Rethinking Parking

by David Mepham

For much of the past century, we have viewed the issue of parking from the driver’s seat. It follows that key narratives about parking reaffirm the immediate needs of the driver. A consequence of this approach is a failure to understand the significant damage that parking causes to the destination. That damage is amplified by ‘cheap, easy’ parking at the expense of place and access outcomes. Viewing parking from an urban planning and design perspective highlights different issues and opportunities. Five perspectives are An alternative view of parking is timely as new technologies and economies fundamentally change everything we understand about parking. A potential paradigm shift is in the making. Rethinking Parking provides a pathway to a better parking/place balance and access to destinations worth visiting. It is valuable reading for students and professionals engaged in transport, planning, urban access, and design.

342 pages, Paperback

Published December 22, 2023

Reviews

[Ben Lever · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this as a pair with Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking, with the idea of reading them one after the other - first Shoup for a broad grounding in the topic, then Mepham for a narrower, local perspective.

As it turns out this probably wasn't the best approach - Mepham covers a lot of the same ground as Shoup in the first section, and having read them so close together it felt a bit repetitive to me. But if you just buy Mepham on its own this shouldn't be an issue for you.

The second section, which consisted of case studies from different cities in Australia, the USA and Canada, was a lot more what I was looking for. I only wish this section had been larger, and covered cities from a wider variety of countries.