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TRANSIT SUPPORTIVE PARKING POLICIES AND PROGRAMS Parking is widely recognized as an important factor influencing transit access and ridership. As transit agencies work to attract customers, parking policies, in particular parking pricing, play a potentially critical role in transit agency decision making. An increasing number of transit agencies have begun to think carefully about how their parking policies encourage or discourage transit use and how to efficiently use resources engaged for parking. This synthesis documents transit agency parking policies and parking management at transit stations using three primary resources: a scan of current research on transit-supportive parking policies, an original survey distributed to a sample of transit agencies, and several brief agency profiles based on interviews and existing available data. The survey was dis- tributed to 46 transit agencies of which 37 (80%) responded. Participating transit agencies represent a broad spectrum of service type, jurisdiction, ridership, mode, types of parking, and parking policy. A primary finding of this synthesis is that there is limited research that documents the impact of parking policies on transit ridership. Within the existing literature there are incon- sistent findings regarding which parking policies support and promote the use of transit. The survey results also indicate that there are differing approaches to parking management to attract transit riders. Opposing approaches to achieve the same objective furthers the notion that parking management is highly contextual, as well as suggests that further research is warranted. The literature, survey, and agency profiles revealed other findings. Overall, providing park- ing at stations is not as important to transit agencies as factors such as providing passenger amenities and operational efficiency; however, research shows that agencies spend substantial resources constructing, maintaining, and operating parking facilities. A majority of respondents indicated that they had excess parking supply, yet three-quarters of those respondents have plans to build yet more parking. The most commonly cited reasons for increasing parking supply include expansion of the transit system itself, response to the demand that exceeds supply at a specific station, and funding availability. Besides parking expansion, transit agencies are thinking creatively about managing parking to increase transit ridership. A majority of agencies provide bicycle and other nontraditional types of parking, work with the private sector on joint development around stations, and coordinate with municipalities and others in the public sector on station area policies. Parking pricing is also used as a tool to manage parking, with some agencies offer- ing free parking to encourage ridership and others using various forms of pricing, including uniform pricing at each station, varied pricing based on parking demand, and more complex tiered-rate structures. Transit agencies also reported a strength and diversity of parking partnerships. As transit agencies are primarily in the business of providing transit service, agencies regularly coordi- nate and partner with the public and private sector to provide and manage parking facilities. Working in conjunction with other partners to provide transit customer parking allows for SUMMARY
2 flexibility and demand responsiveness in the parking system, as well as shares the success of the transit system among multiple parties. As the demand for public transit increases, there is a need to evaluate the existing data to understand the impact of parking policies on transit ridership. There is also a need for further research to measure the impact of various parking policies in different station contexts and by transit service types, identify the most effective parking policies and programs to support transit ridership from transit agency and other parking owners and operators, and discern the most appropriate use of funding sources that could optimize access management and existing parking resources. Although this synthesis uncovers several patterns of transit agency park- ing policies, there is a need to more rigorously evaluate and quantify the impact of parking policies on transit ridership.
