Framing Local Parking Restrictions as Climate Change Mitigation Policies

CLOSUP Student Working Paper Series Number 34 April 2018

Framing Local Parking Restrictions as Climate Change Mitigation Policies Ian McKenny, University of Michigan

This paper is available online at http://closup.umich.edu Papers in the CLOSUP Student Working Paper Series are written by students at the University of Michigan.

This paper was submitted as part of the Winter 2018 course PubPol 495 Energy and Environmental Policy Research, that is part of the CLOSUP in the Classroom Initiative.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy or any sponsoring agency

Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy University of Michigan

Running head: FRAMING LOCAL PARKING RESTRICTIONS

Framing Local Parking Restrictions as Climate Change Mitigation Policies Ian M. McKenny Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy University of Michigan

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Abstract Local policies aimed at reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change are growing in popularity in the United States, but progress on reducing vehicle emissions remains incremental.

Cities are slowly shifting away from zoning policies that require excessive amounts of parking in favor of limiting parking, which could reduce driving. This study analyzes the content of media coverage to determine the role of vehicle emissions and other concerns in discussions about restrictive parking policies. This analysis finds that emissions concerns play a small role in such discussions, and the prevailing concerns are much more immediate and visible to localities.

Traffic congestion, public safety, alternative modes of transportation, and the economics of parking itself all weigh much more heavily in media coverage of parking restrictions than vehicle emissions. These results suggest that while emissions concerns support restricting parking, factors affecting day-to-day travel and activities are more motivating.

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Framing Local Parking Restrictions as Climate Change Mitigation Policies Introduction In 2016, the transportation sector became the largest source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2018), overtaking the historical leader—electricity production (E360 Digest, 2017). Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that contribute to climate change, such as CO2, have risen more since 1990 in transportation than in any other sector, driven by elevated demand for travel (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], 2017b).1 The largest share of these emissions comes from light vehicles such as passenger cars and light trucks, which produce 60% of both CO2 and GHG emissions in transportation (EPA, 2017b).2 Due to the magnitude of driving in the U.S.—a record 3.22 trillion miles driven in 2016 (Schaper, 2017)—reducing light vehicle emissions presents one of the greatest challenges in climate change mitigation.

While regulations on manufacturers limit what comes out of vehicle tailpipes, driving behavior impacts emissions as well. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2017a) says that driving less is an important way to reduce vehicle emissions. More broadly, popular publications including National Geographic and Science say that avoiding driving or living altogether car-free significantly reduces a person’s carbon footprint (Nunez, 2018; Perkins, 2017). The federal government sets vehicle emissions standards for manufacturers, but local governments have a tool that affects driving behavior directly: parking regulation.

The relationship between urban policies and emissions is complex and not limited to parking policies, but the link between increased driving and emissions is well-established in

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EPA identifies six sectors in its summary of emissions: transportation, electricity generation, industry, agriculture, residential, and commercial. This summary only included data from 1990 through 2015.

2 The EPA summary provided breakdowns of transportation emissions by gas only for the year 2015. Other sources of transportation emissions include aircraft, ships, rail, and medium- and heavy-duty trucks.

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research (Frumkin, Frank, & Jackson, 2004, p. 68). Numerous studies on minimum parking requirements (minimum amounts of parking mandated by a city for a new development) show that oversupplied parking likely causes increased driving, and in recent years many cities have shifted away from the use of parking minimums (Jaffe, 2016). Maximum parking requirements (caps on the amount of parking permitted by a city for a new development) have only recently entered the mainstream and the existing body of research is limited, but parking maximums that reduce driving—and vehicle emissions by extension—could play an effective role in climatechange mitigation. However, little is known about how parking maximums are justified or talked about in public discourse. This study examines how policies that limit parking are framed in newspaper coverage.

Literature Review Much of the literature on parking policy consists of case studies examining the effects of minimum parking requirements, or their repeal. Potential changes in aggregate transportation emissions are mentioned as likely effects of changes in driving behavior, but the primary effects and motivations studied tend to be development, urban density and sprawl.

Effects of Parking Requirements Willson (1995) asks how parking requirements for suburban office buildings affect travel behavior, development density and cost, and urban design. The research consists of a case study of suburban office buildings in Southern California, where site planning and design, parking utilization, and attitudes of people associated with the planning or use of the sites were examined. The study found that high minimum parking requirements lead to oversupplied parking and three major effects: low building density, increased relocation of employment to low-cost land, and higher levels of automobile commuting. Willson concludes that these effects

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run counter to common policies that aim to limit urban sprawl, automobile pollution, and congestion.

