Chapter 5: General conclusions

Parking policy

452

Of these four methods (which could perhaps be used in combination) everything points to the immediate importance of parking policy. It appears absolutely essential that the public authority should retain complete control of:

1. the amount of parking space that is provided,
2. its location, and
3. the charges that are levied,

and it should be prepared to use this control methodically as part of the implementation of the transportation plan. It would not, we think, be sufficient to say that ‘economic charges’ (i.e. charges related to the securing of a reasonable return from the capital cost of providing the parking space) should be levied for parking, we think it is necessary to levy whatever charges the circumstances demand.

453

We suggest that parking policy is best kept on a rational basis if it stems from the principle that it is the liability of the owner or driver of a stationary vehicle to dispose of it off the highway. Departure from this principle rapidly leads to anomalies and unfairnesses. From this it follows that parking on the highway, or any form of publicly subsidised parking, are in the nature of concessions which should be zealously safeguarded by the public authority.

454

The question of how much parking space should be provided in new buildings needs to be considered from two points of view, namely, liability and convenience of access and circulation. Consideration of liability leads to the conclusion that the developers or owners of a new building should provide sufficient space within the site to accommodate all the essential traffic generated by the building—that is to say space for vehicles loading and unloading goods, space for official cars and operational vans, and space for the cars of ‘essential’ callers. But a great doubt attaches to the equity of requiring the provision of space for the optional traffic generated by the building, especially space for car-commuters employed in the building. To put it shortly: why should an employer be obliged to provide parking space for all and sundry on his staff who may choose to drive to work by car primarily for their own convenience?

455

From the point of view of access and circulation, the first study for the Tottenham Court Road area showed that when complete redevelopment is undertaken it is possible, with a multi-level design, to distribute the parking space in a very convenient way underneath or close to the buildings. This is one of the great advantages of multi-level designs. In conditions of more piecemeal development, however, the insertion of considerable amounts of parking space into every new building not only complicates the design of the buildings, but is liable to create considerable problems of circulation, and to prejudice the chances of converting streets to pedestrian use. There is also the risk, as demonstrated in the fourth Tottenham Court Road study, that the application of arbitrary parking standards to new buildings may produce an accumulation of parking space which the network cannot deal with. In conditions of piecemeal redevelopment it would seem better to concentrate parking space for optional traffic, especially car commuters, in purpose-built garages strategically sited in relation to the network.

456

To summarise, we think present parking policies need re-examination to ensure that traffic difficulties are not being ‘built in’ by the provision of too much parking space in the wrong position, and that owners and developers are not being burdened with liabilities which are not really for them to carry. The second point is particularly relevant to propositions which require developers to pay commuted sums towards the provision of parking in some other place.