Austin did it. Your city can too!

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On November 2, 2023, the Austin City Council voted to end parking mandates, making Austin Texas the largest municipality in the USA to do so. So far. 

I had a discussion with three of the key people from the Austin Parking Reform Coalition who worked to make it happen. They were Leah Bojo, Jay Crossley and Adam Greenfield. 

It was a Master Class for aspiring parking reform advocates!

Scroll down for a transcript. Listen with the player below. Or subscribe to the audio podcast. This is the official podcast of the Parking Reform Network.

 "The day that Austin City Council voted to remove parking mandates citywide in Austin was one of the greatest days of my life." 
(Adam Greenfield)

Outline

  • Brief summary of the whole story, especially the beginnings [2:52]
  • Were Austin's parking mandates unusual? [7:04]
  • A broad coalition against parking mandates [7:44]
  • Institutional and financial infrastructure for the coalition [9:49]
  • How important was the parking reform network? [10:46]
  • American Disabilities Act (ADA) parking when abolishing parking mandates [12:48]
  • The role of people inside city hall, such as city staff [15:58]
  • The time was right [17:24]
  • Advice for newbie or disheartened parking reformers [18:45]
  • Dealing with pushback [22:54]
  • Link parking reform with wider reforms or do it as a stand-alone reform? [25:49]
  • Which comes first, off-street reform or on-street parking management? [29:35]
  • Support across the political spectrum? [32:47]
  • If car dependent Austin can abolish parking mandates, any city can. [34:34]

Scroll down for a lightly edited transcript of the whole conversation. 

My Guests

Leah Bojo is director of land use and entitlements with the Drenner group, an Austin based real estate boutique law firm. She played an important part in Austin's parking story in her role as a consultant and, before that, as policy director for Austin City Council member, Chris Riley. 

Jay Crossley is executive director at Farm & City which is a nonprofit think-and-do tank dedicated to high quality urban and rural human habitat across Texas. Jay and Farm & City have been working on this reform for at least five years, in part also through Jay's role in the City of Austin Pedestrian Advisory Council which, in February 2019, recommended to the city council to eliminate parking mandates. 

And Adam Greenfield is a community, public space, pedestrian, and bicycle advocate based in Austin. He's currently executive director of Rethink35, which is a grassroots movement fighting the planned I35 highway expansion through Austin. In fact, you may have heard him recently on the Rethink 35 episode of the Strong Towns Bottom Up Revolutions podcast.

A lightly edited transcript of the whole conversation

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE WHOLE STORY, ESPECIALLY THE BEGINNINGS [2:52]

Paul Barter: I thought we might start with a very brief version of the whole parking reform story in Austin. 

Leah Bojo: Back in the early 2010s, the council office that I was working with and Council member Chris Riley, were some of the early leaders on thinking about parking reform for Austin. 

It was a very different time, as far as an appetite for parking reform. But we were believers and we started having the conversations even though a lot of folks were not interested or thought we were a little nuts. 

We had Donald Shoup visit Austin, for example. We did some policy work around getting rid of parking minimums downtown. 

At that time, I would say getting rid of parking mandates across the city was very hard to imagine. 

Jay Crossley: A lot of people, including some of the people here, have tried to reform parking in Austin for years and made some steps. 

But about two years ago, with various progress happening at Austin City Council, and generally the atmosphere in place, a guy named Adam Greenfield essentially sent out the call to all the other nerds and said, you guys, it's time, we have to do this, we have to go for really getting rid of parking mandates. 

And a bunch of people heeded that call and said oh, okay, right. Yes, it's time. Let's do it. 

So in my mind, the campaign to end Austin parking mandates started then. And then, pretty quickly, amazingly quickly, it worked. However, there were years of things that were done by lots of different people to make that happen.

Leah Bojo: I would add some of the early work that led to that moment, which was after the work that Chris and I did. AURA, a [land-use and transportation policy] group in Austin, was asking candidates as they were running, would you support getting rid of parking mandates in Austin. And then we ended up with a group of very progressive council members. 

