Parking and Curb Management

Parking and curb management is a necessary but often overlooked part of the city’s transportation system. It includes both off-street parking (public and private lots, garages, etc.) and curb or on-street parking. It also covers other uses of the curb, such as pick-up/drop-off, loading, parklets, outdoor dining, bike/scooter parking, and other street landscaping and amenities.

The city manages parking and curbs by regulating on-street parking, regulating private development (through the Zoning and Development Code), overseeing city-owned parking lots or garages, and coordinating with private-sector parking garage/lot owners. Like many cities its size, Kansas City’s biggest challenge with automobile parking is that dense, urban areas can’t provide enough parking at individual destinations to accommodate everyone driving during the busiest times. Over the past half century, the city addressed this problem by adding more parking. But adding free parking didn’t satisfy demand. Instead, demand increased because the city had made parking easier by subsidizing the costs, in dollars and in time. This created a self-reinforcing loop that required ever more parking. In short, the result of subsidized driving was more driving.

Without comparable improvements to transit services, driving personal vehicles quickly overtook public transit use and other modes of transportation in Kansas City. It also resulted in a landscape with an excessive number of parking lots that are mostly empty during the day. This is not profitable for private landowners, and it’s not aligned with the city’s goals for a sustainable and equitable future.

Consider Downtown Kansas City, which has the highest density of residents, workers, and visitors in the region. The maps below show just how much of the urban fabric has been impacted by parking. The Greater Downtown area historically was almost fully occupied by buildings serving residents, workers, and shoppers. Later, the city cleared out hotels, housing, and businesses to ease congestion and reduce urban blight. Now, approximately one-third of all the private land in Greater Downtown is occupied by parking, an economically unproductive land use by historic or modern standards.

High-density urban areas aren’t the only places with parking challenges. Urban or mixed-use centers, large employer or institutional campuses, sports and entertainment venues, suburban shopping areas, and residential neighborhoods are affected as well.

At approximately 300 gross square feet needed per parking space, parking takes up a significant amount of urban space. Two parking stalls are roughly the same size as a small apartment. This space requirement increases the cost of infill housing development, which often means higher rents and lower profit margins for developers. As the city works to provide more transportation choices that reduce dependency on privately owned automobiles, it can reduce parking and create more vibrant, equitable, and economically productive places.

The service and delivery economy has expanded, especially in mixed-use and urban areas. That means it’s increasingly important to manage curb space, whether it’s used for parking, home delivery, ride-share drop-off or pick-up, loading for businesses, transit stops, or parklets. Allowing multiple uses of the curb will balance those needs, encourage turnover of parked vehicles, and prioritize the safety of all road users. See below for an illustration of the contrast between a single-use curb (for parking only) and a shared-use curb (for more users).

Parking is not just an economic issue. The surfaces of most parking structures are impervious, which can contribute to excessive stormwater runoff and the urban heat-island effect, both which will worsen with climate change.

The Parking and Curb Management Objective will use strategies that:

  • Are sensitive to an area’s context and will align with the needs of an area, based on its density
  • Avoid creating excessive amounts of parking, which can be costly fiscally and in terms of lost opportunity
  • Coordinate shared parking, both between private property owners and between private owners and the city
  • Create a balanced approach to managing the use of curb spaces and on-street parking
  • Transform public parking garages and curbs from an ongoing debt liability to an asset
  • Use the city’s full range of policy tools and resources, including the development code, tax incentives, and capital asset management and investment


INDICATORS OF SUCCESS

Successful implementation of this Objective will create a safe, easily navigated, and equitable system of public and private parking areas. It will reduce the amount of valuable land that is being underutilized because it is occupied by surface parking. It will create more appropriate parking requirements for new and infill development projects. There will be enough parking to meet demand but not so much that parking lots are mostly empty most of the time. Curb spaces will be efficiently designed to meet the needs, such as making deliveries or hailing a ride, of everyone who uses them.


