The average free parking space costs more than the average car, according to Donald Shoup, an expert on this topic.

Shoup will present evidence of parking's true, and often hidden, costs at the second event in the 2006 Urban Sustainability Forum:

“The High Cost of Free Parking”
Thursday, March 2, 2006, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
UW Architecture Hall, Room 147
Free event; no registration required
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FEATURING:  Donald Shoup
Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA

According to Shoup, when we shop, dine out, or see a movie, we pay indirectly for parking because its cost is included in the price of everything from hamburgers to housing. He will demonstrate that free parking has other costs: it distorts transportation choices, warps urban form, and degrades the environment.

Shoup estimates that if all U.S. parking spaces were combined into one surface lot, it would be the size of Connecticut. He also says that every year we spend as much to subsidize off-street parking as we spend for Medicare or national defense.

An instructor of transportation, land use, public finance, and urban economics, Donald Shoup has served both as Chair of the UCLA Department of Urban Planning and as Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies. Shoup's recent research has centered on parking as a key link between land use and transportation. His book, The High Cost of Free Parking, was published by the American Planning Association in 2005.

The Donald Shoup event is part of the UW College of Architecture and Urban Planning's PRAXIS Lecture Series and is co-sponsored by Seattle City Planning and the Seattle Department of Transportation.

About the Urban Sustainability Forum
This event is part of the 2006 Urban Sustainability Forum, a series of energizing public dialogues on transforming Seattle into a 21st century city that is climate-neutral, pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented, community-focused and sustainably designed.

Featuring nationally and internationally recognized leaders in sustainable community development, the Urban Sustainability Forum provides an opportunity for Seattle business leaders and citizens to discuss urban sustainability issues and create a shared vision for the future. The forum is sponsored by City of Seattle, BetterBricks, ULI Seattle, Cascadia Chapter USGBC.