Codes and Standards

Surveys show parking space requirements far in excess of what is necessary

Aug. 2, 2013

Officials in the Northwest’s large metropolitan areas have sent survey takers out at night through apartment and condominium lots and garages, recording empty and full spaces, and comparing their tallies with the number of apartments.

What they found was surprisingly consistent. In King County, Wash., for example, the Right Size Parking (RSP) project visited more than 200 buildings and found one parked car per occupied dwelling, on average. It also found an extra 0.4 empty stalls per occupied housing unit: almost one-third of parking was idle.

(http://grist.org/cities/wide-open-spaces-how-unused-parking-adds-up/)

Sign up for Building Design+Construction Newsletters