- Minimum standards: Decrease minimum parking standards substantially so that the market determines the true demand. Consider maximum parking standards where alternative modes are well established and convenient.
- Flexibility: Provide flexibility, allowing developments with parking demand management measures to reduce parking rates below the minimum requirement.
- Shared parking: Encourage opportunities for shared parking and allow appropriate reductions in supply.
- On-street parking: Allow on-street parking adjacent a building to be counted toward the overall requirement for site parking.
- Variances: Allow variances where there is good access by walking, bicycling and riding transit. Much lower minimum parking requirements are appropriate for downtowns and historic districts – and lowering them can help facilitate their revitalization by making redevelopment and reuse less costly.
Parking initiatives: Seattle reduced minimum parking requirements in central neighborhoods because people have more opportunities to walk or ride transit. Portland, San Francisco, and many other large cities have done the same.
These initiatives are often seen as opportunities to reduce construction costs and therefore make new housing more affordable.
Small communities can also adopt this strategy. Squamish, British Columbia, a town of 10,000, reduced minimum parking downtown to about half of what it requires elsewhere for commercial uses, and to one space per residential unit.