In a later case study gauging the difficulty of repealing minimums, Hess (2017) analyzes Buffalo, New York’s repeal of minimum parking requirements and the effect on parking supply.

Hess used questionnaires and an existing parking map as data on parking supply and public opinion in Buffalo and found that the ease of repealing minimum parking requirements was negatively correlated with demand for off-street parking, and that an unopposed public gave planners an opportunity to lead a policy change. According to Hess, the successful repeal of minimum parking requirements in Buffalo represents a paradigm shift in how city planners approach parking policy.

As research succeeding Willson (1995) contributed to the declining popularity of minimum parking requirements world-wide, the literature began to address the effects of repealing minimums. The research question of a 2017 article by Antonson, Hrelja, and Henriksson is: how do car use, car ownership, and residential perceptions change because of a policy of reduced minimum parking requirements for new residential areas. The researchers conducted a case study of a new neighborhood with reduced parking requirements in Gothenburg, Sweden, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data using a survey of parking supply, interviews with residents, and a questionnaire for residents. As a result of moving into the reduced parking requirement neighborhood, the study found that car ownership decreased in 19% of responding households, 25% drove less frequently because of parking availability, and the number of cars owned was unrelated to the use of residence-supplied parking. In light of these results, the researchers posit that policies designed to reduce urban car use require a comprehensive approach, integrating parking policy and land use planning while ensuring the

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viability of alternative forms of transportation. While parking policies can be influential on driving behavior, this research shows that driving behavior also depends on other factors.

In addition to repealing minimum parking requirements, some cities have gone even farther by enacting maximum parking requirements. Li and Guo (2017) test whether parking restrictions affect the investment decisions of developers in London. The article builds a case study of London parking restrictions, parking supply, and housing development with data from the London Development Database and creates a model to estimate changes in housing development relative to changes in parking availability. The study found little relationship between parking restrictions and development in the whole of London but found that development decreased under parking restrictions in areas with high car usage and increased under parking restrictions in areas with low car usage. Li and Guo say that their findings suggest parking restrictions have offsetting effects in different urban areas and could encourage resident relocation to, and development in, inner-city areas with few cars and little parking. The study of direct effects of parking policies has largely ignored transportation emissions, perhaps due to measurement difficulty, instead settling for looking at driving behavior.

Transportation Policy Attitudes and Frames The study of driving behavior responses to policy has not just been limited to the topic of parking. Baldassare, Ryan and Katz (1998) ask: what is the political acceptability of two types of automobile policies, and facing them, how likely are solo drivers to change their travel mode.

They used survey data from the 1992 Orange County Annual Survey to estimate how many drivers would change their driving habits if faced by policies taxing or penalizing automobile use (including restrictive parking policies) as opposed to policies incentivizing alternative forms of transportation. The study included measurements of demographics, commuting time, and

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environmental and political attitudes. The results showed that while both types of policy convinced few to say they would change travel mode, inducements for alternative transport modes would be more effective than penalties for auto use, and younger and lower-income solo drivers tended to be among the first to renounce solo driving. The researchers say that their results serve as a warning to policymakers that policies reducing solo driving are unpopular, but that greater availability of alternative transport could encourage less solo driving. These findings on hypothetical decision-making seem to be reinforced by the conclusion of Antonson, Hrelja, and Henriksson (2017) that driving behavior depends both on parking availability (or the restrictiveness of the policy) and on the availability of public transportation.

In a 2002 article also studying hypothetical driving behavior, Stubbs asks what homeowners’ attitudes on car ownership and the goals of automobile policy are, by location.

Five U.K. locations were selected for the case studies (York, Dorset, Edinburgh, and the London Boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea and of Brent) which analyzed existing policies and statistics on housing and car ownership, and in some locations included collecting questionnaires about residential parking policies. The results showed that residents were reluctant to give up parking provision at home, even if they didn’t own a car, and that car ownership is highly valued for convenience and lifestyle. Stubbs concluded by stating that car-free or car-limited zones, while unpopular, are viewed as most feasible in compact urban areas where routine travel distances, such as commutes, are short.