And then of course, Adam, who should go next here, finding that moment and realizing it and making the call.

Adam Greenfield: Yeah, I would put myself towards the chronological end of the story. 

But, you know parking reform had been in my awareness for a long time. I read Dr Shoup’s The High Cost Of Free Parking back in 2010. And it blew my mind, I couldn't believe that a book about parking was blowing my mind. I said, What am I even doing, reading a book about parking?

But in 2021, my wife and I, one Saturday decided randomly to get a bus across town for no reason at all. And we found a line that looked good to us that's kind of snakes its way north through Austin. So we got off at a pretty dismal part of Austin called West Anderson Lane. 

It's not a very nice place, but we're walking along this road. And it's just a sea of parking. It is just absurd. 

And what actually kind of threw me eventually was we walked past a three-storey pit in the ground that was going to become parking. And you know, some advocates say, well, that's better than surface parking. But it's still traffic generation, it's still more cars, it's still the wrong direction for our civilization. 

And I just lost it at that point. You know, I just, I just lost it right there on the sidewalk. And that was what pushed me to send out that email. 

And, you know, I had been on the Pedestrian Advisory Council when Jay had led the resolution that was passed in 2019, to recommend that. So there had already been momentum. But that to me is what just kind of pushed me over the edge, that historic walk along West Anderson lane. 

Leah Bojo: I wish Anderson Lane was the only place in Austin, where you would have that feeling.

West Anderson Lane, Austin, Texas

WERE AUSTIN’S PARKING MANDATES UNUSUAL? [7:04]

Paul Barter: So were Austin's parking mandates unusual in any way or were they a typical United States set of parking mandates?

Jay Crossley: There was a process called Code Next to try to completely reform the city's land development code. And during that process, we did pin down some city staff. And they actually figured out that on average, 1.7 parking spots are required per housing unit. 

And we actually did some math and over 10 years, that turns out to be about like $2 billion worth of parking that was required of the people in Boston to invest in as part of their housing.


A BROAD COALITION AGAINST PARKING MANDATES [7:44]

Paul Barter: So you guys and many other people managed to put together a coalition. Can you share with the listener, to encourage parking reformers elsewhere in the world, who do they need to reach out to? Who they need to be talking to? Who should they be bringing into their coalition's?

Adam Greenfield: Initially, the coalition started as people who knew each other already fairly well. There was there were transportation, land use advocates. Within that group there were university professors, scrappy activists, nonprofit pros, and people more on the on the development side. But as we went on, we needed to talk to more people and broaden that. 

One of the key groups we reached out to … and this is important for a lot of listeners who want to be part of or are part of a parking reform campaign … disability rights advocates were absolutely key. So we had various conversations with them. 

But also beyond that, speaking to other cities that had passed reform, and their experiences, who they needed to talk to how the experience went for them. Did they have any problems when reform was passed? Hint, they didn't. 

And of course, decision makers were key as well. As we got closer to decision day, one of the tasks that I volunteered for was to put together a public-facing compilation of supporters that was as broad as we could possibly make it. So that included people who do build homes and build buildings and that kind of thing. But also a popular pizza restaurant, a popular local brewery, a range of businesses, and a range of organizations that would show the city of Austin decision makers that this is an issue that has broad support.

INSTITUTIONAL AND FINANCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE COALITION [9:49]

Paul Barter: So Jay, your organization played this role of institutional and financial infrastructure for the campaign. How important was it to have one or more organizations able to fulfill that role?

Jay Crossley: We were able to be the fiscal sponsor of the coalition. And we actually raised $5,000. So we hired somebody to start working full time, a guy named Daniel Kavelman, who was terrific at this. 

And we were able to partner with the Parking Reform Network and have a direct relationship with Parking Reform Network. 

So we had an infrastructure of keeping this coalition going. Part of Daniel's job was talking to different Council offices and figuring out who needs to talk to who. 

