The New Parking: your compass for better parking policy
Integrated parking policy is a lever with positive effects on our liveability, road safety, spatial quality and mobility. In a white paper, Mobiel 21 offers local and Flemish policymakers a compass to work on such an integrated parking policy.
Parking policy as a lever
Parking is a complex and sensitive issue. Adjustments to parking policy are politically difficult, which often leaves policy languishing on the spot. This is a pity, because parking policy is a lever for better local mobility and space policy.
Parking policy is more than just storing cars. A good parking policy leaves more room for other functions of public space. This ensures fewer conflicts between motorists and other road users, but also that there is less air and noise pollution in residential areas.
In this way, parking policy therefore also has an impact on liveability, road safety, spatial quality and mobility.
A parking compass for policymakers
Yet not everyone is sufficiently aware of the leverage parking policy has within all these domains. Many cities and municipalities lack a future-oriented parking policy. And at the Flemish level too, the Parking Vademecum has not been updated since 2007.
Based on insights from parking audits in various Flemish cities and municipalities, Mobiel 21 compiles recommendations and improvement actions in the white paper 'Het Nieuwe Parkeren', as a kind of parking compass for policymakers, mobility experts and relevant stakeholders such as building promoters. The whitepaper offers cities and municipalities tools to rethink their parking policies, and can also be seen as an impetus to update the outdated vade mecum.
Parking measures with impact
Specifically, the white paper covers seven aspects of parking policy in which cities and towns can take action and make a difference. These include aspects such as street parking, parking revenue, parking standards, parking data, enforcement, nature inclusivity and the balance between parking and electric charging.
Each aspect starts from an identification of what is going wrong, and then offers possible measures and alternatives. In the various aspects, we also emphasise the distinction between central cities and smaller municipalities, which often do not yet have a specific parking strategy or are still searching for one.
Did you know...
Vlaanderen ruim 7 miljoen parkeerplaatsen telt? Dat zijn meer parkeerplaatsen dan Vlamingen.
Getting to work on parking policy
The insights, recommendations and improvement actions in the white paper show that different stakeholders, policy domains and policy levels can take steps to achieve an integrated parking policy, thus realising ambitions in terms of liveability, road safety, spatial quality and mobility. So let's use parking policy as a lever for positive change.
Does your city or municipality want to implement an integrated parking policy? Would your organisation like to help think about the future of parking policy in Flanders? Contact us, and together we will see how we can turn ambition into action.
Parking audits in Flemish cities and towns
To help municipalities evaluate, adjust and rethink their parking policies as part of a sustainable mobility policy, the European project Park4SUMP developed a unique audit method: ParkPAD. This innovative tool brings stakeholders, politicians and officials together to evaluate existing parking policies, define ambitions and draw up an action plan with concrete measures.
In Flanders - after pioneers Sint-Niklaas and Kortrijk - eight municipalities have already started using the audit. Boom, Geel, Genk, Londerzeel, Malle, Mortsel, Puurs-Sint-Amands and Riemst carried out a ParkPAD audit with the support of the Mobility and Public Works Department of the Flemish government.
Mobiel 21 supervised those audits, and has now compiled the collected insights into a whitepaper.
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