Vienna swaps parking for green space

World Half Full
Feb 2
4 min read

ENVIRONMENT

Anyone who has had to find a parking spot in a major city knows how frustrating and time-consuming it can be. For instance, Los Angeles residents spend more than 80 hours a year looking for one. And while on their own they don’t take up that much space, parking spots do shape urban landscapes. Most US cities dedicate at least 25% of their landscape to them. Some, even more.

The car doesn’t just determine the way a city looks; it also means covering large swathes of urban areas in heat-absorbing asphalt, which contributes to making summers hotter and heightens the risk of flooding since it prevents drainage during storms and heavy rainfall.

As a result, some municipal officials are now beginning to rethink parking’s priority status — and what it means for how people get around.

Long renowned among residents for slow-crawling traffic and infuriating parking hunts, the Austrian capital of Vienna is taking an unusual approach to solving the problem. Far from adding new carparks, it is removing on-street parking.

The idea is to break up concrete, not only to cool things off in summer but to encourage alternative transport options.

With more than 350 projects converting asphalt into green and public spaces, the city is removing a lot of parking, even in the central Neuer Markt, which is next to some of its biggest tourist attractions. Once characterised by rows of parking spaces, the area has been pedestrianised and filled with trees and seating for locals and visitors. And one of Vienna’s central arteries has been converted into a Dutch-inspired cycling street, where 140 parking spots have made way for 1.3 kms of bike lanes and gardens.

These more sweeping remodelling efforts have also paved the way for ‘neighbourhood oasis’ projects that enable groups of residents to petition local governments to convert individual parking spots. This makes space for community gardens, outdoor dining areas, and children’s playgrounds.

And there’s been another big change: no more free parking, anywhere. In 2022, Vienna introduced a citywide parking management system, meaning all street parking is subject to payment, and for non-residents to a two-hour limit.

While these shifts haven’t made parking in the centre of Vienna a pleasant experience, the city has still ensured that drivers have options. It’s set up several park-and-rides for commuters — large parking garages with cheap all-day parking connected directly to public transport, which is also affordable, well-connected and fast.

Ensuring residents can still get around is vital to winning public support for these shifts. “We have to take people on board,” says Ina Homeier, a planner at Vienna’s Department of Urban Planning and Development. “We have to ask: how do you want your neighbourhood? Do you want it to be filled with cars and without any trees, or do you want something different?”

Expanding paid parking zones brings in €180 million annually, which the city puts directly into cycling infrastructure. It’s led to residents using their cars 37% less than they did in the 1990s.

And though polling indicates that more than two-thirds of the city’s residents favour reducing parking and establishing more green spaces, she believes more people need to be won over.

“There’s been very complicated politics around taking back some of the space we’ve accorded the automobile, because for people who drive — and many people have no choice but to do so — it’s considered an attack on their livelihoods and the way they get around,” notes Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.

And other cities are trying it too, including some in car-crazy America. Dallas, Texas, recently converted a sprawling downtown carpark into a 1.5-ha public park and cities such as New York and San Francisco have experimented with making pandemic-era transformations that saw parking spots converted into on-street pop-up seating for restaurants into permanent fixtures.

Meanwhile, increasing street parking prices can both reduce demand and raise revenue.

“There are lots of cities that are starting to realise the opportunity that parking offers for cities that have relatively limited budgets,” says Dana Yanocha, a researcher at the Washington, DC-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. “Streets are essentially one of the most valuable assets cities have.”

She also notes that other major US cities such as San Jose, California and Austin, Texas are beginning to eliminate municipal zoning requirements that demand all new construction includes a minimum number of parking spots. This frees up developers to dedicate more space to housing or other amenities and also helps to shift expectations about urban car use.

But ultimately, Homeier says changing mindsets is all about ensuring choice. “You cannot reduce anything without offering a good alternative. That’s true in general, but especially for cars, which many people feel they have a right to have. You need to offer a cheap and better alternative.”