Contemporary parking policy, practice, and outcomes in three large Australian cities
Introduction
Land use planning—particularly parking—can be a potent and prescriptive tool for influencing our modal choices given that land use determines when, where, and whether our modal choices are convenient and cost-effective (Manville, 2017a). Given that the planning authorities for metropolitan land use are typically decentralised and fragmented between multiple local governments, policy inequalities can emerge when the land use planning approaches are poorly coordinated. In contrast, metropolitan transport planning authority is typically the domain of a singular state government but is relegated to the more ‘responsive’ role of increasing road capacity, prioritising lanes for our modal choices, and increasing public transit services according to our modal prescribed by land use planning (Barter, 2015). In this sense, it is the lower tiers of government that are prescribing the urban mobility agenda yet not necessarily accountable when policy inequalities emerge.
An example of policy inequality could be an inner-city local government introducing policies that increase the inner-city parking supply to attract businesses and shoppers during the same period that an outer-city local government introduces policies that encourage using ‘Park ‘n’ Ride’ facilities (PnR) to reduce congestion. A further, outer-city local government may introduce Transit Orientated Development (TOD) policies to reduce auto-dependence. Within this hypothetical scenario, an antagonistic relationship could emerge between the three local governments since abundant inner-city parking may cause outer-city residents to disregard their PnR, or motorists that reside beyond the walkable-range of TOD zone may decide to utilize the improved rapid transit services and begin to clog the streets and exhaust the local parking supply by treating the TOD as an informal PnR. Notably, it is the local government that increases their parking supply that reaps the greatest rewards with an expanded customer base while it is typically the state government that will need to accommodate the heightening demand for road capacity (McCahill & Garrick, 2014; Young & Miles, 2015). As such, there is positive reinforcement for local governments that provide parking and positive feedback loop for parking supply and demand that is typically termed the ‘induced demand problem’ within transport research (Hansen, 1995).
Given the potential for policy inequality, induced demand, and reactive rather than prescriptive transport planning, research and policy should arguably broaden focus beyond amenity (e.g. speed and convenience) to include the dis-amenities and side-effects (e.g. sprawl, expenses, and danger). As Manville (2017b): 29) argues, ‘The travel and built environment literature yields weak and sometimes contradictory results because it emphasizes what is less important and ignores what is more important. This is not a formula for powerful and relevant research.’, which could explain why technical solutions for supplying enough parking, eliminating traffic congestion, and reducing daily commute times remain so elusive for researchers and practitioners.
Button (2006) estimates that private automobiles are in motion just five percent of the time and this is a particularly important finding given the swathes of urban space dedicated to storing private automobiles throughout the periods they are stationary, unproductive, and displacing people and more productive land use types. Indeed, researchers and practitioners that prioritise private automobiles are not staying abreast of contemporary urban mobility trends. For instance, driving appears to be losing its appeal and personal significance throughout OECD countries where young adults are delaying when they start driving (Goodwin & Van Dender, 2013). Further, as urbanisation continues to concentrate populations closer towards inner cities, the private automobiles are losing utility relative to Active and more Sustainable Transport modes (AST; e.g. walking, cycling and public transit) that operate more effectively within higher urban densities. Closely related, technologies such as ride-hailing, micromobility (e.g. e-scooters and bike-sharing) and Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are emerging and improving the appeal of public transit by solving the first mile problem of traveling from home to a public transit node and the last mile problem of travelling from a public transit node to the workplace or destination without requiring a private automobile or long walk (Sipe & Pojani, 2018). Lastly, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is emerging that can route and coordinate complex journeys (e.g. ride-hailing, ride-sharing, and public transit), reserve parking bays, and integrated payment across various commercial and public services thus further reducing the utility of owning a private automobile. With the peak demand for road and parking capacity passing by within OECD countries, it may be time to slow or cease the supply to avoid burdening future generations with sprawling cities that are blanketed by artificial surfaces (Steele, 2018). For instance, researchers and practitioners can begin by identifying where urban space can be reclaimed and repurposed for docking-stations, protected bike lanes, and automobile drop-off lanes.
