will like it

It may seem as if it’s impossible to find a car park on the street.

But as a recent Grattan Institute report makes clear, Australia has an oversupply of parking, both on streets and in parking lots. Across five of the state capitals, most postcodes have more on-street spaces than there are registered cars.

That’s great for drivers, given most on-street parking outside the inner city is free and has no time limit. Many spaces are used by locals with a driveway or garage who find it more convenient to park on the street.

But abundant street parking comes at a cost. Streets jammed with parked cars look bad. They also remove space for bikes, e-bikes and scooters.

Is it too late to change course? No.

If you look back at street designs by 19th-century planning pioneers, you immediately notice something very different from today’s city streets.

Back then, there was no kerbside parking. Streets were largely shared spaces where walkers, horse coaches, trams and early bicycles mingled. Of course, this was when motor vehicles were just emerging.

As car ownership surged in the 1920s and ’30s, city centres began to struggle with parking shortages, double-parking and endless cruising for spaces. The problem was summed up by Nebraska journalist Henry Allen Brainerd in a letter to his city newspaper:

“What a pity that the builders of large business blocks could not have looked ahead at the time of building and seen the need for parking space in the larger cities of the world.”

Since then, many cities worldwide have heeded that advice, requiring parking spaces to be provided everywhere – along city streets, in suburbs, under apartment blocks and in parking lots.

Many people see kerbside parking as a fact of life. But it was a choice, and it comes with real costs.

Take, for one, the fact that a pretty street loses appeal with endless lines of parked cars. There’s a reason real estate ads don’t include cars. People actually find it stressful or boring to be in monotonous streetscapes characterised by heavy traffic and parking.

Second, road space is limited and drivers are using a public road to park their private cars.

Kerbside parking makes it much harder for other types of transport to share the road. In recent years, micromobility has grown in leaps and bounds – think bikes, e-bikes and scooters. But the road space available hasn’t changed much. Too often, riders are forced onto skinny bike lanes that end abruptly, or must ride in the narrow space between parked cars and moving vehicles.

As micromobility booms, the pressure on scarce road space will only intensify as riders demand wider, segregated paths. The only way this can happen in densely populated areas is if kerbside parking is reduced.

Kerbside parking is convenient, but it comes at a cost to other forms of transport.

So, what would happen if authorities banned on-street parking? Given the oversupply of parking, most drivers would be able to park in off-street areas such as shopping centres, offices and parking lots. These would need better sharing arrangements.

Then, with road space freed up, it would be possible to make many streets much more pleasant – and include safe two-way paths for riders.

In areas where such lanes aren’t needed, the freed-up space could be used for trees and plants to help cool cities and soak up rain. Other options include EV charging stations and expanding outdoor dining, as many areas did during the COVID years.

In practice, a ban on kerbside parking could not be universal. Some spaces would have to be reserved for people with disabilities, emergency services, deliveries, ride-hailing and car-sharing.

With kerbside parking removed, there would be space for more trees and lanes that improve micromobility.

There’s almost always a backlash when authorities try to wind back kerbside parking. Resistance usually comes from drivers, residents and business owners who worry that fewer on-street parking spots will lead to more traffic, less business and even a fall in property prices.

But the opposite is true. When high streets are made more friendly to bikes and other forms of micromobility, businesses generally make more money, not less, and property values can go up. People who prefer driving, or have no alternative, also benefit from less traffic, making it more likely that they can visit the businesses.

In many European nations, authorities have worked to make streets less centred on cars and parking.

Established models of reducing car parking include Woonerven (living streets) and Fietsstraten (cycling streets) in the Netherlands, as well as car-free or car-light neighbourhoods such as Vauban in Germany and Hammarby Sjostad in Sweden. If cars are permitted at all, they are treated as guests.

Even in the car-friendly United States there are examples, such as Culdesac in Tempe, near Phoenix, a car-free development without kerbside or household parking. My colleagues and I have dubbed this “Robin Hood planning” – taking from cars and giving to people.

If this is possible in the US – the land of automobility – it should be possible in Australia.

Dorina Pojani is an associate professor in urban planning at the University of Queensland.

This was originally published on The Conversation.

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