King County Metro and a team of partners have completed a new online calculator  to help measure parking demand  for multifamily projects in the Seattle-Bellevue area.  This “Right Size Parking” calculator aims to reduce over-building of parking supply in urban King County based on local and context-sensitive data on parking demand.  

According to the Right Size Parking website: “The calculator can help analysts, planners, developers, and community members weigh factors that will affect parking use at multi-family housing sites. It will help them consider how much parking is ‘just enough’ when making economic, regulatory, and community decisions about development.”

Current one-size-fits-all parking policies have contributed to an over-allocation of urban land to parking.  A “Right Size Parking” approach would make more efficient use of urban land, reduce barriers to building mixed-use multi-family residential development in urban centers, reduce housing costs, and contribute to reductions in vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gases.   

For related research on Right Size Parking approaches see King County Metro’s Right Size Parking project page.