Large US city downtowns ranked by "parking score"

[iheartthed]

The Parking Reform Network has scored the prevalence of dedicated parking in downtowns of major US cities. Here are the cities listed from lowest parking score to highest:

1. San Francisco - 4
2. Washington - 4
3. New York City - 7
4. Boston - 12
5. Oakland - 15
6. Chicago - 16
7. Seattle - 25
8. Honolulu - 26
9. Denver - 26
10. Portland - 27
11. Baltimore - 28
12. St. Paul - 29
13. Philadelphia - 31
14. Miami - 32
15. Pittsburgh - 33
16. Minneapolis - 33
17. New Orleans - 34
18. Long Beach - 39
19. Los Angeles - 41
20. Jersey City - 42
21. Sacramento - 43
22. Austin - 43
23. St. Louis - 43
24. Cincinnati - 44
25. San Jose - 46
26. San Diego - 46
27. Charlotte - 47
28. Nashville - 50
29. Anchorage - 51
30. Anaheim - 51
31. Newark - 53
32. Atlanta - 56
33. Cleveland - 59
34. Phoenix - 65
35. Tulsa - 66
36. Indianapolis - 66
37. Orlando - 68
38. Tampa - 70
39. Columbus - 73
40. Fort Worth - 73
41. Dallas - 75
42. Louisville - 79
43. San Antonio - 81
44. Kansas City - 81
45. Houston - 82
46. Riverside - 83
47. Lubbock - 87
48. Mesa - 90
49. Las Vegas - 91
50. Detroit - 94
51. Arlington - 100

What does “Parking Score” mean?

Parking Score measures how a city’s parking lot land use compares to other cities of a similar size. We separated all 50 cities that were analyzed into different population categories, as found below. This average was then subtracted from the percent of land devoted to parking in the city. The difference between the city’s percent parking and the average was converted into a number between 1-100. A low parking score means the city devotes much less land in its central neighborhoods to parking than the average. Conversely, a high score translates to more land dedicated to parking compared to the average for a city of that size. This scoring system was created to evaluate cities on an equal basis and should not be used outside of this context.

1 million and up: Average of 15% devoted to Parking
750 thousand to 1 million: Average of 20% devoted to Parking
500 thousand to 750 thousand: Average of 18% devoted to Parking
250 thousand to 500 thousand: Average of 23% devoted to Parking

...

How was “Percent of Central City Devoted to Parking” Calculated?

Percent of land dedicated to parking was determined by dividing the entire area of all parking by the estimated developable land area inside the Central City boundary. We extracted all parking shapefiles from Open Street Maps to map all parking in our “Central City” focus area. Some cities were mapped extensively, while others had minimal mapping of their parking lots. We manually added all parking based on Google Maps satellite imagery. The goal was to find all land that’s primary purpose was parking passenger vehicles. The amount of developable land was found by taking 75% of the entire area of the Central City boundary. 25% of the land was excluded to account for roads and sidewalks, leaving an estimate of all usable land in the Central City boundary.

source: https://parkingreform.org/resources/parking-lot-map/

I think the methodology can create some minor misrepresentations. For instance, I think it's quite a stretch to rank SF above NYC, and this appears to be because their parking prevalence was measured against two different groups of cities, but I don't think they should have been. I do expect that both downtowns would be in the group of cities with the lowest parking scores either way, though.

[TempleGuy1000]

Their map has historical buildings like the Curtis Publishing building listed as a parking lot for Philadelphia. The data is very suspect.




Massive 2 block large parking lots along the river? Or in reality..

[ardecila]

This also doesn't account for the presence of public parking at the base or basement levels of tall buildings. Of course Manhattan doesn't have very many surface parking lots, but it has tons of public parking garages in basements.

[Crawford]

DC is almost certainly the easiest of the big four NE corridor cities for parking. So kinda weird to see it near the top. Wide streets, tons of parking. Downtown DC is mostly newer buildings, with limited historic fabric. Older Boston and Philly streetscapes have much less parking, and Manhattan has extremely limited parking.

Also, the metric is dumb. Why would all downtowns get the same 25% share for road space? That makes no sense. It's quite clear that a Philly has a lower share of road space than a DC. And how can you derive a parking score without looking at off-street parking, which is the vast majority of parking? Who goes to a major city downtown and typically parks on the street or in a surface lot?

[JManc]

San Francisco is absolutely terrible but I'm readily able to find street parking. I just park a few blocks away and walk.

[DZH22]

I can find street parking at will in Boston outside of normal business hours, or in specific places during the day. I almost always park for free. Of course, I typically go to enjoy an open-ended walk, so the exact starting point doesn't matter as much. It also helps to know the city's secrets, with specific plans and backup plans.

[Notonfoodstamps]

Lol.... Baltimore has parking lots on literal prime waterfront.

Develop them all for all I care. We need more pedestrian friendly downtowns (and cities for that matter), not car-centric that keeps people off the street.