While parking policy case studies sometimes include survey data on what residents think about parking policies or their driving behavior, few studies have attempted to account for the role of policy framing. An exception is Dijk and Montalvo (2011), who ask: how much of the variation in the implementation of “Park-and-Ride” schemes (remote parking coupled with

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public transport) across Europe can be explained by different policy frames. They use a behavioral model as the basis for their empirical measurement of policymakers’ belief-systems regarding Park-and-Ride, which is categorized into nine frames, the most salient being: economic implications, perceived demand, and institutional knowledge of Park-and-Ride implementation. The study found that these three frames explained about 40% of the variance in engagement in Park-and-Ride across European cities, and the researchers point out that Parkand-Ride schemes tend to be part of a larger package of transportation policies aimed at reducing traffic congestion and air pollution from automobiles. Dijk and Montalvo include environmental concerns as a frame in their analysis, but find they lack broad salience across European cities.

Among the limited framing research on parking policy, little role is attributed to vehicle emissions or to environmental concerns more generally.

Two of the largest gaps in the parking policy literature are studies of maximum parking requirements and studies acknowledging vehicle emissions as a major frame of parking policy.

Parking maximums are still a relatively recent phenomenon in mainstream parking policy, and although maximums are becoming more common, there are a limited number of examples to study. Far more common are one-off restrictions on parking, often limited to certain streets.

Despite research that links the oversupply of parking with elevated vehicle emissions, and although some studies of parking maximums note emissions reduction as a potential benefit, studies on the frames and public opinion of maximums often do not consider emissions. This study examines the prevalence of the emissions frame of parking restrictions relative to other frames through an analysis of newspaper articles, to answer the question: How are local parking restrictions in U.S. cities framed in newspaper articles?

Methods

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To learn how American parking restrictions are framed, this study conducts a content analysis of newspaper articles.3 Newspaper articles are not necessarily representative of what motivates policymakers to restrict parking nor of public opinion on the justifications for restrictions, but they do capture prominent themes from public dialogue and often discuss one or more policy arguments (Shoup, 2011). The data sample of articles is sourced from the LexisNexis Academic search engine.4 LexisNexis search results are drawn from sources that range from major international publications to local periodicals. Capturing articles from local newspapers is critical to assembling a data sample that encompasses local parking issues unlikely to receive national or international attention in major publications.

Sampling The data sample of news articles is generated by finding the “Advanced Options” menu below the “Academic Search” field, entering “((parking w/5 (require OR requiring) AND maximum) OR (parking w/5 (maximum OR limit OR cap OR restrict OR constrain))) AND NOT ((parking OR maximum) w/5 (time OR fee OR hour OR pay))” in the “Build Your Own Segment Search” field and deselecting the non-newspaper content types.5 The results of this search exceed 1000, and LexisNexis only displays the 1000 most relevant results, approximately.

These results are further narrowed by clicking the “United States” filter under “Geography” in the result group filters. Moderately similar results are eliminated by selecting “On – Moderate similarity” from the “Duplicate Options” drop-down menu. The resulting data sample consists of 198 news articles as of March 12, 2018.

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To differentiate the data from the literature, newspaper articles are referenced using endnote citations.

The LexisNexis Academic search engine can be found at: www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/.

5 The search term is designed to return results that contain either “maximum parking requirement” (or similar terms) or “parking restriction” (or similar terms), and to exclude results that discuss time limits on parking or parking fees.

To avoid missing results that may be relevant, the search term uses the most basic variation of desired words (e.g., using “restrict” returns results containing “restricts,” “restricting,” “restriction,” etc.). In the LexisNexis search engine, “w/5” means “within five words of.”

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Articles in the results that are irrelevant to restrictive parking policies are excluded from the analysis. Articles that discuss policies that failed to pass or have yet to be enacted are not excluded, because this research is interested in public conversations surrounding parking restrictions.

Coding Scheme The content of the data sample is analyzed using thematic coding. Major themes from the literature on parking maximums are included in the coding scheme to allow comparisons between the usage of frames in newspaper articles and corresponding themes in the literature.

