Parking in the Time of COVID

Most businesses have felt the economic pain brought about by America's first pandemic in a century, but none that are so normally present in our daily lives as restaurants. I think we all felt the loss of their contribution to our well-being almost immediately.

In response to a new reality that threatened such an integral part of our society, many cities recognized the need to relax parking requirements to give restaurants more space to operate safely.  This emergency measure, brought about by an extreme jolt to our sense of normalcy, recognized that restaurants all of a sudden needed lots more space, and as luck would have it, they have been required to devote acres of it to private vehicle parking.

In suburban and less-tight urban locations, large parking lots have been now been commandeered with canopies, astroturf and outdoor furniture, reclaiming hot asphalt desert as productive income-generating dining space. In denser business districts and historic areas, strips of public streets and sidewalks are being staked off to serve as additional dining space, serving the dual purpose of adding tables and demonstrating to a cautious but hungry public that they are open for business.  The City of New Orleans has introduced its own "Curbside Dining and Parklets" pilot program, saying that "it supports our businesses, it creates safe spaces for physical distancing, and it activates our streets."

Freewheel Parklet, Valencia Street San Francisco - image (C) Mark Hogan

It will be interesting to see as things return to normal, what parts of our society will fully revert to a pre-pandemic "normal", and what parts we were merely just lazily continuing to enact that, upon examination, don't really make all that much business sense.  Will all restaurants look at that field of parking the same way again, having seen its potential as productive income-producing land that they happen to already own?

Absolutely, some will not. In some cases, that parking is very necessary to bring in maximum customers for a fully-functional business model that works where they are located.  But some may say, “our business did not really mind the loss of a few spaces."  And for parking lots built on land that they already own, shouldn't that be up to the business? 

In some neighborhoods, people may miss seeing an active streetscape with diners, drinkers and customers enlivening the scene, with added eyes making their streets safer places.  Sure, it's public right-of-way, but isn't it up to the public how they'd like to use their right-of-way?  Is it really highest-and-best use to devote so much otherwise productive square footage entirely to private vehicles?

Modern zoning imposes parking requirements on all businesses in a very heavy-handed and often outdated manner that is still based on the models and values that in many cases were written for a very different world.  Hopefully our cities will take advantage of this rare opportunity to re-think how they approach their policies that exert a structural impact on where we live.