New Study Looks at Hidden Environmental Costs of Parking

The price of free parking keeps going up. One cost is painful urban congestion, which is made worse bydrastically under-priced street parking. Another is a relative cost to the environment, which occurs when the near-certain prospect of free (or cheap) parking entices people into their cars and away from alternative forms of transportation. Recently a team of researchers from the University of California at Berkeley, writing in a recent issue of Environmental Research Letters, described a previously unknown cost — energy and emissions that come from building America’s vast parking infrastructure.

This is the beginning of a great piece over on the INFRASTRUCTURIST. I’ve studied the absurdity of our parking policies in the U.S. on a number of occasions and would say it is one of the most under-acknowledged problems our society faces. Excessive and free parking is a life killer.. Check out the INFRASTRUCTURIST’s full piece on the recent study mentioned above here: New Study Reveals the Hidden Environmental Cost of Parking

Photo Credit: jkonrath