These themes are: alternative transportation to gas-fueled vehicles, such as electric vehicles or public transit, including the act of changing one’s primary mode of transportation (Baldassare, et al., 1998; Antonson, et al., 2017); commute length, either in distance or in time spent on the road; development, which usually bears the burden of complying with parking requirements (Li & Guo, 2017); the economics of parking, such as supply and demand for parking, parking surplus or shortage, and competition in the market for parking; vehicle emissions and their contribution to climate-change or environmental degradation; ownership of cars or of parking spots or permits, which can be accompanied by an endowment effect, or the culture of car ownership more generally (Stubbs, 2002); traffic congestion as a symptom of parking (un)availability; urban density (or sprawl) and its relationship with parking; and urban design.

In addition to themes from the literature, frames from a sample of newspaper articles are included in the coding scheme. A random sample of approximately ten percent of the articles is taken from the data sample of 198. Each of these 20 articles is analyzed to determine how parking restrictions are framed. 13 of these articles do not discuss parking restrictions. The remaining seven frame parking restrictions in terms of alternative transportation, development,

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economics, vehicle emissions, traffic congestion, urban design, energy independence, or safety, or discuss parking restrictions without employing a frame.

Some themes from the literature—alternative transportation, development, economics, vehicle emissions, traffic congestion, and urban design—also appear in the ten percent sample.

Others—commute length, ownership, and urban density or sprawl—do not appear in the ten percent sample. There are only two frames unique to the ten percent sample: energy independence and safety. Table 1 lists the frames that are used in the coding scheme along with the numeric code assigned to them for the analysis process.

Table 1. Frames and corresponding code numbers.

Code

Frame Themes from the literature:

1

Alternative transportation (e.g., mode change, public transit, electric vehicles)

2

Commute length

3

Development

4

Economics (e.g., supply & demand, surplus & shortage, competition)

5

Emissions from vehicles

6

Ownership of cars or parking spots/permits (e.g., car culture, endowment effect)

7

Traffic congestion

8

Urban density or sprawl

9

Urban design Frames from the 10% sample:

10

Energy-independent fuel sources

11

Safety (e.g., road visibility)

12

No frames

Each of the 198 articles in the data sample is analyzed and assigned codes based on what frames it employs. An article may be assigned multiple codes if it employs multiple frames, or

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no codes if it does not discuss parking restrictions. Additionally, each use of a frame is classified as supportive, oppositional, or neutral with respect to parking restrictions.

It should be noted that in most cases of peer-reviewed content analysis, multiple researchers independently code the data sample and compare their results to reduce the possibility of bias. However, this data sample is coded by a single researcher, which is a limitation of this study.

Particular attention in the analysis of the results will be paid to the prevalence of the vehicle emissions frame relative to others, and the patterns involving it, but results and patterns not involving the emissions frame will also be useful to learn how local parking restrictions are discussed in newspaper articles.

Results After reading the 198 results of the LexisNexis search, 128 were eliminated as irrelevant because they did not discuss restrictive parking policies. Most of the irrelevant articles did discuss parking, but typically either in the context of minimum parking requirements or outside a policy context. The remaining 70 articles discussed a wide variety of restrictive parking policies that ranged from on-street parking restrictions of only a few blocks in length to large-scale freezes on parking provision.

Some articles discussed policies similar to those typically studied in the literature on parking policy. In 2008, the New York Sun discussed a proposed policy that would “do away with zoning regulations that require new developments to contain a minimum number of built-in parking spots” based on the number of housing units, instead setting “a maximum limit on the number of parking spots.”i Development-related parking maximums such as this (often in zoning laws) dominate the literature on parking policy.

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While not all policies described in the data would be considered “parking maximums” in the context of the parking literature, policies that restrict parking less holistically (e.g., daytime parking limits on certain residential streets) were relevant to the analysis because their effects on parking supply, particularly in the context of the themes identified earlier, are difficult to distinguish from the effects of the types of maximums prevalent in the literature.

Support for Parking Restrictions The broadest trend in how newspaper articles discuss restrictive parking policies is the use of supportive framing. Figure 1 shows the different combinations of ways articles treat parking restrictions, with the number and percent of articles labeled for each category. Of the 70 analyzed articles, 60 (86%) used at least one frame to support parking restrictions, as shown by the non-striped areas in Figure 1. Only 28 articles (40%) used at least one frame to oppose parking restrictions.

5; 7% 8; 11%

7; 10% 1; 1% 2; 3%

Neutral Both oppose & neutral Oppose Both support & oppose

20; 29%

Support Both neutral & support

27; 39%

All

Figure 1. How articles treat parking restrictions.

