Too Much of a Good Thing? the Case of Car Parking in Rotterdam the Influence of Parking Policy and Parking Distribution on Mode Share
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WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH CENTRE, MUE LAND-USE PLANNING THESIS: LUP80436 Too much of a good thing? The case of car parking in Rotterdam The influence of parking policy and parking distribution on mode share Reuben van Bemmel-Misrachi 900803048080 June 2015 Abstract: In recent years, there has been a renewed focus on car parking policy as a facilitator of automobile use. This thesis examines the policies and legislative requirements concerning car parking in the municipality of Rotterdam and the province of South Holland. This thesis will then analyse the composition of car parking in six key locations within the city of Rotterdam, substantiating the question of whether or not proximity to public transport and distance from the city centre matters in terms of car parking quantities. The results of this paper indicate that there are no clear patterns of car parking composition in Rotterdam in spite of what policies the municipality deploys to ensure a set quantity of car parking. Indeed, there is little evidence to suggest that either the current car parking policy nor the composition of the car parking itself is consistent with the need to curb car use in Rotterdam. This thesis concludes with recommendations on how the municipality and province might better approach car parking management in the future with an eye to effect a mode shift away from the automobile. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors Claudia and Hamzah for their assistance during my initial periods of frustration and confusion; and to my parents, for their enduring support, emotionally and grammatically (special thanks to my father, Eric for his eye for detail when scrutinising my writing). I would like to thank my girlfriend, housemates and chickens for their amusements and distractions during intense periods of thesis-focus. I would also like to pay special thanks to Raymond van de Wel and Roland van der Heijden of Gemeente Rotterdam for their tireless help in assisting me with the agony of ArcMap and inconsistent data quality. Without them, this project would have never gotten off the ground. Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Background ................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Research motivation ..................................................................................................................................................... 4 Problem description ...................................................................................................................................................... 5 Research questions ....................................................................................................................................................... 7 Outline of structure ....................................................................................................................................................... 7 Theoretical framework and literature review ................................................................................................................... 9 Non-vehicular mode share: land use factors ................................................................................................................ 9 SNAMUTS – public transport quality .......................................................................................................................... 10 Non-vehicular mode share - human factors ............................................................................................................... 11 Car parking - the missing factor .................................................................................................................................. 13 Early concerns about car parking ................................................................................................................................ 14 Off-street private parking - reinforcing driving ........................................................................................................... 15 Barter’s typologies of parking ..................................................................................................................................... 17 Self-selection and land use ......................................................................................................................................... 18 The case of Rotterdam .................................................................................................................................................... 20 Land use and urban structure ..................................................................................................................................... 20 Rotterdam and mode share ........................................................................................................................................ 21 Rotterdam resident views ........................................................................................................................................... 24 Methods section ............................................................................................................................................................. 28 RQ1: What are the policies governing the availability and pricing of car parking and providing incentives for travellers to use alternative travel modes? ................................................................................................................ 31 Data used ................................................................................................................................................................ 32 Sampling procedure and analysis ........................................................................................................................... 32 1 Research Question 2: How is car parking proportioned at different distances from Metro stations and Rotterdam’s urban centre? .............................................................................................................................................................. 33 Data used ................................................................................................................................................................ 34 Sampling procedure and analysis ........................................................................................................................... 35 Limitations and Challenges ......................................................................................................................................... 38 Primary data gathering ........................................................................................................................................... 38 Time constraints ...................................................................................................................................................... 39 Comparing different data sets ................................................................................................................................ 39 Results ............................................................................................................................................................................. 40 RQ1: What are the policies governing the availability and pricing of car parking and providing incentives for travellers to use alternative travel modes? ................................................................................................................ 40 Municipality policy .................................................................................................................................................. 40 Minimum parking requirements – municipality regulation .................................................................................... 42 Provincial policy ...................................................................................................................................................... 43 On-street parking fee distribution .......................................................................................................................... 44 Parking pressure and fees ....................................................................................................................................... 46 Parking garage location, capacity and fees ............................................................................................................. 50 Fees and duration ................................................................................................................................................... 54 RQ2: How is car parking proportioned at different distances from Metro Stations and Rotterdam’s urban centre? .................................................................................................................................................................................... 56 Parking proportions ...............................................................................................................................................