BENEFITS

  • Increased funds for neighborhood improvements by implementing parking benefit districts (PBDs)
  • More shared parking resources, reducing overall need
  • More available space for dense development, parks, and preserved open space
  • More area with permeable surfaces
  • Mitigation of climate change issues such as stormwater runoff and heat-island effect
  • Reduced subsidies for driving will make alternative, more sustainable mobility options more attractive to people
  • Lower city subsidies for public and private parking structures
  • Less congestion and driver frustration when curb space is allocated for transit stops, mobility hubs, parking, delivery zones, and ride hailing zones
  • Less impact from parking on public areas, resulting in vibrant, beautiful, walkable urban districts


CONTEXT

Kansas City has a significant amount of parking, but there is often a perceived scarcity because of management and coordination issues. Kansas City has made strides in changing zoning code and public parking policies to encourage smarter use of its existing supply of parking.

For more context, click HERE.


MEASURES OF SUCCESS

  • Public garage, lot, and curb subsidy; by area type (decrease)
  • Surface parking lot area; by area type (decrease)


KEY CONCEPTS

Zoning and development review

The City Plan Commission (CPC) and City Council should consider further reducing or eliminating minimum off-street parking requirements, expanding maximum off-street parking requirements, and developing additional use or development standards for off-street parking (i.e., standards to regulate whether non-accessory parking and standards for site design and layout of off-street parking).

Development standards should incorporate strategies to reduce stormwater runoff and urban heat-island effects to help mitigate impacts of climate change expected in Kansas City. Certain provisions could be applied citywide (such as reducing or eliminating off-street parking requirements). Others could be applied to certain areas, using base zoning districts or overlays. The city should engage communities and stakeholders on context-specific issues during the area planning process or other corridor or small area planning activities.

Public parking and curb management

The domain of the city’s Parking and Transportation Commission covers downtown streets but should be expanded to parts of the city that have similar challenges. The city can adopt a universal set of policy tools, such as demand-based pricing; multimodal curb management strategies (including transit stops, curb parking, deliveries, parklets, and more); or residential parking permit programs. Stakeholder-driven commissions in smaller areas could use residential parking permit programs (for example, there could be separate commissions for the Greater Downtown Area and for the Midtown-Plaza area).

Following the model of parking benefits districts, revenue from parking programs could be spent on public improvements such as sidewalks, street maintenance, street trees and additional transit service in the areas where it’s generated. Investments in clearer parking signs, additional parking wayfinding, and integrated parking data can help areas with scarce parking manage their existing parking supply more effectively.

Private sector incentives and coordination

The city can influence private investment in parking by connecting private developers and adjusting and monitoring incentives. To influence private investment in parking, the city can play a coordinating role between private developers (for example, by introducing a developer of multifamily homes to the owner of a garage that mainly serves daytime office employees). It can create agreements with private developers to use underused city garages. It can allow private garage owners to use the city’s online parking and payments platform so people looking for parking have a single user experience.

Outside incentives agencies (many governed by city-elected or -appointed officials) also can encourage better parking policies. These agencies could explicitly evaluate and discourage using incentives for structured parking and encourage developments that are under-parked and offer transit and shared-mobility amenities, decreasing the need for automobiles. These agencies could incorporate shared parking agreements for structured parking in incentivized projects.


COMMUNITY SUPPORTED ACTIONS (CSAs)


Zoning and development review
PM-1
Explore reducing or eliminating minimum off-street parking requirements and expanding maximum off-street parking requirements. Certain provisions could be applied citywide, while others should only be applied to certain areas (transit corridors or other areas where a walkable development pattern is desired). All requirements should support the context and goals for specific neighborhoods and should minimize impacts on adjacent neighborhoods with limited parking. Consideration should be given to transitioning or phasing new parking requirements. Community and stakeholder engagement on context-specific issues should occur through the area planning processes or other corridor or small area planning.
PM-2
Expand off-street parking maximum limits to more transit-oriented development areas.
PM-3
Expand limitations of non-accessory parking lots from current restrictions along Parkways and Boulevards to other urban districts as identified through area planning process.
PM-4
Review and expand urban design standards for surface parking lots. Surface parking lots should be located behind buildings and other active uses, and primary building entrances should be oriented toward the street or a walkway, not the parking lot. Screening and landscaping standards, stormwater BMPs, and other strategies to lessen the environmental impact of surface parking should also be employed. The applicability of these standards may vary based on the area’s context.
PM-5
Review and expand urban design standards for structured parking. Parking garages in urban areas should incorporate active residential or commercial uses, particularly on the ground floor. The city should change parking garage standards to promote adaptive reuse as parking demand decreases (for example, by requiring a minimum floor space or flat parking decks to allow for future conversion).
PM-6
Review and revise standards for short-term and long-term bicycle or scooter parking to make sure that it meets modern needs and is aligned with city mode share policy goals.