It did work kind of terrifically how we were able to have this this kind of staff support to push the coalition's vision forward.

HOW IMPORTANT WAS THE PARKING REFORM NETWORK? [10:46]

Paul Barter: How important was or what roles did the Parking Reform Network play behind the scenes? How did that work?

Adam Greenfield: The Parking Reform Network was really, really helpful. I would say, critical. Any campaign that is trying to reform parking should avail themselves of the resources that they have. 

So first of all, the Parking Reform Networks map of other cities that have done this was incredibly helpful. 

That's how we found the cities that we reached out to to interview them. 

And a lot of the information on the PRN website we stole, used, borrowed. 

Tony Jordan from the Parking Reform Network also attended numerous meetings. And I'll just speak for myself, I found even his presence in the room comforting because he has the eagles view and has seen what lots of other cities have done. And so he would chime in when necessary. And I think that's always really valuable’, to have someone there like that. 

So it just felt like we were part of a family. And that was just very, very helpful moving forward, that there were resources at our fingertips if and when we needed them.

"The Parking Reform Network's List of cities became a regular talking point for another important advocate, Curtis Rogers, who showed up at many, many council meetings. ... he would sign up and just read the list of cities ... And he would just point out repeatedly that that peer cities were all getting rid of parking mandates in one way or another." (Leah Bojo)

Leah Bojo: I would also point out that the Parking Reform Network's List of cities became a regular talking point for another important advocate, Curtis Rogers, who showed up at many, many council meetings. And as cities were making these changes and getting rid of their mandates, he would sign up and just read the list of cities and peer cities that Austin likes to think are similar. And he would just point out repeatedly that that peer cities were all getting rid of parking mandates in one way or another. And I think it was really a fantastic and politely persistent way to remind council of what they should be thinking about. 

Adam Greenfield: I didn't know that! That is great. That's fantastic.

Leah Bojo: It was fantastic. He did a great job. 

Paul Barter: This is the beauty of a broad coalition, isn't it? 

Leah Bojo: Absolutely.

INTERESTING COMPROMISE ON AMERICAN DISABILITIES ACT PARKING [12:48]

Leah Bojo: One thing that this coalition did that was hugely important, which we touched on a minute or two ago is having a broad group. And if there was an issue that would come up, for example, ADA parking can often come up as something to be to be considered differently, or the American Disabilities Act. 

As I understand it, there's sort of a divide in the ADA community or in the in the disability advocates, community, some folks who use cars and need to use cars, really rely on parking and want it to be free and available, and then other folks in the disability community don't drive or can't drive. 

Engaging that community and then being able to talk to the folks making the decisions to say, yes, we have talked to these folks. This is what they have said. They're in the tent. They are part of the conversation. That goes a long way in making sure say an elected official knows that they're not about to please one group but alienate another. 

Jay Crossley: This was one where there was disagreement amongst our coalition. And we had a lot of national folks interested in this who were pushing back against the approach of including some kind of requirement for ADA parking spots. 

But I believe the end result is actually very smart. 

It basically maintains somewhat of a mandate to provide access to ADA parking spots. But it’s done in a manner in which we expect it will not block projects and it will not make projects more expensive. 

Leah Bojo: Federal ADA legislation requires that, IF you provide parking, you have to provide parking for people with disabilities.

Adam Greenfield: So we continued that, but in developments where there is no parking, there is a requirement to make sure that there is access provided somehow.

Jay Crossley: Yes, and that is what a bunch of people did not like. 

But there remains a requirement to provide ADA parking, however. And I'm curious, Leah, how this actually works out on projects. I think the way it's done allows for an on street parking spot to count and then the thus the developer is required just to have a good sidewalk and to have have the ability to get to the front door from there. 

Leah Bojo: But there are certainly places downtown where a street space cannot be converted. So, I would say, you know, having a fee option to pay into a pot to put it at a space somewhere, wherever nearby makes the most sense. Or having the [planning] director have the ability to waive that requirement, because it's not covered under federal law. 

