The Parking Reform Network will help you be the advocate your city needs.

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It’s a basic truth of local politics: so much of what is possible comes down to the question of who shows up.

It’s been 15 years since the publication of UCLA Professor Donald Shoup‘s exhaustively researched The High Cost of Free Parking. Shoup’s book has revolutionized the way city planners and economists understand parking policy, and today it is only one part of a mountain of evidence (just a couple examples here and here) that we have way too much parking in American cities. Mandating excessive parking is one of the most wasteful, vibrancy-destroying, budget-busting things a city can do with its finite supply of land.

There are a hundred good reasons to reform your city’s parking policy. But here’s the thing: a rapidly growing number of city planners and other staff… don’t actually need to be convinced of this. They’re on board.

The challenge is in convincing elected officials to actually prioritize and enact policy changes. (And that their jobs will be secure if they do.) And this is the part, says Tony Jordan, where having an organized parking advocacy group in your community is invaluable.

Jordan would know. A parking-policy geek with a background as a union organizer, he has been organizing for parking reforms for seven years and was the founder of Portlanders for Parking Reform. (You might note that Portland is a city that may just be a national model for good parking policy. No, it’s not a coincidence.)

Now, he’s the founder and president of an effort hatched in 2019 to take the momentum nationwide.

Introducing the Parking Reform Network

Officially launched this spring, the Parking Reform Network is a new non-profit organization with, in its own words, “a mission to educate the public about the impact of parking policy on climate change, equity, housing, and traffic. Its goal is to inspire and support a nationwide network of parking reformers.”

Think of the network as a convener, a place where those interested in parking reform can:

• Find each other and network

• Help each other strategize about local parking issues

• Learn about the challenges and opportunities that other communities have encountered

• Share information, including resources such as up-to-date data and case studies

• Access turnkey materials for organizations to use, like the excellent Better Parking 101 pamphlet already developed by PRN board members Lindsay Bayley and Jane Wilberding.

• Eventually, access such material support as printed literature, website hosting, and small grants to local parking reform groups.

The goal is simple: to get parking reform on the table in cities across America, and to ensure that when decision time comes, advocates for better parking policy show up and are counted.

Jordan considers the success of bicycling advocacy in the U.S. to be a model and an inspiration. Much of the progress in creating safer bike infrastructure and better conditions for bicyclists has come through years of organizing efforts to ensure that decisions that affect cyclists aren’t made without them. In hundreds of cities, local bike coalitions are able to mobilize supporters to attend public meetings, write their elected officials, and otherwise be heard.

And part of why they can do this is that they have the support of like-minded allies nationwide who can learn from and assist each other. It’s about showing up, but it’s not just about showing up: it’s also about having all the tools you need to make the most compelling case when you do. And the Parking Reform Network will be a place to access those tools.

Check it out at parkingreform.org to learn more, including how you can get involved and help build the fledgling network.

Cover image via Unsplash.

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