CAR owners love free parking. We resist going to places that don’t offer ample parking, and where demand for parking is big. Our parking laws, however, focus too extensively on off-street minimum parking requirements and not enough on balancing the supply and demand of on-street parking.

Current parking rules in some cities mandate that every hotel, apartment, house, restaurant, wedding hall, educational institution, shopping plaza and office provide minimum off-street car parking space. This policy creates over-abundance of free parking; in turn encouraging more cars on the roads.

One wonders how we measure this demand to define the minimum requirements, since we still see congestion around schools, offices and hospitals that already comply with such requirements. As for the on-street parking policy, it is sorely insufficient. Both off-street parking space requirements and the lack of pricing for on-street parking cost our society in terms of increased consumer prices, inequality, pollution, congestion and encroachments on otherwise needed space.

Our parking policies often play a role in increased prices. Research at UCLA by Dr Donald Shoup indicates that minimum parking requirements raise housing costs. Commercial and underground parking is very expensive. (In Lahore’s Liberty Parking Plaza, for example, the cost of constructing a single car space was in the millions, excluding the cost of pricey land.) So, if you’re an entrepreneur, how do you ensure high returns after building sufficient parking? By passing the cost on to consumers — even to those who don’t own cars.

Parking policies in the country have only led to chaos.

This is what may be contributing to our increased grocery bills and apartment rents. Punjab Development Statistics, 2014 cites the figure of 315,1223 cars in Lahore alone. According to a conservative estimate, it costs roughly Rs15 billion to construct parking for all those cars, without factoring in the land price. This land for parking could be used for other purposes, such as parks, schools and businesses.

Our parking policy also perpetuates inequality. Dr Shoup found that minimum requirements reduce investments in housing, taking it further from the reach of low-income households. As another example, zoning rules in some cities makes no mention of parking for the disabled. Our zoning rules also ignore data about localities and the socioeconomic conditions of people in those localities. Importantly, these rules send the signal that state and society are ready to incur all kinds of costs if you own a car, but not if you own an animal-drawn cart or motorcycle (more households nationwide possess these than cars).

In addition, free on-site parking causes pollution and congestion. During rush hour, cars usually cruise to find a free spot, which means more spent fuel and carbon emissions. Just cruising around a few blocks in New York racks up thousands of kilometres and 325 tonnes of carbon every year. We should expect high figures for cities like Karachi and Lahore as well. Free on-street parking and a lack of shared public parking in both old and new residential and commercial zones contribute to severe congestion and pollution, not to mention fuel wastage and traffic accidents.

Moreover, since older buildings and neighbourhoods aren’t required to meet parking requirements, and a lot of commercial activity takes place in such neighbourhoods, we see parked vehicles encroaching on already scarce driving and pedestrian space. Although our zoning laws are very explicit about off-street parking requirements, there is insufficient detail on how to rationalise and price on-street parking (in fact, whatever on-street policy we have is not enforced).

To remedy this, we first need to re-evaluate minimum parking requirements based on accurate parking-demand studies. Second, we need to rethink on-street parking, which causes these problems. We need to price it to support disabled citizens, multi-passenger cars, cars parked for a short time and space for pedestrians. We need to provide less convenient parking spaces to those who drive alone, or park for a long time.

In addition, we can learn something from Shoup’s recommendation of “Parking Benefit Districts”. PBDs require authorities to give the parking revenue back to where it was collected. It can then be used for projects such as planting trees or creating and maintaining sidewalks and parks. We also need to improve the deplorable state of our public transport system (so more people use it) and promote bike-sharing.

Last, the narrower streets in older neighbourhoods should be used for residential parking purposes only. For commercial zones with little to no parking, real-estate developers can be asked to pay a fee in lieu of providing the parking spaces required by law (this is being done in the US, Germany and other places). This ‘in lieu revenue’ can then be used to provide shared public parking, which would help improve parking supply and help reduce encroachments, congestion and pollution.

The writer works in the technology sector.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2016