planning

Disarming objections to parking pricing

By Richard Willson / On September 28th, 2015
Since the beginning of time, parkers have argued that they should park free. Yet the economic justifications for pricing are well documented - pricing leads to more efficient parking use and a multimodal transportation system. Many arguments against pricing don’t hold up to scrutiny. I have been chronicling them in my work with local stakeholders over three decades. This blog post summarizes the top five arguments I’ve encountered and provides responses that are useful in the heat of the battle.

#FOREWORDFRIDAY: PARK(ing) DAY EDITION

By Katharine Sucher / On September 17th, 2015
In honor of PARK(ing) Day, Island Press is taking tactical urbanism to the streets. PARK(ing) Day is an annual event where people all over the world transform metered parking spots into temporary public parks. These pop-up parks can take all forms--in our case, an outdoor library and reading nook. To learn more about short-tern, low-cost, and scalable interventions like these, check out Tactical Urbanism by Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia.   

Small town parking vision in the big city

By Richard Willson / On August 11th, 2015
Why do so many good parking management ideas encounter resistance? For example, charging for curb parking is a no brainer. Priced spaces are used more times per day and better serve customers and visitors. Pricing encourages people to use less-known off-street spaces, reducing pressure to build expensive new parking facilities. Moreover, pricing provides revenue for local improvements. The most successful business districts charge for curb parking; the lagging ones do not.

Tackling the “Wicked Problem” of Urban Street Planning

By Jason Leppig / On July 22nd, 2015
The Island Press Urban Resilience Project, supported by the Kresge Foundation, is working to promote a holistic understanding of resilience that is grounded in equity and sustainability. This post, by Ben Plowden, was originally published at NextCity.org

The Worst Parking Ever...

By Richard Willson / On June 15th, 2015
  Last month, I gave a parking management presentation to a community group in Silver Lake, a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles. They told me they had the worst parking problems in the city. If I had a penny for every time a community group told me that their parking problems are the worst ever, I would be wealthy.

#ForewordFriday: Fill Your E-reader Edition

By Meghan Bartels / On May 22nd, 2015
Today is the first day of our summer e-book sale! All Island Press e-books are $4.99 on our site and at major electronic retailers until May 29th. With more than 600 e-books included, you can find classics and new releases on topics as diverse as architecture and urban planning, conservation biology, climate change, and energy production.

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