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Lessons From Zurich's Parking Revolution
Aug 08, 2012
By Norman Garrick & Christopher McCahill
Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/08/lessons-zurichs-parking-revolution/2874/
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Parking is always a contentious issue and most cities have taken the path of least resistance - facilitating a relentless increase in parking. Ironically, complaints that there is never enough parking seems to grow in direct proportion to the amount of parking supplied. Since the late 1980s, Zurich has developed an alternative that's worth studying because it breaks all the rules of conventional transportation planning, and yet has been vitally important to the success of that city. In contrast, the conventional approach has devastated most American cities, and many in Europe as well.
- The essence of Zurich's historic compromise of 1996 was that parking in the core of the city would be capped at the 1990 level, and that any new parking to be built would, on a one-to-one basis, replace the surface parking that blighted most squares in the city at the time. Today, almost all these squares are free of parking and have been converted to tranquil or convivial places for people to enjoy. The regulation of parking spaces in Zurich only goes back to 1960s, when the city first implemented a parking minimum. Specifying a parking minimum is the conventional approach to regulating parking that is used in most cities in America and Europe. Such a policy specifies the minimum amount of parking that must be provided for each square meter of floor space of new construction. The rationale of a parking minimum is to ensure that enough parking is available to meet projected demand. In other words, minimum parking standards are a manifestation of the 'predict and provide' approach typical in transportation planning.
- A parking maximum is a device for protecting the city from having too much parking that could degrade the urban character of the city. Having a parking maximum is much more in keeping with the 'city friendly' transportation planning approach that has been practiced in Zurich since the 1970s. As usual, changes in parking policy took awhile to catch up with progressive changes in other aspects of the transportation system. In 1996, the parking maximums were adjusted to make them even more restrictive. These gradual changes over time set the stage for the current parking policy in Zurich, which was ratified by the public in a 2010 referendum which showed that 55 percent of the city's population were in favor of strict parking maximums. The new policy maintains the structure of the 1989 policy in specifying maximums and minimums. But under this new system, there is a default parking level for the whole city, which is then reduced depending on whether or not a particular location is well served by transit.
- As an example, the default parking level for small shops in Zurich translates to 0.75 parking spaces per 1000 sq. feet of floor space. To put this in perspective, the minimum requirement for parking in American cities is rarely lower than 3 spaces/1000 sq. feet and is often as high as 5 spaces/1000 sq. feet. In the city center, the maximum parking allowed is 0.08 space/1000 sq. feet. In secondary centers outside of the downtown, the parking minimum is 0.30 space/1000 sq. feet, and the maximum is just 0.50 space/1000 sq. feet. The Prime Tower complex at Zurich’s Hardbruecke Train Station, which includes the tallest building in Switzerland, at 36 stories, and three other smaller buildings, illustrates the real life impact of this policy. This complex opened in 2011 with a total of just 250 parking spots. With over 700,000 sq. feet of rentable space, the parking is supplied at a ratio of just 0.35 spaces/1000 sq. feet. In comparison, in a complex of this size built in most American cities, zoning would demand the supply of at least 2,000 parking spaces – eight times more that in Zurich.
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Aug 08, 2012
By Norman Garrick & Christopher McCahill
Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/08/lessons-zurichs-parking-revolution/2874/
.....
Parking is always a contentious issue and most cities have taken the path of least resistance - facilitating a relentless increase in parking. Ironically, complaints that there is never enough parking seems to grow in direct proportion to the amount of parking supplied. Since the late 1980s, Zurich has developed an alternative that's worth studying because it breaks all the rules of conventional transportation planning, and yet has been vitally important to the success of that city. In contrast, the conventional approach has devastated most American cities, and many in Europe as well.
- The essence of Zurich's historic compromise of 1996 was that parking in the core of the city would be capped at the 1990 level, and that any new parking to be built would, on a one-to-one basis, replace the surface parking that blighted most squares in the city at the time. Today, almost all these squares are free of parking and have been converted to tranquil or convivial places for people to enjoy. The regulation of parking spaces in Zurich only goes back to 1960s, when the city first implemented a parking minimum. Specifying a parking minimum is the conventional approach to regulating parking that is used in most cities in America and Europe. Such a policy specifies the minimum amount of parking that must be provided for each square meter of floor space of new construction. The rationale of a parking minimum is to ensure that enough parking is available to meet projected demand. In other words, minimum parking standards are a manifestation of the 'predict and provide' approach typical in transportation planning.
- A parking maximum is a device for protecting the city from having too much parking that could degrade the urban character of the city. Having a parking maximum is much more in keeping with the 'city friendly' transportation planning approach that has been practiced in Zurich since the 1970s. As usual, changes in parking policy took awhile to catch up with progressive changes in other aspects of the transportation system. In 1996, the parking maximums were adjusted to make them even more restrictive. These gradual changes over time set the stage for the current parking policy in Zurich, which was ratified by the public in a 2010 referendum which showed that 55 percent of the city's population were in favor of strict parking maximums. The new policy maintains the structure of the 1989 policy in specifying maximums and minimums. But under this new system, there is a default parking level for the whole city, which is then reduced depending on whether or not a particular location is well served by transit.
- As an example, the default parking level for small shops in Zurich translates to 0.75 parking spaces per 1000 sq. feet of floor space. To put this in perspective, the minimum requirement for parking in American cities is rarely lower than 3 spaces/1000 sq. feet and is often as high as 5 spaces/1000 sq. feet. In the city center, the maximum parking allowed is 0.08 space/1000 sq. feet. In secondary centers outside of the downtown, the parking minimum is 0.30 space/1000 sq. feet, and the maximum is just 0.50 space/1000 sq. feet. The Prime Tower complex at Zurich’s Hardbruecke Train Station, which includes the tallest building in Switzerland, at 36 stories, and three other smaller buildings, illustrates the real life impact of this policy. This complex opened in 2011 with a total of just 250 parking spots. With over 700,000 sq. feet of rentable space, the parking is supplied at a ratio of just 0.35 spaces/1000 sq. feet. In comparison, in a complex of this size built in most American cities, zoning would demand the supply of at least 2,000 parking spaces – eight times more that in Zurich.
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