We Don’t Have a Parking Problem. We Have a Land-Use Problem.

Rethinking the space we dedicate to storing cars - and what we could do with it instead.

Cities are growing. Land is becoming more expensive. Housing is increasingly difficult to provide, while communities are demanding more green space, amenities and places for people to gather. Yet one of the most valuable resources in any development​—land—is still being consumed by enormous amounts of space dedicated to storing cars.

For decades, the parking conversation has largely been, “How many parking spaces do we need?” From there comes the familiar exercise: How many spaces? How much area? How many levels? How much excavation? How much concrete? How much of the development site needs to be dedicated to parking?

​But what if we started somewhere else?

Maybe it’s time to ask a different question...

​​​What could we do with this land if parking required less of it?
​
​That is a very different question—and it opens up very different possibilities.

---

Parking Takes Up More Than a Parking Space

A conventional parking space isn't simply the rectangle where a vehicle sits. It comes with drive aisles, turning areas, ramps, circulation, access points and structural requirements. Depending on the design, considerable amounts of valuable land and construction are dedicated almost entirely to moving and storing vehicles.
​
For a developer, that space has a real cost. For a city, it has another cost: opportunity.

Every square metre dedicated to parking is a square metre that cannot simultaneously be used for something else. That might be housing, a courtyard, a park, a playground, retail, restaurants, trees, public gathering space—or simply more room for people.

What If Cars Went Vertical?

This is where automated parking becomes particularly interesting.

Instead of spreading vehicles across large horizontal footprints, automated parking systems can use vertical space to store vehicles more efficiently. Vehicles are positioned by mechanical systems rather than relying on drivers to navigate large parking areas.

The result can be a much more compact parking footprint, depending on the site, system and project requirements.

​And that's the important distinction: automated parking isn't just another way to park a car. It can be another way to think about the land underneath a development.

Less Parking Footprint. More Possibilities.

Imagine a development site where the parking requirement remains, but the parking operation occupies less of the valuable footprint. What happens?

Perhaps there is room for additional housing. Perhaps more of the site can become landscaped space. Perhaps a developer can incorporate amenities that would otherwise be compromised. Perhaps a previously difficult site becomes more viable.

Perhaps a community gets something it actually wants instead of another sea of concrete.

​The parking doesn't disappear. The thinking changes.

And The There's the Environmental Question​

Land use isn't just an economic consideration. It's an environmental one.

Large parking footprints can contribute to extensive hard surfaces, urban sprawl and the loss of opportunities for green space. Building more efficiently doesn't solve every environmental challenge associated with development, but using less land for parking can create opportunities to use that land more responsibly.

More trees. More landscaping. More opportunities for green space. More compact development. More thoughtful use of existing urban land.

The goal isn't simply to build more.

​It's to make better use of what we already have.

Our Cities Aren’t Getting More Land

This may be the biggest reason we need to rethink parking.

We can't manufacture more land in the middle of Toronto. We can't make a constrained urban site suddenly become larger. We can't create more developable space simply because a project needs it.

But we can change how intelligently we use the space we have.

​That means challenging some assumptions we've carried forward for decades—including the assumption that parking has to consume as much space as it traditionally has.

The Future Isn’t About Eliminating Cars

Cars aren't disappearing tomorrow. People still need them. Families need them. Workers need them. Businesses need them. Visitors need them.

This isn't an argument against parking.

It's an argument against using more valuable urban space for parking than is necessary when smarter alternatives may exist.

The question isn't whether we need parking.

The question is: Do we need to dedicate this much land to it?

​That's a question worth asking at the beginning of a project—not after the design has already been shaped around conventional parking.

Start With the Land. Then Rethink the Parking.

At Alliance Parking Solutions, we believe parking should be part of the development conversation from the beginning—not an afterthought, not simply a box to check, and not something that automatically dictates the footprint of an entire project.

When parking is approached differently, the possibilities around it can change too.

Because the real opportunity isn't necessarily more parking.

It's more possibilities.

​More homes. More green space. More amenities. More vibrant communities. Less concrete. A smarter use of land. A more thoughtful approach to development.

Parking Reimagined.

For people. For cities. For our future.

---

Have a project where parking is consuming more space than you'd like?

Let's look at it differently.

We work with developers, architects, engineers and planners to explore automated parking solutions that can help make better use of valuable development space.

Let's rethink what's possible.

Explore your parking potential →