A plurality of articles (39%) used frames exclusively in support of parking restrictions.

By contrast, only 2 articles (3%) used frames exclusively in opposition to parking restrictions— fewer than those that exclusively used frames neutrally. After exclusive support, the next greatest

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number of articles used at least one frame to support and at least one frame to oppose parking restrictions.

Prevalence and Use of Frames Figure 2 shows the prevalence of each frame in terms of the number and percent of articles that employed it, broken down by treatment of parking restrictions.6 Traffic congestion and economics were the most frequent frames, and energy independence was the least frequent.

The emissions frame was among the four least frequent.

Oppose

Both support & oppose

Support

Neutral

Congestion

46%

Economics

44%

Safety

37%

Alternative transportation

27%

Frame

Development

16%

Ownership

13%

Urban design

13%

No theme

13%

Emissions

7%

Urban density/sprawl

7%

Commute length

6%

Energy independence

4% 0

5

10

15 20 Number of Articles

25

30

35

Figure 2. Prevalence of frames by treatment of parking restrictions.

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No article used the same frame both supportively and neutrally, both neutrally and in opposition, or in all three ways. The only multipurpose use of one frame within a single article was in both support and opposition to parking restrictions.

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Most of the twelve frames were primarily used in support of restrictive parking policies.

Each frame was used in support of restricted parking at least once, and only two (energy independence and urban density/sprawl) were never employed in opposition. Eight articles employed the same frame both in support and in opposition of restrictive parking policies, and none employed the same frame both neutrally and in support or opposition.

100% Alternative transportation

Percent of all oppositional or supportive uses

90%

Commute length

80%

Development

70%

Economics Emissions

60%

Ownership 50% Traffic congestion 40%

Urban density/sprawl

30%

Urban design

20%

Energy independence Safety

10%

No theme

0% Oppositional (43 uses) Supportive (101 uses) Use with respect to restrictive parking policies Figure 3. Oppositional and supportive frame uses.

Figure 3 compares how frames were used to treat parking restrictions differently (by the number of frame uses, not the number of articles). While traffic congestion and safety were the larger supportive frames, economics dominated oppositional uses. Only three frames (economics, ownership, and commute length) were employed more among oppositional than

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supportive uses. Of the twelve frames, economics was employed the most in opposition, but was also among the top four frames employed in support (the other three being traffic congestion, safety, and alternative transportation).

Notable Frames Traffic congestion. Traffic congestion was the most frequent frame, appearing in almost half of the articles. It was invoked in support of restrictive parking policies 78% of the time and in opposition only 19% of the time. Congestion was a frequent concern among the articles that discussed on-street parking restrictions, which comprised a large portion of the data. One article justified restrictions by saying, “Parking on both sides of the streets could limit two vehicles from passing one another, especially larger vehicles such as trash trucks and delivery vehicles.”ii Other uses of the frame expressed concern less about the street width and more about the amount of traffic from people searching for parking on residential streets. One restriction was enacted after homeowners near a college campus “complained that [university] students and faculty were clogging neighborhood streets and blocking driveways with their cars.”iii Clinton Administration efforts to restrict parking near federal buildings were criticized in Washington, D.C. because “scarce parking increases traffic congestion, slows deliveries and reduces retail activity.”iv This theme of retail activity, or commerce more generally, from the latter example was not a frame studied in the analysis, but it did surface in a few articles.

Economics. Economic principles were applied to a discussion of parking restrictions nearly as frequently as the traffic congestion frame, but primarily in opposition to restrictions.

When private property owners near the Atlanta Braves’ baseball stadium were banned from providing game-day parking, critics said Cobb County was “shutting down the free market” with an ordinance that would “further constrain the supply of parking, restrict competition and

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probably drive up prices for fans.”v All three predicted effects of this parking restriction— parking shortage, restricted competition, and an increase in the price of parking—would be economic effects in the market for parking near the Braves’ stadium on game-days.

Another article framed parking maximums for new developments as reducing parking surplus: “Many companies overbuild their lots based on the high amount of traffic they get between Thanksgiving and Christmas.”vi In this case, the effect of overbuilt lots is a surplus of parking when there is no holiday traffic.

