Urban Autonomy Lab
Chapter 4 · EV19

Parking Structure Utilisation Rates, Current and Projected

Date collected: 26 May 2026
Summary

Parking utilisation declining as AV adoption rises; peak-hour demand projected to fall 40–60% by 2040, stranding urban garage assets

US market-level data

  • US parking lots and garages industry revenue declined 5.9% per year on average between 2017 and 2022 (pre-dating CAM — this is a structural demand trend, not a technology-induced one)
  • Industry size: estimated at ~$10.6 billion in 2024 (down from peak)
  • Urban land use: between 50–70% of non-residential urban land is dedicated to parking in US cities
  • Efficient parking system occupancy = 85–95% of capacity; public garages often run at 50% occupancy or below, particularly off-peak

Hybrid work and downtown occupancy correlation

Parking utilisation is directly linked to office occupancy, which remains well below pre-pandemic levels in key US cities:

  • San Francisco: ~37% office vacancy rate in Q2 2024 (CBD)
  • Denver CBD: ~33.8% vacancy
  • NYC Manhattan: ~23.6% vacancy; office occupancy still hovering ~50% of 2019 levels
  • Higher-recovery cities: San Antonio, Nashville, San Diego, Midtown Manhattan >75% of 2019 worker volumes recovered by Q2 2023
  • Lower-recovery cities: SF, Portland, Denver at ~50% of 2019 worker volumes

74% of hybrid companies report fluctuating daily parking demand, with a general decline in monthly subscription uptake (traditional “guaranteed revenue” for parking operators).

What this means for Ch.4

The utilisation decline is important for two reasons:

  1. It demonstrates that parking revenue vulnerability is already underway, independent of CAM. A city that is losing parking revenue to hybrid work is more financially exposed to a further demand shock from CAM.
  2. It identifies the cities already facing fiscal pressure: SF, Denver, and other high-vacancy cities are also the cities most likely to see early commercial CAM deployment (tech worker demographics, permissive regulatory environments).

The urban land opportunity: 50–70% of urban non-residential land as parking represents enormous latent supply for conversion — but converting that land is costly and time-constrained (see EV20).

Cite as: NAIOP “Parking and the Return to Office” (Summer 2024); Towne Park “36 Parking Statistics and Industry Trends” (Updated 2024); INRIX 2023 Global Traffic Scorecard

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