Public parking and curb management
PM-7
Expand downtown’s Parking and Transportation Commission to serve more TOD areas (this could be an expanded commission or multiple area-specific commissions), following the Parking Benefits District model.
PM-8
Convert commercial areas and high parking demand areas to paid on-street parking with demand-responsive pricing and use parking program proceeds to improve public services.
PM-9
Evaluate more locations for mobility hubs, parklets, dedicated transit stops, TNC drop-off/pick-up, and home and business delivery loading. Adopt wayfinding, regulatory street signs, curb and pavement markings, and digital tools to make curb rules as clear as possible. Use an open data standard (such as CurbLR or the Curb Data Standard) to make parking rules easier to access in navigation applications in smart phones and connected vehicles.
PM-10
Improve non-criminal enforcement of illegal parking and loading activities by coordinating between the Public Works Department and KCPD.
PM-11
Eliminate peak-hour restrictions for on-street parking.


Review highway connections with rail, maritime, and air freight nodes
PM-12
Review the incentive policies related to parking so that the city is not losing potential tax revenue by subsidizing excessive parking.
PM-13
Reposition publicly owned garages to be used more often and by more adjacent uses, to charge for rates closer to actual costs (including operations and debt service), and to rely less on General Fund subsidies.
PM-14
Develop area-specific parking management plans that identify parking resources and encourage private lot owners to share their parking with nearby properties and allowing lot owners to market their parking in the city’s parking platform (currently ParkSmartKC).


RELATED LINKS

  • Desirable Place
  • Innovation and Creativity
  • Mobility Options
  • Sustainable Growth and Resilient City
  • Thriving Economy
  • Walkable, Clean, and Safe
  • Citywide Accessibility
  • Community Collaboration
  • Complete Communities
  • Inclusive Design
  • Providing Services
  • Welcoming Spaces
Related Plans and Policies
Major citywide or regional plans
Other studies and plans


Parking and curb management is a necessary but often overlooked part of the city’s transportation system. It includes both off-street parking (public and private lots, garages, etc.) and curb or on-street parking. It also covers other uses of the curb, such as pick-up/drop-off, loading, parklets, outdoor dining, bike/scooter parking, and other street landscaping and amenities.

The city manages parking and curbs by regulating on-street parking, regulating private development (through the Zoning and Development Code), overseeing city-owned parking lots or garages, and coordinating with private-sector parking garage/lot owners. Like many cities its size, Kansas City’s biggest challenge with automobile parking is that dense, urban areas can’t provide enough parking at individual destinations to accommodate everyone driving during the busiest times. Over the past half century, the city addressed this problem by adding more parking. But adding free parking didn’t satisfy demand. Instead, demand increased because the city had made parking easier by subsidizing the costs, in dollars and in time. This created a self-reinforcing loop that required ever more parking. In short, the result of subsidized driving was more driving.

Without comparable improvements to transit services, driving personal vehicles quickly overtook public transit use and other modes of transportation in Kansas City. It also resulted in a landscape with an excessive number of parking lots that are mostly empty during the day. This is not profitable for private landowners, and it’s not aligned with the city’s goals for a sustainable and equitable future.

Consider Downtown Kansas City, which has the highest density of residents, workers, and visitors in the region. The maps below show just how much of the urban fabric has been impacted by parking. The Greater Downtown area historically was almost fully occupied by buildings serving residents, workers, and shoppers. Later, the city cleared out hotels, housing, and businesses to ease congestion and reduce urban blight. Now, approximately one-third of all the private land in Greater Downtown is occupied by parking, an economically unproductive land use by historic or modern standards.

High-density urban areas aren’t the only places with parking challenges. Urban or mixed-use centers, large employer or institutional campuses, sports and entertainment venues, suburban shopping areas, and residential neighborhoods are affected as well.

At approximately 300 gross square feet needed per parking space, parking takes up a significant amount of urban space. Two parking stalls are roughly the same size as a small apartment. This space requirement increases the cost of infill housing development, which often means higher rents and lower profit margins for developers. As the city works to provide more transportation choices that reduce dependency on privately owned automobiles, it can reduce parking and create more vibrant, equitable, and economically productive places.

