Tributes Pour in for Parking Reformer, Urbanist Mentor Donald Shoup

The death on Friday of Donald Shoup, author of the seminal work, “The High Cost of Free Parking” and an urban planning professor emeritus at UCLA, unleashed an outpouring of tributes for the tweed-wearing, bike riding academic.

Obviously, Shoup, 86, had a long and storied career in the academy, but the publication of “The High Cost of Free Parking” in 2005 made him a legend: before him, no one had perfectly demonstrated how urban parking policies — i.e. low-cost or “free” parking and mandatory parking requirements, were damaging cities economically and culturally.

In a tribute piece on StreetsblogCAL, our colleagues Damien Newton and Melanie Curry put Shoup’s triumph into stark relief: “His message was simple, although at first few wanted to hear it. ‘Parking is free for us only in our role as motorist — not in our roles as taxpayer, employer, commuter, shopper, renter, as a homeowner,’ he pointed out. ‘The cost of parking does not cease to exist just because the motorist doesn’t pay for it.’”

And our Streetfilms colleague Clarence Eckerson Jr. posted a tribute to Shoup that included a link to a classic early Shoup appearance in a video explaining parking to our publisher Mark Gorton:

But his greatest legacy, perhaps, is that of a human being. As Newton and Curry pointed out, the gray-beared Shoup had a great sense of humor, fully embracing the nickname (and website URL) “Shoup Dogg” given to him by grad students who saw him, indeed, as the OG of parking reform.

His influence was vast: throughout urban planning departments in cities and universities all over the country, there are self-defined “Shoupistas” who promulgate his ideas on a decreasingly skeptical world.

But it wasn’t always easy. Here’s an exchange he had with Kea Wilson in 2021.

Wilson: In a nutshell, how do your recommendations about parking policy differ from that norm?

Shoup: My recommendations are pretty much the opposite of current parking policy in most places!

He was mourned mostly on social media, as the mainstream press has still not understood his monumental importance to the life and death of great cities:

One of Shoup’s last interviews was in October with the New York City Department of Transportation, which created the “Curb Enthusiasm” podcast partly inspired by Shoup himself. Agency spokesperson Nick Benson glowed about Shoup in his own social media tribute:

Shoup was also quoted in scores of Streetsblog stories over the years, and penned a few himself, including these on StreetsblogNYC. Curry’s 2021 story on him was a valedictory address to a new generation.

For a dry, but comprehensive obituary, here’s Shoup’s Wikipedia entry.