New study released on parking in Phoenix

How much of Phoenix's total land is made up of parking spaces? A new study from David King, assistant professor of urban planning at SGSUP, set out to figure out just how much.

King and his co-authors discovered some eye-opening numbers:

• 12.2 million parking spaces exist in the urbanized metro of Phoenix, Arizona.
• Parking covers approximately 10% of the urbanized metro Phoenix.
• There are roughly 4 spaces per vehicle, 3 spaces per person, & 7 spaces per job.
• Since 1960, an average of nearly 0.2 million spaces were added per year.
• Significant slowing of parking growth has occurred since the 2008 recession.

According to the study, "There is little knowledge of how much parking infrastructure exists in cities despite clear evidence that abundant and underpriced parking has economic, environmental, and social consequences. Urban parking requirements are very precise and routinely enforced despite the fact that most cities have little to no knowledge about their own parking supply. To further explore these issues, a parking inventory for metropolitan Phoenix is developed by cross-referencing geospatial cadastral and roadway data with minimum parking requirements. Metropolitan Phoenix is chosen because it is relatively young, rapidly growing, highly sprawled, and car dependent."

The authors set out to quantify the parking in Phoenix as a way to urge planners and policy makers to consider reforming parking standards to promote sustainable urban growth.

Read more about the study here and in an article from StreetsBlog.