The service and delivery economy has expanded, especially in mixed-use and urban areas. That means it’s increasingly important to manage curb space, whether it’s used for parking, home delivery, ride-share drop-off or pick-up, loading for businesses, transit stops, or parklets. Allowing multiple uses of the curb will balance those needs, encourage turnover of parked vehicles, and prioritize the safety of all road users. See below for an illustration of the contrast between a single-use curb (for parking only) and a shared-use curb (for more users).

Parking is not just an economic issue. The surfaces of most parking structures are impervious, which can contribute to excessive stormwater runoff and the urban heat-island effect, both which will worsen with climate change.

The Parking and Curb Management Objective will use strategies that:

  • Are sensitive to an area’s context and will align with the needs of an area, based on its density
  • Avoid creating excessive amounts of parking, which can be costly fiscally and in terms of lost opportunity
  • Coordinate shared parking, both between private property owners and between private owners and the city
  • Create a balanced approach to managing the use of curb spaces and on-street parking
  • Transform public parking garages and curbs from an ongoing debt liability to an asset
  • Use the city’s full range of policy tools and resources, including the development code, tax incentives, and capital asset management and investment


INDICATORS OF SUCCESS

Successful implementation of this Objective will create a safe, easily navigated, and equitable system of public and private parking areas. It will reduce the amount of valuable land that is being underutilized because it is occupied by surface parking. It will create more appropriate parking requirements for new and infill development projects. There will be enough parking to meet demand but not so much that parking lots are mostly empty most of the time. Curb spaces will be efficiently designed to meet the needs, such as making deliveries or hailing a ride, of everyone who uses them.


BENEFITS

  • Increased funds for neighborhood improvements by implementing parking benefit districts (PBDs)
  • More shared parking resources, reducing overall need
  • More available space for dense development, parks, and preserved open space
  • More area with permeable surfaces
  • Mitigation of climate change issues such as stormwater runoff and heat-island effect
  • Reduced subsidies for driving will make alternative, more sustainable mobility options more attractive to people
  • Lower city subsidies for public and private parking structures
  • Less congestion and driver frustration when curb space is allocated for transit stops, mobility hubs, parking, delivery zones, and ride hailing zones
  • Less impact from parking on public areas, resulting in vibrant, beautiful, walkable urban districts


CONTEXT

Kansas City has a significant amount of parking, but there is often a perceived scarcity because of management and coordination issues. Kansas City has made strides in changing zoning code and public parking policies to encourage smarter use of its existing supply of parking.

For more context, click HERE.


MEASURES OF SUCCESS

  • Public garage, lot, and curb subsidy; by area type (decrease)
  • Surface parking lot area; by area type (decrease)


KEY CONCEPTS

Zoning and development review

The City Plan Commission (CPC) and City Council should consider further reducing or eliminating minimum off-street parking requirements, expanding maximum off-street parking requirements, and developing additional use or development standards for off-street parking (i.e., standards to regulate whether non-accessory parking and standards for site design and layout of off-street parking).

Development standards should incorporate strategies to reduce stormwater runoff and urban heat-island effects to help mitigate impacts of climate change expected in Kansas City. Certain provisions could be applied citywide (such as reducing or eliminating off-street parking requirements). Others could be applied to certain areas, using base zoning districts or overlays. The city should engage communities and stakeholders on context-specific issues during the area planning process or other corridor or small area planning activities.

Public parking and curb management

The domain of the city’s Parking and Transportation Commission covers downtown streets but should be expanded to parts of the city that have similar challenges. The city can adopt a universal set of policy tools, such as demand-based pricing; multimodal curb management strategies (including transit stops, curb parking, deliveries, parklets, and more); or residential parking permit programs. Stakeholder-driven commissions in smaller areas could use residential parking permit programs (for example, there could be separate commissions for the Greater Downtown Area and for the Midtown-Plaza area).

Following the model of parking benefits districts, revenue from parking programs could be spent on public improvements such as sidewalks, street maintenance, street trees and additional transit service in the areas where it’s generated. Investments in clearer parking signs, additional parking wayfinding, and integrated parking data can help areas with scarce parking manage their existing parking supply more effectively.

