Fewer Trips, Not Fewer Cars

One of our goals is to stay on top of transportation trends so we can help our customers prepare for changes that will inevitably affect parking. Fortunately for our industry, change usually happens over long development cycles, often 30 years or more. What we are beginning to see today is likely only the first chapter of the next transportation era. We continue to watch not only parking, but every form of transportation that could influence how people travel in the future.

Over the years, we've heard countless predictions that private automobiles would soon be replaced by bicycles, mass transit, or other alternatives. Those arguments often compare the United States to Europe or Asia, but our geography, infrastructure, and travel patterns are fundamentally different. For the foreseeable future, and probably well beyond it, we will still drive ourselves to work, the grocery store, our children's activities, and family gatherings.

While the automobile remains deeply woven into American life, and I don’t honestly expect that to change, there are several developments quietly beginning to reduce the number of trips we take or at least change how those trips happen. Those changes may reduce parking demand in some places while increasing it in others.

Watching Tesla's Experiment Up Close

I happen to have a front-row seat to one transportation innovation. My neighborhood in Houston has been selected as a testing area for Tesla's newest self-driving vehicles. For the past several months, Tesla vehicles have been constantly driving through our streets, apparently mapping routes and collecting data.

At first, it was simply strange to pull up to a four-way stop and discover the vehicle across from me had no driver. In recent weeks, that has evolved again. Now many of the Robotaxis have passengers sitting comfortably in the back seat while nobody occupies the driver's seat. The Cybercab is following a similar path. Early versions still had a safety driver, but in Tesla's Austin testing area they have already removed the steering wheel and pedals entirely. Two front seats. No driver. I suspect that version will eventually find its way into my neighborhood as well.

The "First Mile" May Already Be Solved

I don't live anywhere near a metro rail station, and like most of the Houston metropolitan area, I doubt I ever will. Yet today, I have something I didn't have a year ago. I have a Tesla app on my phone, and I can have a self-driving vehicle at my front door within minutes.

Tesla is investing enormous resources into refining this technology, and younger generations will grow up assuming autonomous transportation is simply another available option. If the price remains reasonable, many routine trips could easily shift to Robotaxis.

Interestingly, the same may prove true for older generations.

I'm asking for a friend.

My "friend" recently had an eye procedure. Driving home wasn't recommended, so a Robotaxi handled the trip, for about $10 each way. Another "friend" had a medical procedure just four miles from home and used a Robotaxi both directions. These aren't revolutionary trips. They're ordinary trips, which is why they matter and alert to a shift in transportation: the mundane, routine trips are changing.

We Still Love Our Cars

Let me be clear: none of this suggests Americans are giving up private vehicle ownership. My granddaughter recently graduated from Texas A&M and accepted a job about 20 miles from where she lives. When I graduated from college, buying a brand-new car certainly wasn't my first priority but this smart girl bought a Tesla first thing and it includes Tesla's Full Self-Driving subscription for about $99 per month. She told me, "Gramps, I get in the car, push 'Work,' and off we go. At the end of the day, I push 'Home' or 'Gramps' house and off we go again. That conversation convinced me we're entering the early years of a very long development cycle. People still want their own automobiles but they simply expect, damand, and anticipate that those automobiles to become smarter and more useful.

Highway in the Sky?

At the same time, other technologies are reducing trips we once took ourselves. I order many groceries online. Amazon delivers countless purchases directly to my front door. Last week I left a medical office building around lunchtime and watched DoorDash drivers practically running into one another as they delivered meals to office staff. I'm not sure I'm ready to embrace Walmart's drone delivery service just yet.

But here's a prediction.

Fifteen years from now, I believe my own drone will receive software upgrades that allow it to fly to Walmart, pick up my order, and return home. A few years after that, I expect the same drone to fly to my favorite restaurant and bring lunch home. No roadway. No parking lot. No parking space required.

You heard it here first.

Are We Living Through Another Transportation Revolution?

Sometimes I wonder whether we're standing where carriage manufacturers stood around 1900. Back then, horses dominated transportation. Within a couple of decades, the automobile completely transformed the industry. I don't believe autonomous technology will eliminate the private automobile. I do believe it will eliminate many of the small, inconvenient trips we make every week. 

Here's the important point: none of these changes suggest that parking is disappearing.

Families will continue owning automobiles because they value the flexibility, convenience, and independence they provide. Work trips, recreation, vacations, school activities, and countless other destinations will continue generating parking demand. 

What may change is where demand occurs.

Food delivery, Amazon, drone delivery, and autonomous transportation could reduce parking demand at certain retail or service locations while creating new operational challenges elsewhere. For those of us responsible for understanding how people move, the overall need to manage parking is not going away. If anything, it becomes more important because travel patterns become more dynamic. For years we've debated adding freeway lanes or expanding mass transit. Recently, we're beginning to see more discussion acknowledging two realities in many parts of the United States: mass transit is extremely expensive to build, and many people still prefer the convenience of their own automobile.

Meanwhile, technologies like autonomous vehicles, home delivery, drones, and online commerce are quietly reducing trips without asking people to change their lifestyles. 

That may prove to be one of the biggest transportation stories of the next 30 years.

Me and my friend, we'll be watching.