Another context for the ADA thing that may be important is that Austin, like a lot of American cities, is under-parked with parking for people with disabilities. So there are ongoing lawsuits with the city about their provision. They've dug themselves into a hole, which I think was part of the context for the situation now. Because we don't have enough ADA parking today, there was a real concern.

Paul Barter: So, fingers crossed, this reform that abolishes parking mandates may ironically make things better for people with disabilities who do you need to drive?

Jay Crossley: Oh, yes, I think definitely.

THE ROLE OF PEOPLE INSIDE CITY HALL, SUCH AS CITY STAFF [15:58]

Paul Barter: A lot of the progress in a campaign like this is behind the scenes inside City Hall, right? Could you give other parking campaigners around the world some insight on how that worked in Austin.

Leah Bojo: I would say that they were very important. And the person who led the charge is another fantastic parking reformer, who is unfortunately no longer with the City of Austin, Dan Hennessy, who is a believer and an advocate and was able to understand exactly what the goals were, why they were, and do the work in a way that was really productive.

Jay Crossley: It was crucial. 

There had been this giant land development code fight, where there was an attempt to get rid of parking requirements during that. And we were able to push it down to I think, one parking spot per unit. But not further than that. And we lost the fight. 

But the fact that those discussions had happened meant all those Council staff had been educated on this issue. A bunch of different people throughout the city were aware of the concepts. And were aware of the trade-offs. And were aware of the battle lines. 

So we weren't educating a bunch of council staffers from zero. That was part of why this seemed to work amazingly well and very quickly. There were good people throughout the city and outside the city that had a shared kind of knowledge base and way to talk about it.

THE TIME WAS RIGHT [17:24]

Adam Greenfield: Timing was such a huge part of this and why this worked. And that wasn't entirely apparent to me on the day of my “historic bus ride” … historic in my mind. 

But just around this time, parking reform was really starting to get hot in the US. There were more and more articles coming out. 

I remember when I was presenting on this issue to the Design Commission, which is a City of Austin body. I was trying to get the design commission to sign on as a supporter of this. And I could just tell that almost everyone in the room just got this. They had read enough articles. More and more policymakers and decision makers have heard about it, and it just makes sense to them. And that was also very helpful to us.

Leah Bojo: Back in around 2010, 2011, 2012, when I was working with Chris Riley on these reforms, we brought forward a proposal to eliminate parking minimums for micro units on transit corridors. No parking would be required if your unit was under 400 square feet, and on a predetermined transit corridor. 

But we couldn't get it done! They ended up making it point two five. So in 10 years or 12 years, the mindset shift is just unbelievable.

ADVICE FOR NEWBIE OR DISHEARTENED PARKING REFORMERS [18:45]

Paul Barter:  I'm thinking of someone who's indignant about parking, like Adam was on the on his famous bus ride, but they haven't yet got to the point of being empowered as an activist. And maybe they're thinking, is it just like going to be a thankless struggle for years? 

What would you say to that person to encourage them that maybe there are wins along the way, there are fun people that you can work with, etc. 

Leah Bojo:  Very fun people.

Adam Greenfield: I had such a good time in this campaign. Because it's such a defined issue and the outcomes over time are so clear looking at what has happened in other cities. 

In some ways, this was the best campaign I've ever worked on. I'm in transportation advocacy, although on this issue, I was closer to being a normie than Jay or Leah. So I kind of brought with me my everyday person hat to some extent. I was not an expert in parking by any means. 

But the conversations were fascinating. The alliances, the supporters. Collecting them and learning how to talk about the issue. Making the calculations about what decision makers think what and that kind of thing. Figuring out what other cities did. 

I thought the whole thing was just endlessly fascinating. And I think I will be a lifelong lover of parking reform, just for that reason. Because it's just so interesting. And the impacts of any parking reform can be profound over time. 

The day that Austin City Council voted to remove parking mandates citywide in Austin was one of the greatest days of my life.

