The current, nearly unprecedented, but certainly self-inflicted, disruption of the U.S. economy will, in fact, come to an end starting this year, and the parking market will also return. An obvious question is how will that happen or how do we know it is happening?
This is not a forecast about 'when do we get back to the 2019 economy,’ even though there are relevant parts of that picture to know. More fundamentally, much longer-term factors are in play which emerge in the form of indicators showing that parking demand is alive and well. Important questions include:
What are the essential benchmarks signaling a normalized market and growth in the parking industry?
What do the Demographics of Population Growth really tell us?
How important is the growth of Multiple Vehicle Households, and what will the new car population numbers be?
What does expansion of Parking Inventory (parking garage construction) tell us?
And what about bad news? (Are we even at a point to know if there is bad news?)
But the issue is how these factors will play out in the short-term - what will conditions at the street level look like and will a normalized market be recognizable?
Looking through the lens of parking garage construction for answers, we pick up seven scenarios across the country where parking fits in, or should fit in, and where sometimes there’s pushback.
There's a notion that parking industry can be channeled, curtailed, or daily car-use can otherwise be separated from the household or business establishment. The findings don't support that perspective, if for no other reason than it’s clear that no alternative modes of transportation, at scale, are even being seriously discussed by those who would move away from a private car-based economy.
Dale Denda, Research Director, Parking Market Research Co./PMRC