Private sector incentives and coordination

The city can influence private investment in parking by connecting private developers and adjusting and monitoring incentives. To influence private investment in parking, the city can play a coordinating role between private developers (for example, by introducing a developer of multifamily homes to the owner of a garage that mainly serves daytime office employees). It can create agreements with private developers to use underused city garages. It can allow private garage owners to use the city’s online parking and payments platform so people looking for parking have a single user experience.

Outside incentives agencies (many governed by city-elected or -appointed officials) also can encourage better parking policies. These agencies could explicitly evaluate and discourage using incentives for structured parking and encourage developments that are under-parked and offer transit and shared-mobility amenities, decreasing the need for automobiles. These agencies could incorporate shared parking agreements for structured parking in incentivized projects.


COMMUNITY SUPPORTED ACTIONS (CSAs)


Zoning and development review
PM-1
Explore reducing or eliminating minimum off-street parking requirements and expanding maximum off-street parking requirements. Certain provisions could be applied citywide, while others should only be applied to certain areas (transit corridors or other areas where a walkable development pattern is desired). All requirements should support the context and goals for specific neighborhoods and should minimize impacts on adjacent neighborhoods with limited parking. Consideration should be given to transitioning or phasing new parking requirements. Community and stakeholder engagement on context-specific issues should occur through the area planning processes or other corridor or small area planning.
PM-2
Expand off-street parking maximum limits to more transit-oriented development areas.
PM-3
Expand limitations of non-accessory parking lots from current restrictions along Parkways and Boulevards to other urban districts as identified through area planning process.
PM-4
Review and expand urban design standards for surface parking lots. Surface parking lots should be located behind buildings and other active uses, and primary building entrances should be oriented toward the street or a walkway, not the parking lot. Screening and landscaping standards, stormwater BMPs, and other strategies to lessen the environmental impact of surface parking should also be employed. The applicability of these standards may vary based on the area’s context.
PM-5
Review and expand urban design standards for structured parking. Parking garages in urban areas should incorporate active residential or commercial uses, particularly on the ground floor. The city should change parking garage standards to promote adaptive reuse as parking demand decreases (for example, by requiring a minimum floor space or flat parking decks to allow for future conversion).
PM-6
Review and revise standards for short-term and long-term bicycle or scooter parking to make sure that it meets modern needs and is aligned with city mode share policy goals.


Public parking and curb management
PM-7
Expand downtown’s Parking and Transportation Commission to serve more TOD areas (this could be an expanded commission or multiple area-specific commissions), following the Parking Benefits District model.
PM-8
Convert commercial areas and high parking demand areas to paid on-street parking with demand-responsive pricing and use parking program proceeds to improve public services.
PM-9
Evaluate more locations for mobility hubs, parklets, dedicated transit stops, TNC drop-off/pick-up, and home and business delivery loading. Adopt wayfinding, regulatory street signs, curb and pavement markings, and digital tools to make curb rules as clear as possible. Use an open data standard (such as CurbLR or the Curb Data Standard) to make parking rules easier to access in navigation applications in smart phones and connected vehicles.
PM-10
Improve non-criminal enforcement of illegal parking and loading activities by coordinating between the Public Works Department and KCPD.
PM-11
Eliminate peak-hour restrictions for on-street parking.


Review highway connections with rail, maritime, and air freight nodes
PM-12
Review the incentive policies related to parking so that the city is not losing potential tax revenue by subsidizing excessive parking.
PM-13
Reposition publicly owned garages to be used more often and by more adjacent uses, to charge for rates closer to actual costs (including operations and debt service), and to rely less on General Fund subsidies.
PM-14
Develop area-specific parking management plans that identify parking resources and encourage private lot owners to share their parking with nearby properties and allowing lot owners to market their parking in the city’s parking platform (currently ParkSmartKC).


RELATED LINKS

  • Desirable Place
  • Innovation and Creativity
  • Mobility Options
  • Sustainable Growth and Resilient City
  • Thriving Economy
  • Walkable, Clean, and Safe
  • Citywide Accessibility
  • Community Collaboration
  • Complete Communities
  • Inclusive Design
  • Providing Services
  • Welcoming Spaces
Related Plans and Policies
Major citywide or regional plans
Other studies and plans


Page last updated: 11 Jan 2024, 11:06 AM