Mise En Place - Curb Management

Curb Management

February 23, 2024

The curb has always been a valuable (although perhaps undervalued) city asset, particularly as it relates to on-street parking. It has been nearly 20 years since Donald Shoup, UCLA urban planning professor, published The High Cost of Free Parking, a much discussed (sometimes controversial) book highlighting the impacts of municipal zoning and parking policies on land use and congestion. Over the last five+ years, the curb reemerged as a star of the urban transportation show with the arrival of Transportation Network Companies (TNCs, e.g., Uber/Lyft), increased demand from online retailers (a.k.a., Amazon), the much anticipated introduction of autonomous vehicles into the mainstream, the pandemic and rise of food delivery app services like DoorDash and UberEats and use of the curb area for outdoor dining, and traditional curb interests such as bus lanes, bicycle lanes, and on-street parking (now, with app payment and dynamic pricing!). The following series of articles provide some context, highlight the challenge in curbside data collection, and introduce frameworks where cities can make sense of their curbside needs and prioritize uses.

--Albert Ng, Senior Manager for Transportation, Urban District Initiatives

New Gridlock in America: The Fight for Curb Space

This WSJ article highlights the means and methods municipalities were using to curb (pun intended) traffic congestion, the result of curb use oversubscription in pre-pandemic 2019. The article explains that the rise in e-commerce (particularly around the holiday season) increased three-fold in the previous ten years and exacerbated the issues at the curb and resulting on-street congestion.

Link to Article

Poor Curb Management Is Costing Cities Billions

The American Planning Association (APA) published a series of articles Planning Magazine called "The Billion Dollar Curb" series. This first article of the series summarizes data from a nationwide survey of how municipalities value their on-street parking spaces. Their conclusions are consistent across all municipalities and are intuitive: we greatly undervalue our curb asset.

Link to Article

Can Technology Help Cities Manage Curbs Better?

One of the conclusions from the APA article above is that technology will be able to help municipalities with the very real challenge of collecting and leveraging data to understand the extent of their curbside challenge. This NY Times article highlights three technology-based companies that are helping cities with this issue: one that senses the presence of cars at the curb and provides this real-time data to dynamically price spaces based on demand and helps space-seekers easily locate available parking to decrease "cruising", another that uses cameras and AI to track usage, and finally a service that enables delivery fleets to "reserve" on-street loading spots.

Link to Article

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Create a Curb-Management Framework in 7 Steps

The third article in the "The Billion Dollar Curb" walks readers through how to set up a curb management framework plan to better define, measure and implement their goals and priorities. They include examples from Sarasota, Boston, and Columbus.

Link to Article

Curb Management Action Plan

This wonderfully comprehensive and thoughtful document puts the New York City spin on a curb management plan. They define all of the current and potential curb functions and users (both transportation and non-transportation) and set up an action plan to determine how to implement and adjust policy as necessary.

Link to Article

Mise en Place is a French phrase that roughly translates to “everything in place.” As a cooking technique, it is a method of preparing and organizing ingredients to maximize a recipe’s impact. And as a curated newsletter, Mise En Place aims to provide a thoughtfully-selected set of articles meant to inspire, spur discussion, and create impact around planning, development, and place-making issues. Enjoy!

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