Can we really afford the car parking?
- CUT PhD Voice Swinburne
- Oct 17, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated 17 October 2024
Dr. Magnus Moglia
Associate Professor and theme Leader Eco-Urban Infrastructure, Systems and Practices, The Centre for Urban Transitions
Swinburne University of Technology
Email: mmoglia@swin.edu.au
Image source: Ida Christine Rydeng, Oslo Kommune
In these times of council elections, let’s talk about car parking.
Living in Australia is great, but why do I sometimes feel like humans are an after-thought in urban planning here, and that the primary focus is the car? Recently I have been reflecting on something about the place where I grew up. In Sweden, in the suburb where I lived outside of Stockholm (here) a large part of the suburb was (and presumably still is) a car-free zone, making walking and cycling so much more enjoyable. By contrast, here in Australia, roads, car parks and petrol stations dominate the urban landscape, and personally, I find car-oriented suburbs and cities not as enjoyable to be in as they could be.
More importantly perhaps, in car-oriented cities we use so much land for the private car, which could be used for things like housing, nature or public spaces.
Car parking requires a lot of land!
Private car use is very land-use intensive (see here). Let alone the need for roads which take much space and provide barriers in cities, the car parking also requires a lot of land. For example, shopping malls generally require more land for car parking than for shops. In places like Melbourne, there are about 15 car parks for every 100 workers. With the car parks standardised at approximately 14 Square meters in size, and the average price of land in Melbourne up towards $13,000 per square meter, this represents land that could be worth as much as $180,000 per car park.
We also know that the more car parks we build, the more likely people are to drive, i.e. as expressed in a great article from 2021, “the more parking that is provided, the more that residents drive, and the less they travel by public transit, walking, and cycling”. In simplified terms, if we build for the car, people will use the car; if we build for public or active transport, people will use that.
So, not only does car parking represent a loss of land at large financial expense, it also increases the need for public spending on roads. From both a government and a private perspective, cars, roads and car-parks are more expensive than public transport (see here).
In high density areas, and mega cities like Melbourne, due to the importance of using land efficiently, public transport investments usually have the upper hand over road investments. Also, while Public transport is often associated with higher upfront costs, public transport solutions can usually transport a larger number of people but are also associated with reduced ongoing costs for road maintenance, congestion management, and environmental impacts. Public transport generates more economic activity in urban areas by increasing accessibility to jobs, education, and services.
I know that political campaigns are full of promises of car parks, or even removing bike lanes, because this is (presumably) what people want, but can we really afford them? And can we reduce the amount of car parking?
Could Autonomous Vehicles or Electric Vehicles help free up land?
Accepting that the current political appetite, it seems, is to promote more car use rather than less (addicts will always ask for more?), what other options are there to reduce the land-use from private car use? Two technological developments that are likely to have an impact on the land footprint of car use in Australian cities are Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Autonomous Vehicles (AVs).
Whilst EVs have become common, with somewhere between 8% and 9% of new car sales in Australia being electric, it remains unknown whether AVs will become mainstream. There are trials of AV applications, especially for buses, around the world, including here, in Sweden, and here in Australia. So far, private AVs are yet to be made available in Australia, but both governments and industry are gearing up for their arrival. It is plausible that AVs become widely used, especially if they become competitive in terms of price, safety, and performance.
But how could these technologies impact the car-based land footprint? Here are some examples:
“AVs could drop-off and pick-up passengers in areas where parking costs are high: personal AVs could return home or park in less expensive locations, and shared AVs could serve other passengers” (see here).
With an “optimal layout” for parking, the required number of car parking spaces could be reduced by as much as 62-87% (see here).
AVs may even further optimize parking efficiency using advanced technologies. (see here).
The benefits of the shift to AVs, in terms of reduced car-parking demand, will however depend on the future model of car ownership (see here). In other words, if the AVs are shared (via shared mobility services) then the benefits could be significant. Likewise, if everyone will own their own private AV, the benefits are likely to be significantly less.
What about EVs? Surely, there is no significant difference regarding urban land use between EVs and regular fossil fuel cars? Well, it turns out that in scenarios of high penetration of EVs, something like 1 in 4 service stations will close. Boston Consulting Group even suggest that up to 80% of service stations may be unprofitable by 2035. But let’s say 25% of service stations become unprofitable, which may not seem like much, but there are about 1146 service stations across Victoria (see here), so this would free up the land for approximately 290 stations, many of which are in prime locations for residential development. A service station could be as small as 1,000 m2, up to about 2,000 m2 or more, and the stations are often situated in prime real estate locations. There is considerable potential in redeveloping these sites, although of course environmental remediation may be complex and costly. Another promising suggestion is that these sites could be used for parcel lockers and crowdshipping systems to make deliveries more efficient. This may be a way to further reduce heavy traffic by reducing last-mile delivery.
Should we build cities for people not cars?
In summary, Australian cities would (I think anyway) be nicer places to live if designed around people and not cars. Of course, private cars are part also of our future cities, but we do not have to prioritise them over all else.
Should we decide to design cities for humans and nature instead, there are urban designs that could enrich suburban life in Australia. This would also reduce congestion and demand for roads, as more people are likely to opt for public or active transport. This would be cheaper for society, would improve health outcomes, and we would free up land that could be used for public places, nature, or housing.
Benefits may be unlocked even if we simply adopt new automotive technologies. If we instead embrace EVs or AV, and made sure to take advantage of their potential, it is also possible we may accrue some benefits. If private car ownership remains as strong as it currently is, these benefits will not accrue.
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