Within this volume of Progress in Planning, our initial aim is to clarify and integrate urban mobility research and planning approaches by developing a comparative framework of urban mobility. Following, this comparative framework and template analysis are employed to explore parking planning policy and practice throughout the three largest Australian cities: Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. This exploration will determine whether best practice is occurring by identifying the planning approaches in place. Given that insufficient parking data typically limits investigations but is necessary for determining baseline parking supply and calibrating parking requirements, the analysis to follow will draw on disparate data sources for estimating parking supply within each inner-city and draw on population censuses of residents and workers for estimating parking demand. The final analysis employs spatial modelling to determine whether and where modal choices are explained by land use planning while taking neighbourhood demographics into account. The article concludes by charting a way forward for researchers and practitioners that cam stay abreast of contemporary mobility trends. While Australian cities are examined solely within this volume, the comparison of these three independent cities ensures external validity and generalisability to cities world-wide. As such, we can contend that the study findings will interest urban planners, policy makers, and transport engineers working towards improving consolidation and improving urban mobility.
Section snippets
Three distinct planning approaches for parking
When planning practitioners and policy makers attempt to improve urban mobility and influence modal choices through parking supply, they typically adopt one of three broad yet distinct planning approaches. While the terms for these planning approaches vary throughout the literature, the terms ‘predict and provide’, ‘multimodalism’, and ‘demand management’ are used throughout this volume and the emphasis is on the distinctions between the planning approaches that arguably can be arranged along a
Study areas, data, and analyses
This study examines two overarching research questions. The first is: (1) to what extent are existing parking-related policies and regulations for Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne following international best practice? The second is: (2) to what extent are these parking policies and regulations having the intended impact? The data used in this examination was collected from a variety of sources given that no single agency to date has collected detailed, multi-city parking information. To improve
Parking policy review and outcomes
The implementation of parking policies for Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne were examined below. The analysis also investigates changes to parking and travel behaviour that could be attributed to the public policies which were in place in each city. There are four distinct units of analysis feature throughout this section: (1) the inner cities for exploring development applications, parking pricing, parking supply, and modal choices; (2) 400 m buffers and (3) 800 m donut buffers around RTN for
Discussion
Throughout the literature on land use and transport planning, parking policy has repeatedly been regarded a potent tool for influencing our modal choices given that land use determines when, where, and whether our modal choices are convenient and cost-effective (Manville, 2017a). While possibly true in theory, it was generally less simplistic in practice given that metropolitan land use planning authority is typically fragmented between various local governments while transport planning
Concluding remarks
This volume of Progress in Planning drew focus on the persistent problem of urban mobility. To this aim, we developed a comparative framework of urban mobility to compare planning approaches throughout the three largest Australian metropolitan regions: Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. Specifically, this entailed a qualitative template analysis of policies, a quantitative examination and estimations of planning practice, and spatial modelling of modal choice. Overall, we found these three cities
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This research is conducted through a project funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant LP160100031 with additional support from the industry partner, the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads. We wish to acknowledge the Department of Transport and Main Roads for their cooperation and the supply of some data on which this research is based. However, the interpretations of the analysis are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and
Anthony Kimpton: Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.His research interests include urban mobility and land use, social sustainability, place, data science, and urban analytics. Topics explored within his publications include social equity, place attachment, crime, greenspace, land use classification, circular statistics, and urban mobility.
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Anthony Kimpton: Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.His research interests include urban mobility and land use, social sustainability, place, data science, and urban analytics. Topics explored within his publications include social equity, place attachment, crime, greenspace, land use classification, circular statistics, and urban mobility.
Dorina Pojani: Senior Lecturer at the School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia. Dorina Pojani conducts research in urban transport, urban design, and housing. She focuses on the physical planning needs of vulnerable and minority groups.
Connor Ryan: Senior Project Officer at The Department of State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Connor Ryan is a policy officer at the Department of State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning in Queensland, Australia. He has a background in major project evaluation, metropolitan planning and environmental impact assessment. He currently works on public policy regarding the planning, investment and delivery of public infrastructure and the integration of land-use and economic planning.
Lisha Ouyang: Recent graduate from the School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia. Lisha Ouyang is a recent graduate of the Bachelor of Regional and Town Planning program at the University of Queensland
Neil Sipe: Professor at the School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia. Neil Sipe is a transportation planner at the University of Queensland, Australia.
Jonathan Corcoran: Professor at the School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia. Jonathan’s research interests lie in the fields of Population Geography, Spatial Science and Regional Science. Through a quantitative spatial lens he contributes to methodological and theoretic understandings across topics including human mobility and migration, human capital, and social problems. He is the co-editor of Australian Population Studies and Secretary of the Applied Geography Commission, a commission of the International Geographical Union.