Safety. Safety, the third-most prevalent frame, was used overwhelmingly in support of parking restrictions (92% of articles used it supportively). Like the traffic congestion frame, safety was usually invoked in discussions about on-street parking restrictions. In the aforementioned example of Clinton administration restrictions on parking near federal buildings, the restriction was described as a security measure in response to the Oklahoma City bombing, meant to protect federal buildings and those inside from vehicles bearing explosives.vii, viii The application of this policy, and others like it, to certain federal buildings was described by multiple articles published in different cities.ix A proposal to restrict parking in front of the homes of elderly and handicapped residents in Harlingen, Texas was described as giving emergency vehicles and health care providers better access. One local health care official explained that the proposal, or something like it, “would definitely help in getting care to patients… If it allows EMS vehicles better access, it will allow faster response and that's important."x In this case, restricting on-street parking on narrow streets would have the safety benefit of improving access for large emergency vehicles.

Visibility around parked cars was also cited as a safety concern. A report on a proposal to restrict parking on two streets in Upper Dublin, Pennsylvania said, “While some residents

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wanted to be able to park in front of their homes, others wanted no parking on the streets. Parked vehicles obstruct the view of those trying to exit their driveways, several said.”xi This safety concern about parking inhibiting visibility also came up in the context of pedestrians crossing streets with on-street parking.xii Emissions. The vehicle emissions frame appeared in only five articles, making it one of the least frequent frames. Four articles used the emissions frame to support parking restrictions, and one used it to oppose parking restrictions. In one article, a New York environmental group worried that accelerating development would increase the supply of parking and “unleash a torrent of unnecessary car ownership” that “would ‘largely erase’ reductions in carbon from other city environmental initiatives.”xiii The article projects that “car ownership will grow significantly during the city's building boom: Car-owning residents of new developments will add 170,000 new vehicles to the city's roads by 2030 and produce 431,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year.” The environmental groups advocate for maximum parking requirements for developers, which would supposedly discourage car ownership by restricting the supply of parking.

The only use of the emissions frame in opposition to parking restrictions was in an article reporting that the Environmental Protection Agency had approved a request from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that “increases the total number of commercial parking spaces allowed in the [Boston] Logan Airport Parking Freeze area by 5,000 parking spaces.” xiv The EPA explained that “the intended effect of [raising the parking maximum] is to reduce carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxide (NO X) emissions by reducing the increased vehicle miles traveled (VMT) resulting from insufficient available parking at Logan Airport.” This example

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posits that when a limit on parking is ineffective at reducing driving, or even increases driving, vehicle emissions could rise.

Analysis The results show that newspaper articles frame parking restrictions in the U.S. most often in terms of traffic congestion, safety, and economic effects on ‘parking markets.’ Emissions frames are infrequent. The frames of interest in this study are mostly used in support of restrictive parking policies, but many oppositional uses are also present, especially with the economics frame. A plurality of articles used frames exclusively in support of parking restrictions, but those that used frames exclusively neutrally and those that used frames both in support and in opposition (and those that used frames in all three ways)—together these might be referred to as offering “balanced coverage”—outnumber even those that exclusively support parking restrictions and nearly constitutes a majority of articles.

The broad definition of parking maximums used to identify relevant articles in this study (any public policy that has the effect of restricting the availability of parking) contrasts with that of much of the literature, which usually defines parking maximums as municipal zoning policies.

Even under this broad definition, 128 articles in the sample were eliminated as irrelevant. The remaining 70 articles discuss a range of policies, many of which are much narrower in scope than zoning policies characteristic of the literature. Nearly every policy discussed in the newspaper articles studied is unique, yet their effects on parking availability are largely similar and the literature on parking maximums provides little basis for differentiating them.

The safety and energy independence frames that appeared in the sample were not predicted by the literature. Safety frames in the newspaper articles were mostly situational; they justified parking restrictions where roads were too narrow for large emergency vehicles, in front

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of government buildings, and near driveways and pedestrian crosswalks to improve visibility.

The use of the energy independence frame was rare, but nevertheless important. Each of the three uses was unique: one policy restricted parking for gas-fueled vehicles in favor of parking and charging stations for electric vehicles, one restriction was framed as combating the waste of expensive energy from unnecessary driving, and another described parking restrictions as reducing dependency on oil.

