Hidden On-Street Parking

Charlie Gardner, writing for his blog The Old Urbanist, reports on a study of the America’s hidden on street parking:

These spaces are the subject of a new study, Amenity or Necessity? Street Standards as Parking Policy, which examines the “hidden parking policy” implicit in the standards for street width established by many cities. The study calculates that these standards have produced somewhere between 740 million and 1.5 billion parking spaces along American residential streets – enough to host all of the passenger vehicles in the world – the vast majority of which are unmarked, unmetered and indeed unused. The authors estimate that the cost of construction of these spaces is in the trillions of dollars, with an annual maintenance cost in the tens of billions. These costs, the authors note, amount to approximately $1,000 annually per home.

Wow!

Consider also that many typical residential streets also include 2-car garages and space for an additional 2 cars in the driveway.