Its Black Friday, and that means today is the busiest day of the year for shopping!
In Huntsville, we have parking minimum laws. These laws are meant to ensure that there is enough parking at businesses, but typically these laws have arbitrary minimum parking requirements and require much more parking than is actually necessary. To prove this, I went to multiple retail locations on the busiest day of the year to see if any parking lots were actually full. Remember, today is suppose to be worst case scenario. Every other day of the year will see much fewer spaces occupied.

First we have Academy Sports + Outdoors, photos taken at 10:38am (click on images for higher resolution).

This is a lot of completely unused asphalt. To be specific, its about 22,000 square feet of empty space.

If this space isn’t filled with cars on Black Friday, then when will it be? Excessive asphalt increases building and maintenance costs by 10s of thousands of dollars. It also creates issues during heavy rain storms, as water can’t penetrate the asphalt, causing water to pool up and flood areas.

Next we look at America’s Thrift Store (formally Kroger). Photos taken at 10:45am

This will easily be the most egregious example of excess parking and asphalt we will see today. Barely half the lot is filled, and there is just huge amounts of empty asphalt. Lets look at it from above using Google Earth.

100,000 square feet. Thats the same size as the baseball field at Toyota Field! You can fit grocery stores, houses, hotels, parks, just about anything in this space, but due to parking minimum laws, much of that space can’t be repurposed. Rather than being a large green park, it is required by law to remain as soul crushing asphalt.

Finally, lets look at the largest indoor shopping center in Huntsville, Parkway Place Mall. Photos taken between 10:50am and 11:30am.

Obviously there are a lot more cars at the mall, much of the parking is actually filled, but you still see large swaths of empty asphalt/concrete. Even excluding these large empty areas, there were empty parking spots throughout the parking lot and deck.
What I find most frustrating is that, despite the THOUSANDS of car parking spots, there is not even one bike rack. Nowhere for cyclists to lock up their bikes.

But whats wrong with excessive free parking? Lots of free parking is good, right? Well, there’s the high cost of free parking. Land is a valuable resource, and when land is being used for free parking, that means its not used for something else that generates more value. We can take a look at a parking lot in Providence, for example.

While free parking may benefit some car owners, the result of transforming parking to something more productive can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes alone for the city. Not only does it generate tax revenue, it also decreases building and maintenance costs. Parking lots are not cheap, costing between $5,000 and $50,000 per space.
Even ignoring the monetary value, the spaces can be turned into green spaces, allowing plant life to flourish, making the surrounding area more pleasant to be around. More green spaces also allow for water to absorb into the ground, lessening the chance of flooding during heavy rain storms.

How much parking a business needs should be up to businesses to decide. With the expansions of bike lanes and improved bus service, we now have more ways to travel around the city. With online shopping and work from home, fewer people need to leave their homes to shop and work. Today has shown that parking minimum laws that may have made sense 20 years ago don’t make sense today. Parking minimums should be removed from the zoning codes, freeing up unused space to increase green space and productivity.

Let your local council member know that you want to see parking minimum laws removed from the zoning codes, allowing us to join more than 100 other US cities who have removed their parking minimum laws. You can contact them here https://www.huntsvilleal.gov/government/city-council/

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