Jay Crossley: I would add to the person wondering if this is worth the fight, that it’s really interesting to me that parking policy reveals values and priorities and morals in a very interesting way. 

People get mad and they're like, well, if you do this it won't be safe for kids to walk down our street. And I’m like, oh, it's not safe for kids to walk down the street? I value that! Let's talk about that. 

And in a funny way, these Austin debates over this seemingly esoteric thing, have helped to refine the values of the city of Austin. 

Yes, we actually value humans having homes more than cars. And we didn't know that clearly before. But now we get that. And it's nice to be part of that, clarifying your community values. And it somehow works well with parking policy.

"Parking policy reveals values and priorities and morals in a very interesting way. People get mad and they're like, well, if you do this it won't be safe for kids to walk down our street. And I’m like, oh, it's not safe for kids to walk down the street? I value that! Let's talk about that." Jay Crossley

Leah Bojo: Yeah, I would never have dreamed we would get to this point this fast. And we did, because so many people stuck with it, and they laid the groundwork, and they kept at it. 

And even when it seemed like a crazy thing to do, people kept at it. And then people joined, and then people picked up the ball and kept it going. You have to stick with it, you really do. But we can see this wave across the country of change. Clearly it's happening. And it'll eventually get to, I hope, everywhere.

Jay Crossley: And it may take a while. There may be some ugly council meetings. 

At one point, the board of the Austin Independent School District had taken a position in favor of requiring more parking for various reasons. We built a coalition to write a letter in response. And we took a lot of heat for that. 

But those things actually helped bring up these issues and resolve them and work through them. And so you might lose the fight this next month. But if you engage with people respectfully, and keep going, it's worth it and you may be preparing for real, meaningful change that actually improves people's lives.
But be ready for not immediately getting satisfaction.

Leah Bojo: It will be a rocky road. Almost always.

DEALING WITH PUSHBACK [22:54]

Paul Barter: One of the things that Donald Trump has talked about over the years is a little bit of frustration, in that he's put forward this call for change. And the [professional] resistance to it is all kinds of passive aggressive, very few people explicitly defending parking mandates. 

But on the ground in places like Austin, you do very much get pushback. Any reflections on that issue of pushback?

Adam Greenfield: One of the key pieces of research that a campaign needs to do as early as possible, I think is to understand what are the local concerns that you've been hearing? What are the local sensitivities? What's the local political culture? Like? What kind of arguments resonate and don't resonate? 

We also reached out to other cities to ask how they passed reform. Did they have any problems after had been passed? We were conscious that Austin, like many cities, likes to see what has happened elsewhere, especially in cities that are similar to us. So on the Austin Parking Reform Coalition website, you'll see a comparison with other cities that have similar density to us similar population to us, similar transit score to us, you know, because people always say, Well, it worked over there, but it wouldn't work here. Some of our peers, very similar to us, had already passed reform, and that and that was very helpful. 

But there are other things as well, you know, we'd heard concerns from people about overflow of parked cars on to neighborhood streets, about parked cars near schools, about how this will impact people with disabilities and low income, community members, and so on and so forth. So we just listened to those arguments and compiled them and made sure we were able to address them.

Paul Barter: I would urge the listener to go take a look at that Austin Parking Reform Coalition website, one section that was particularly striking and relevant. I have forgotten the name of the section. 

Adam Greenfield:  Your Burning Questions.

Leah Bojo: That Burning Questions section was also written in regular language, which I think is something worth pointing out. 

I think those of us who've been really deep in it and who really like the data and are into the nerdiness can forget that to form a coalition you have to be able to talk to regular people about their regular experiences with parking and their regular concerns.

Jay Crossley: I might add there that you do need some nerds! 

One way to portray it is that there was a 13 year game of whack a mole of all the excuses. And we did have different people at different levels, taking people seriously and saying, okay, your concern today is this. And then elaborating responses and actually working through the issue, and actually talk about … [for example] We also are concerned about pedestrian safety on small neighborhood streets. 

