A lot is claimed about how vehicle automation will recover vast quantities of parking space in our cities. Street parking. Parking lots. Whole garage loads of space. We’ll be able to pack cars in twice as tight and call them out with our phones — no waiting, either, of course.

I think this is not so simple. Parking attrition will proceed a bit more slowly and will take a little longer than many wish. Not because I don’t drink exponential-technology Kool-Aid — I do, although as an AI guy from the ’70s I find “full” (Level 5) automation predictions reality-lite — but because there is a lot of human behavioral, built environment, political tomfoolery, real-life deployment thinking that I also imbibe. Bitter stuff.

Let’s say everything works out technically, socially and infrastructurally so that by 2048 99% of all passenger vehicles in North America are at least conditionally automated, Level 3s, and indeed, say, 75% are highly automated, Level 4s (fully automated, Level 5s are still a fantasy, even then). And 25% of this total vehicle population is robotaxis handling 75% to 80% of all passenger trips. If you consider the convenience of automation, density factors (sprawl makes trips longer), housing costs, lowered per kilometer costs, increased population, automated chauffeuring, increased user access, and all the other reasons for increased travel in motorized vehicles, there is no reason to conclude there will be fewer vehicles. Maybe some fewer, but not lots. And each of these possibly slightly fewer vehicles will be moving around a lot more than now. The net effect when you stand at a busy 2018 intersection in 2048, is that it would have just as many vehicles as now, except they will all be whizzing through the intersection and none will be parked on the sides of the streets. This would be even more so if “no one owned a car.”

Since many commuters, shoppers, and visitors wishing to avoid parking expenses will likely use robo-taxis for daily commuting, short trips, local errands, family chauffeuring, etc., we can be confident there will be a drop, maybe even a large drop in relative parking demand in cities.

So in what order will we undo parking?  Of course, location, location, location will still matter, but all things being equal, it is likely that re-purposing will unfold in the following order:

Under new office and residential buildings (starting almost immediately).  This permits developers to avoid millions of dollars in construction  investment for parking that they are being told will be largely unrecoverable as we can only repurpose so much underground space two or three floors below grade. This is the immediate first squeeze.

Freestanding garages.  These are in locations where land is valuable for re-developing. The land value was why the garage, rather than an open lot, was built in the first place.

Transit lots. Massive parking lots/garages for folks who park their car all day to take an inter-urban train can be re-purposed early as some might provide opportunities for transit-oriented development (TOD). The key to freeing this up early is the use of microtransit (automated or not) for first/last mile into these stations.  The motivator will be the land value if zoned appropriately.  Smart City thinkers will remove parking minimums while they’re adjusting the zoning code.

Surface lots. Easy to re-purpose. Just scrape off the asphalt and you’re ready for a nice urban parkette …er, I mean another building with more people and no parking stalls.

Paid street parking.  It is painful for cities to lose revenue, so they’ll hold the line as long as possible. But, these properties are needed for new curb treatments and uses and maybe bicycle lanes in more progressive cities. So at least someone is eyeing them for re-purposing.

Under existing buildings. Hard to repurpose — no natural light, low ceilings, older structures.  Good for storing robotaxis off-peak, and parking all the AVs owned by people who still prefer to own cars that cannot be parked in the newer zero-parking buildings their owners will be working or living in.

Free street parking. Historically, the least valued of all city property — judging by our unwillingness to charge or pay for it. So this goes last  …which means they’ll start charging for it.

What role might government play in all this?  Historically, parking is a local matter shaped by municipal guidelines and decided locally within those guidelines by developers and, to a degree, pressures from local business associations. Will there be broader provincial/state/federal guidance? Depending on this level of regulation, the sequence of attrition and requirements for land-recovery and its repurposing will be at least partly influenced by how effectively local government reacts.  We know that market forces are important and that the public sector can be sluggish and may be more of a follower than a leader in this space, and because it will be largely locally influenced, parking attrition will vary among jurisdictions providing uneven results and a complex infrastructural regime.  Governments need to look at this early and be prepared to lead in a progressive and thoughtful manner.

If parking attrition is governed by a significant share of laissez-faire thinking, as plays out now excepting for “parking minimums”, developers will get the lion’s share of the early AV parking bonus, simply by building less of it in the first place. No one likes to build infrastructure with a foreshortened sales-life. If we build less too quickly then those waiting to convert what’s already there will have to wait longer for conversion. Will the value accrued from fewer parking stalls in newer buildings be passed on to the renters or buyers of these new properties? That will be an interesting gentrification factor – new buildings with little or no parking, having residents or workers who rent parking stalls in older buildings a few blocks away for their personal vehicle.

Unsurprisingly, cyclists will likely get their share of the AV parking bonus last, except perhaps in Denmark or Holland.

Following the money, you can see that redistribution of the AV urban real-estate bonus will be uneven. I suspect someone will write a book about this a decade from now.

Bern Grush

Edited 2018.06.01 and 2018.08.06 (Thank you to Michael R.)