Providing ample parking in downtown areas may seem antithetical to a program designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the paucity of public transportation systems in most towns, combined with typical patterns of residential suburban housing, makes the automobile a fact of life we will need to accomodate for at least the near future.

Innovative parking solutions should be part of an overall master plan for redeveloping downtown areas. The resource below will give you some ideas for increasing on-street parking, subsidizing off-street parking, redesigning existing facilities and using car stackers. You will also find ways to use existing parking capacity more efficiently, address variable demand, reduce parking demand, and respond to spillover impacts.

Resources:

The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative and practical solutions to transportation problems. The institute provides and updates the Online TDM (Transport Demand Management) Encyclopedia which is a comprehensive information resource for innovative transportation management strategies.