And by the time this was a public campaign, the nerds had respected and defeated, at least amongst the policy groups, a lot of these arguments and we were ready.

LINK PARKING REFORM WITH WIDER REFORMS OR DO IT AS A STAND-ALONE REFORM? [25:49]

Paul Barter:  Could I move on to another big strategic question? There's a bunch of cities that I've interviewed people about on this podcast about their parking reforms, and a number of them are like Austin, where there was a full frontal assault on the parking mandates. 

But then there's a cluster of cities, such as Sao Paulo in Brazil, and some municipalities in the Sydney area, where the parking reforms were linked with a wider reform, such as some kind of sustainable transport or an ambitious reform to the whole planning system. And abolishing parking minutes was just part of that. 

Did you consider trying to perhaps attach parking reform to some other popular agenda and pass it in that way? Or you decided to go for it directly?

Jay Crossley: It was originally part of this giant land use reform package (Code Next). And there were attempts to have it in that. 

And for other reasons, that reform package stalled out. However, we would not have achieved this, if that fight hadn't happened during the Code Next reform package. 

So, in some ways, it worked brilliantly for the pure frontal assault on parking mandates that we'd actually been through this fight as part of a giant reform package.

Paul Barter: Okay, interesting. 

Jay Crossley:  Part of this is that at Farm & City we were trying everything we could do. 

There is work on equitable transit oriented development (ETOD) happening in Austin. And those are now moving forward. One of the strategies that we were doing was eliminate parking requirements as part of the TOD within walking distance of transit. And we were educating Council staffers on that concept. 

And we also lead the Vision Zero Texas movement about traffic deaths in Texas. And so we had a particular angle on parking requirements at bars. We had floated a bill at the state legislature, but then had floated this concept at Austin City Council. Then an Austin City Council member, right before the citywide parking mandates reform passed, had passed the ‘get rid of parking requirements at bars’ reform just a couple months before. 

And so there was a suite of approaches happening. But it sort of coalesced around, okay, we're gonna go for it and get rid of the whole thing.

Adam Greenfield:  The context will vary city by city. And it depends. 

Some of our peer cities that passed city wide reform included it in some kind of land use rewrite plan. We did it as a standalone thing. It could be either. 

There was also the issue that I think that probably a lot of campaigns face, how much do we push for? 

Do we go for full removal of mandates citywide? No qualifications, keep it clean, keep it pure, keep it simple. Go for the gold standard. 

Or, reading the political tea leaves, do we we think that right now only removing mandates within half a mile of high capacity transit, or something like that, as possible? 

And we certainly had those debates as well. What should we push for? And we tried to hold the line where we did hold the line, because we want but, you know, we didn't want to give cards away from our hand unless we had to. And if anyone was going to try and take us down a few notches, well, we weren't going to give those cards away easily. 

Leah Bojo: But also don’t be afraid of incrementalism. If you're in a position where you can't get exactly what you want, I would argue get what you can get. Then maybe a little while later, you'll get the rest.

WHICH COMES FIRST OFF-STREET REFORM OR ON-STREET PARKING MANAGEMENT? [29:35]

Paul Barter:  That's a good segue into the next question. 

There's often this question with parking reform of which should come first, abolishing parking mandates or establishing decent on street parking management and other checks and balances to make sure that you've got some answer to the concerns people have. 

In the Austin case, you had this precedent of abolishing mandates downtown as well as adjacent to downtown places like West Campus. 

And some on street parking management improvements were made in West Campus. And I believe, Leah, you were involved there, to create a parking benefit district. 

And more recently, some changes that are happening in South Congress. 

How important were those other things that were happening, that you could point to them and say, look, we did something similar and the sky didn't fall.

Leah Bojo: I think it was part of the whole comprehensive conversation in a way that was really important. 

That early conversation about parking benefit districts in West Campus, it led to a program that's been adopted in several neighborhoods across the city. 