As in many uses of the safety frame, uses of the traffic congestion frame with on-street parking restrictions focused on road width and accessibility—themes that did not feature in the literature. The main traffic congestion theme from the literature (which also appeared in the newspaper articles) was primarily a factor of more cars being on the road, either because of excessive driving or oversupplied parking (Willson, 1995).

The prevalence of some frames was unexpected in the context of the literature. The safety frame, which was not featured in the literature, appeared in nearly 40% of the newspaper articles.

Urban density or sprawl and commute length were significant themes in the research of Willson (1995) and Stubbs (2002) but appeared in very few newspaper articles: only about seven and six percent, respectively. The low prevalence of the vehicle emissions frame (just seven percent) is consistent with the lack of research that treats emissions as a frame of parking policy, but both are inconsistent with research that links driving behavior and vehicle emissions (Frumkin, et al., 2004).

Other prevalence rates were more consistent with the literature. Traffic congestion and economics were both major themes in the literature (Willson, 1995; Hess, 2017), and they were the two most frequently-used frames in the newspaper articles, appearing in about 46% and 44%

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of articles, respectively. Urban design and ownership appeared as minor themes in the literature (Willson, 1995; Stubbs, 2002), and both appeared in only 13% of newspaper articles.

Rates of supportive or oppositional uses in some frames were unexpected. According to Stubbs (2002), ownership was primarily a theme explaining opposition to parking restrictions, but in the sample, its use was more balanced between supportive, oppositional, and neutral. In contrast, Li and Guo (2017) identify parking restrictions to have both positive and negative effects on development, while the newspapers almost exclusively used the development frame neutrally or to support parking restrictions. Dijk and Montalvo (2011) portrayed emissions as a theme that supported policies reducing automobile use. While this was supported by the newspaper articles, finding one oppositional use of the vehicle emissions frame was unexpected (it posited that an undersupply of parking was increasing driving and vehicle emissions).

Other rates of supportive or oppositional uses were predicted. The alternative transportation themes in the literature generally supported parking maximums, as did the uses of the frame in newspaper articles. Perhaps due to the limited range of the literature, parking economics is used to both justify and fault maximums in parking theory (Li & Guo, 2017), and was used both ways in the newspaper articles as well. Although oppositional uses of the economics frame outweighed supportive uses, both uses were relatively frequent.

Conclusion Restrictive parking policies are most often framed by newspaper articles in terms of their effects on traffic congestion, safety, and markets for parking. Links between parking restrictions and vehicle emissions are uncommon in newspaper coverage, despite evidence of a relationship between parking surpluses and heightened vehicle emissions (Frumkin, et al., 2004).

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While nearly 200 articles were analyzed in this study, only 70 discuss restrictive parking policies. Seventy is a small sample size and likely does not capture all newspaper articles that discuss parking restrictions in the U.S. The LexisNexis search function only returns the thousand most-relevant results and filters only apply to this subset of results, and some relevant results may have also been excluded by the search term used. This analysis also assumed that smallscale parking restrictions are substantially similar to parking maximums in zoning codes to warrant treating them the same, but this assumption, as well as the uniqueness of individual parking policies, needs further examination. A further limitation of this study is that the thematic coding was conducted by only one researcher, without a second researcher to check consistency.

More remains to be studied about parking policy beyond the scope of this research. By focusing on restrictive parking policies, this study did not examine the framing of parking minimums, nor the framing of repealing parking minimums, in newspaper articles. Also, the coding scheme employed did not distinguish between policies affecting on-street and off-street parking, although the numerous examples of similar on-street parking restrictions in the analyzed articles suggest that certain frames or uses of frames may be unique to, or at least substantially different in, articles discussing on-street parking restrictions.

This research provides policymakers considering changes in parking or environmental policy an analysis of how the media has covered restrictive parking policies. At a time when media consumption has such a large impact on beliefs and political behavior, this analysis may be useful for public relations campaigns around parking or environmental policy. The themes that affect individuals, such as traffic congestion, parking availability, and safety, are much more prevalent, and potentially persuasive, than broader themes such as emissions or urban sprawl.

These findings also contribute to an understanding of the relationship between parking policy

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and vehicle emissions. While climate-change mitigation may motivate some policymakers to pursue parking maximums, vehicle emissions do not appear as common justification for parking restrictions, and justifications invoking the more prevalent concerns (congestion, economics, safety, alternative transportation) might be more successful.

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