Schlossberg, MarcDeBruine, Caroline2024-08-302024-08-302024https://hdl.handle.net/1794/2991280 pagesThis thesis explores the lasting impacts of minimum parking requirements by measuring the disconnect between minimum parking policy and actual parking utilization rates at a typical American big-box retail store on a commercial strip in a mid-sized city. For decades, parking minimums across the United States have ensured that all drivers could park for free at all destinations, despite any credible research on how to set optimum parking levels. Based on ground-breaking research by Donald Shoup, many city planners and local and state policy makers are beginning to see how poor parking policy has led to detrimental impacts to the environment, household affordability, social equity, buildable land, taxpayer resource efficiency, and economic prosperity. For example, Oregon has recently eliminated parking minimums across most cities and towns to address the historically ubiquitous, but misguided approach to minimum parking provision. This project centers around a post-occupancy parking study of a Target parking lot on West 11th Avenue in Eugene, Oregon. This parcel of land is within Eugene’s urban growth boundary (UGB) and is adjacent to high-frequency bus rapid transit, off-street bicycle infrastructure, and numerous amenities making it prime real estate. After conducting over 26,000 observations of parking utilization at this single big-box retail site, the data revealed that the 3 parking lot is less than 20% full on a typical day. Even on Black Friday, traditionally the busiest day for in-person shopping despite a recent decline caused by the rise of e-commerce, Target’s parking lot was only 35% occupied. In practice, this means that there are over two acres of buildable land at this single site, currently allocated to parking that is not needed and not used. This study is one of the few that has ever conducted a post-occupancy parking analysis to assess how accurately past parking policies reflect actual use. These results suggest that by simply right-sizing existing car parking to match actual utilization, it is likely that hundreds of additional acres of buildable land could be identified within every existing metropolitan footprint. This land holds tremendous potential to be redeveloped for better use. For communities with policies focused on achieving household affordability, social equity, and climate change goals, the potential of reusing wasteful parking is even greater. Therefore, this study, set against the backdrop of recent parking reforms, underscores the urgent need to critically reassess urban land use and apply these insights to develop truly vibrant and livable cities.en-USCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Minimum parking requirementsLand useParking occupancyAffordable housingEquityThesis/Dissertation0009-0009-2310-1799