And all of those other parking reform items, such as street patios, all of those items, I think were little notches away at people realizing this is a space. It doesn't have to be used for this. It can be parking. But it could be charged, it could be managed, or it could be something else.

Jay Crossley:  I really think that specifically the West Campus treatment, the university neighborhood overlay that that Lea helped make happen… We certainly were trying to use that with council officers and explain like, look, it's okay. You can figure out parking. You can figure out ways to actually make these people love it. And people love that West Campus has good sidewalks now. And the benefits of the parking benefit district are great. 

But the fact that we had seen these improvements in Austin and a real example, where parking had been decoupled from housing units and things, really helped kind of assuage the fears. 

And so the fact that that that incremental fight had been won a decade ago, and that it actually had worked and improved people's lives, really made this much easier.

Leah Bojo: Much to the many of their surprise.

Paul Barter:  Do you anticipate further parking related campaigns, or is it now more of a sort of something that will happen, perhaps in a more administrative way? 

Parking problems might emerge in areas where there's infill, and a parking benefit district would be the obvious answer, and there would be no need for activists to be involved.

Leah Bojo: Parking benefit districts, which are also called Parking and Transportation Management Districts in Austin, do require council approval. 

The good news is that the first one was quite controversial. And now the most recent one that was approved, I believe, went on the consent agenda with little to no discussion. So again, progress is happening. 

We should be moving more and more of those things to administrative processes. But I think there are still some fights that have to happen. And it will have to happen publicly and I think will have to happen with the help of a coalition if we're going to get our parking under control - both management and production or construction of it.

SUPPORT ACROSS THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM? [32:47]

Paul Barter:  I had one more question about the politics. In the case of Austin, the coalition seems to have been from a more progressive and environmentally-minded and social justice set of agendas.
Did you also draw in any conservative people and organizations into the coalition?

Jay Crossley: The Austin City Council has one Republican member and ten Democrats. So the political reality here is that it was mostly going to be Democrats technically passing this or not. 

But we certainly try to make sure this was not seen as some kind of crazy liberal issue, and to portray it within a reforming bureaucracy to allow markets to provide people with affordable lifestyles and things. I think it's crucial for the movement, that this wasn't done in some kind of partisan way.

Adam Greenfield:  That's one of the many reasons that I so love parking reform, especially specifically removing parking mandates. It is an issue that resonates with people who see themselves on different parts of the political spectrum. 

It was just fascinating talking to the other cities that had passed reform, and hearing what arguments had worked for them. 

I spoke to one small town Mayor just to the east of Austin, a small town called Bastrop. And what resonated for her was the free market. She kept talking about the free market and let that decide. And that was something that resonated over there. 

In another city, it could be something else, but it's just a lot of fun to be able to go to different groups and make the pitch that resonates with them.

IF CAR DEPENDENT AUSTIN CAN ABOLISH PARKING MANDATES, ANY CITY CAN. [34:34]

Adam Greenfield:  Austin is extremely car dependent. And if there are concerns in listener cities that we can't do this because we rely on cars too much, that is probably not a valid excuse because Austin has done it. Now that Austin has done it. You can do it too. 

It's one of the great joys of this is that every domino that falls changes the context for every other campaign. This is just becoming more and more normal. It's becoming more and more common sense. So there's just no good reason, now that Austin has done it, there's no good reason why you can't do it too.

Jay Crossley:  I'll add a funny stat to that. If you look at vehicle miles traveled per capita, Austin is worse than other Texas major metros. Actually, amongst all the Top 50 major metros in the USA, the people of Austin drive more on average than every other major metro other than Atlanta. So only Atlanta drives more than Austin. And we were able to get this done.

WRAP UP [35:43]

Paul Barter:   At least now parking mandates will not be getting in the way of the other things that need to be done in Austin to reduce that VMT. 

It's a great achievement. So congratulations everybody for that win. 

And thank you so much for being on the Reinventing Parking podcast, which is the Parking Reform Network podcast.

Transcribed with the help of https://otter.ai

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