Unlocking Underused Parking: Lessons from Vancouver’s West End

In many dense urban neighbourhoods, there’s a persistent tension: on‐street parking is overfull and congested, while off‐street parking in nearby residential buildings often has large amounts of empty capacity.

A recent study examined this mismatch in Vancouver’s West End and evaluated whether a shared parking approach could help ease pressure on the streets while making better use of existing infrastructure. The findings have important implications for city planners, building owners, and neighbourhoods thinking about shared parking.

The Setting: West End, Vancouver

• The West End is one of Vancouver’s most densely populated residential areas. Despite having a lot of off‐street residential parking (in multifamily apartment buildings, strata buildings, etc.), on‐street parking is chronically full. The Residential Parking Permit (RPP) program in place gives residents a permit to park on certain streets, but demand greatly exceeds on‐street supply.

• Off‐street residential parking, however, is under‐utilized: many stalls are vacant much of the time.

  
  

What Was Studied

The researchers asked: what would happen if parts of the off‐street parking supply were made available to RPP permit holders (i.e., shared with on‐street demand)? Could doing so reduce on‐street congestion without overly burdening off‐street facilities?

They collected data on:

• Number of off‐street parking spots in hundreds of residential buildings

• How many vehicles are registered to those buildings

• On‐street parking occupancy in blocks with RPP restrictions

• Spatial proximity: how close the off‐street parking is to the streets where demand is high.

They then modelled several scenarios: various target levels of on‐street occupancy (e.g. aiming for 65% vs 85% occupancy), and different buffer distances (50m, 100m, 200m) for which off‐street buildings would be “eligible” to help absorb parked vehicles displaced from very full streets.

Key Findings

• There is a huge surplus of off‐street parking in many large residential buildings. Among 630 multifamily buildings studied, 46 had at least 50 unutilized stalls each. These 46 buildings had over 7,300 off‐street stalls, with more than 3,700 believed vacant.

• On‐street occupancy in the RPP zones was very high—on average ~88%. Off‐street occupancy averaged only about ~47%

• Under many of the modelled scenarios, allowing off‐street stalls to serve RPP permit holders could reduce on‐street occupancy significantly—bringing many streets into occupancy levels of 65–85%, depending on how large the catchment (buffer) is.

• Importantly, even when many vehicles are “relocated” into off‐street parking in these scenarios, the occupancy in those off‐street buildings remains well below capacity in most cases (often under ~60%), meaning the burden on private buildings isn’t extreme.

• The farther people are willing to walk (using larger buffer distances), the more potential there is to absorb displaced parked vehicles. But smaller buffers still help, especially for blocks nearest surplus off‐street supply.

Barriers & Considerations

While the potential is large, there are real challenges to making this kind of shared arrangement work:

• Legal / regulatory constraints: Some bylaws or strata‐property rules don’t allow off‐street stalls to be leased or transferred separately, or to be counted for multiple uses. Insurance, liability, and ownership issues must be dealt with.

• Behavioral / convenience factors: Even when off‐street availability exists, residents may prefer on‐street parking because of perceived convenience, cost, or habit. Parking fees or permit prices, ease of access, and physical location are all important.

• Data limitations: The study had to make simplifying assumptions (e.g. number of vehicles registered at a building equals off‐street occupancy), and did not capture fine‐grained temporal variability or behavior (weekend vs weekday, etc.). Real‐world program design would need more detailed occupancy / usage data.

Implications for Shared Parking Programs

Based on this case study, here are some ideas / guidelines for cities or organizations considering a shared parking scheme:

1. Identify buildings with large off‐street surplus — multifamily large buildings often have capacity that is under‐used.

2. Map out “walking buffers” — people will only use off‐street stalls if they’re close enough. Even moderate distances (100-200m) can make a big difference.

3. Set target on‐street occupancy thresholds — aim for occupancy levels that allow some slack (e.g. 65-85%) so streets don’t feel congested, but off‐street doesn’t get overloaded.

4. Design incentives / pricing — make off‐street shared use financially fair (for building owners and for permit users), possibly adjust permit pricing or fees to encourage off‐street use.

5. Address legal & regulatory barriers ahead of time — permissions, insurance, zoning / strata rules.

6. Collect better utilization data — both on‐street and off‐street, over different times of day / week, to monitor and adjust.

Why this matters in the larger parking picture

The West End case offers a proof‐point: shared parking isn’t just theoretical. It can reduce on‐street pressure without needing to build more parking, if done thoughtfully.

• It aligns with goals around using existing space more efficiently.

• It shows shared parking can be part of a toolkit to reduce costs (both for cities and for homeowners / building owners), improve access (less circling for parking), reduce environmental impact (less driving around), and improve neighbourhood livability.

• It also highlights that the Network’s role in facilitating partnerships — between building owners, residents, city authorities — can unlock benefits that are otherwise overlooked.