New research reveals that the City of Boulder has nearly twice as many parking spots as it uses in certain areas, pushing city planners to reconsider long-standing minimum parking requirements for housing, shopping centers, and other developments.
This follows a broader statewide shift, as Colorado prepares to enact a new parking policy, set to take effect next summer, which eliminates minimum parking requirements for new developments near public transit. House Bill 24-1304, part of Governor Polis’s initiative to provide more affordable housing, builds on a law he passed in May that restricts cities from enforcing parking minimums near transit hubs. It prevents cities from requiring developers to include off-street parking for new buildings with more than 20 units.
KGNU’s Alexis Kenyon spoke with Henry Grabar, staff writer at Slate and author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World, about how minimum parking requirements have shaped development in Colorado and what changing that could mean for people across the state.
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Alexis talks with Henry Grabar about new parking laws in Colorado Alexis Kenyon
Audio transcript:*
Alexis Kenyon: Henry, to start, can we get a quick history of how our cities have ended up the way they have, and what that has to do with parking?
Henry Grabar: Right, sure. I think it’s no secret that for the last hundred years, a lot of development in the United States has been focused around the assumption that people will drive everywhere. But real estate prices suggest that many people would actually prefer to live in places where they could walk to the grocery store, where their kids could walk to school, and where they could get downtown on foot or by bike. However, we’ve failed to supply enough of those places. We’ve made it illegal to build the kinds of neighborhoods people want—places where they can walk or bike—because of parking minimums.
“These laws make it so difficult to develop more walkable areas like downtown Boulder, for example. In most parts of the country today, that kind of urban environment is illegal to build because of the obligation to provide a lot of parking.”
Alexis Kenyon: Yeah, it’s interesting because, working backwards, many cities today are trying to undo the consequences of these parking laws, but it presents its own set of problems. For instance, in Louisville, a town near Boulder, businesses proposed closing down the main street to traffic, similar to Pearl Street, from summer to November. Neighbors were upset, thinking it would just create more traffic on side streets, leading to parking issues and other problems.
Henry Grabar: Yeah, totally. That reminds me of a situation in Brooklyn last year with two parallel commercial avenues, Washington and Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt Avenue shut down to traffic on weekends, and the street transformed into a kind of street fair with kids playing football, parents having brunch, and people riding bikes.
“We live in a car-centric society, and that makes it very difficult to do nice things. People worry about traffic and parking more than they care about creating better spaces for living.”
The traffic diversion issue is different, but this is what happens in a car-centric society. It becomes very hard to do nice things because people are so worried about the externalities of cars, like traffic and parking.
Alexis Kenyon: In your book, you talk a lot about managing traffic, and studies show that the way to do it is to charge more for parking. If you want fewer people to drive, you need to raise parking prices. But this policy can seem regressive. For instance, I had an intern who couldn’t afford to live near campus at CU Boulder, so she had to drive, and by the end of the semester, she was facing around $900 in parking fines.
Henry Grabar: That’s terrible. It really highlights the issue with parking fees penalizing people who have no choice but to drive. However, at a basic level, free parking is often seen as access. But parking fines, in many cities, have become a major source of revenue. When parking isn’t properly priced, municipalities create systems where parking is scarce, and people are forced to park illegally, which generates more fines. Free parking is a hidden tax on everyone—it makes cities more expensive and less livable. Paid parking, done right, actually improves access and reduces illegal parking. That means fewer tickets.
That said, the question shouldn’t be “Why are you making it harder to park?” but rather “Why is it so hard to live in the place where I want to be?”
The biggest reason housing is so expensive in cities like Boulder is because of parking. The fight to preserve free parking is really a fight to stop new housing. In this way, free parking, which seems like an accessible benefit, actually impedes the creation of much-needed housing.
Alexis Kenyon: In your book, you call this political or cultural resistance to affordable housing the “third rail.” We’ve seen this in Boulder—a major pushback from neighbors whenever the city wants to build affordable housing. They argue it will cause traffic, congestion, and parking issues. Can you share some examples that explain this connection between affordable housing and parking?
Henry Grabar: There are plenty of examples, both in the book and in reality, where parking requirements add substantial costs to construction. Building structured parking can cost up to $40,000 per stall, so if a unit requires two parking spaces, you’re adding $80,000 to the cost of that unit. It’s not just about cost; parking also takes up space.
“Every parking space adds tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of housing. And that’s not counting the opportunity cost—valuable land that could have been used for housing.”
In most cases, the future residents of these buildings will still own cars, but they may own fewer cars than if they had garages. They’ll likely park on the street, which leads to more competition for street parking. But what we’re saying here is that housing is more important than parking, and that’s why this type of construction is being legalized.
Another reason to support housing without parking is that it creates a more affordable option. People who don’t need or want a garage can pay less in rent, creating more diverse options in the housing market.
Alexis Kenyon: My final question is, do you think U.S. cities will ever be able to move away from cars as the center of our transportation systems?
Henry Grabar: It’s going to take time, but change is possible. Boulder is actually a great example. Twenty-five years ago, 60 to 70 percent of people commuted to work in single-occupancy vehicles. Now, that percentage is closer to 40 or 50 percent. Boulder has already cut its car commute rate by 20 to 30 percent over the last few decades—proving that better transportation and housing policies do change habits.
There’s often a perception that policies like charging for parking or building less parking are punishments for drivers. But these changes can create a virtuous cycle where housing is built closer to jobs and amenities, focusing on managing demand rather than increasing the supply of parking.
“People think parking is the most important issue, but more and more cities are realizing that the way we’ve been doing things for the last 70 years just isn’t working.”
More places are taking steps to change, including Colorado with this new legislation.
Henry Grabar is a staff writer at Slate and the author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World. He’s also a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
*transcript has been edited for readability
