“Ten minutes to drive, half an hour to park”—parking in residential neighborhoods has largely become a race to secure a spot, with some public parking spaces even being occupied as de facto private spots. As urbanization continues to advance, China’s vehicle ownership has surged, exacerbating the imbalance between parking supply and demand and making issues such as “difficulty finding parking, high parking costs, and chaotic parking” increasingly acute.
During field investigations in multiple locations, a reporter from Outlook Weekly learned that behind the myriad irregularities lie both longstanding issues stemming from urban planning and shortcomings in the parking‑management system and institutional framework—challenges that urgently demand resolution as an essential task for urban governance. Industry experts recommend addressing the urban parking crisis by optimizing parking supply, promoting the sharing of parking resources, and strengthening top-level policy design, thereby mobilizing diverse stakeholders to tackle this pressing issue.
(A hard-to-get ticket, photo by Zhu Huiqing)
The “pain” of parking plagues urban residents’ daily lives.
A survey on urban parking issues conducted by relevant authorities among more than 2,000 respondents revealed that 88.6% of respondents described parking difficulties in their cities as severe, while 73.4% believed that illegal parking is widespread.
In some areas where parking is in short supply, the difficulty of finding a parking space has become a major concern for residents.
Pain point one:
“It only takes ten minutes to drive there, but it took half an hour to find a parking spot.”
Mr. Guo, a resident of Hunnan District in Shenyang, has owned his car for six years, with a total mileage of just over 30,000 kilometers.
“Parking spaces are really hard to find.”
Once, when I went to a government office to take care of some business, I spent nearly half an hour searching for a parking spot—only to finally find a parking lot a kilometer away. The back-and-forth wasted far too much time.
“Mr. Guo said.”
Pain point two:
Parking in the neighborhood is basically a race to grab a spot.
“Every day after work, finding a spot to park is agonizing—‘fighting for a parking space’ has become an unavoidable rite of passage.”
“Mr. Li, a resident of the Lingxiu City community in Jinan, said.”
The Lingxiu City community is home to tens of thousands of residents.
The reporter observed that, on the main roads within this community, cars are parked bumper-to-bumper along both sides every evening, blatantly disregarding no-parking signs.
On some roads with only two lanes, certain drivers simply drive their car tires up onto the curb, further crowding what is already a narrow roadway.
Mr. Li told reporters that the community has a very limited number of parking spaces, and without a spot, he has no choice but to park on the street.
With living standards on the rise, many households now own one or even two private cars, and the parking spaces originally planned for the residential community can no longer meet the demand.
The reporter observed that not only were both sides of the road packed with parked cars, but even the sidewalks were crammed with vehicles, forcing pedestrians to weave back and forth to avoid them.
Some private vehicles have even blocked fire lanes.
Some public parking spaces have been illegally occupied and turned into “private parking spots.”
On streets such as Beixiaoxinzhuang West Street in Jinan, reporters observed that numerous parking spaces had been marked along both sides of the road, yet some of these spots were occupied by electric tricycles, bicycles, and other vehicles.
On some roads, parking spaces on both sides have been illegally occupied by storefronts, reserved exclusively for their own customers’ use.
Pain point three:
Expensive parking has become a new burden for the public.
Many cities have explicitly classified parking‑space fees as commercial charges, aiming to leverage economic incentives to alleviate traffic congestion and parking shortages.
Reporters learned from several large shopping malls along Quancheng Road in Jinan that the parking fee has been raised from 2 yuan per hour to the current rate of 6 or 8 yuan per hour.
Since last year, Shenyang has implemented smart parking fee management, bringing many previously free on-street parking spaces under a paid‑parking regime.
At the Sixth People’s Hospital of Shenyang, Mr. Zhang, a local resident, said that in the past, there were free parking spaces along the street, but since the implementation of “smart parking,” all those formerly free spots have been converted to paid spaces.
The reporter observed that some drivers, in order to avoid paying parking fees, resort to illegal parking, leaving sidewalks overrun with illegally parked vehicles.
Some vehicles park alongside the smart parking spaces, even though they are outside the designated lines, leaving many of the smart spots empty.
In some newly built residential communities, parking spaces are sold but not rented, and developers’ arbitrary pricing of parking spots has made parking increasingly difficult in the surrounding areas.
Taking a residential community in Yinchuan with a high incidence of illegal parking as an example, after relevant authorities intervened, the community’s “for sale only, no rentals” policy for parking spaces was adjusted: some residents were able to rent parking spots, though monthly rents now range from approximately RMB 500 to RMB 600.
“Just the garage rental alone amounts to nearly 6,000 to 7,000 yuan a year, and some owners, reluctant to pay that much, still choose to park illegally outside the community.”
“A resident of the community said.”
In a residential community in Hunnan District, Shenyang, many parking spaces are priced at over RMB 200,000, deterring some homeowners.
“I only paid a little over 100,000 yuan for my car, yet I have to spend more than 200,000 yuan on a parking space—something I really can’t accept.”
Ms. Wang, a resident of the community, told reporters that once she moves in, she plans to park her car in one of the on‑street parking spaces.
Parking difficulties give rise to multiple “complications.”
Several respondents noted that parking difficulties are most acute in urban central areas, particularly in commercial districts, near hospitals and schools, at transportation hubs, and in older residential neighborhoods. Moreover, the parking shortage gives rise to a host of secondary issues:
Traffic congestion and frequent traffic safety accidents.
Traffic congestion around urban commercial districts, hospitals, and primary and secondary schools is severe. A major contributing factor is the high demand for parking in these areas coupled with a shortage of available spaces. Added to this are issues such as long detours to reach underground parking garages and difficulty locating their exits, leading to widespread illegal and disorderly parking that significantly impedes traffic flow.
Drivers who look for parking while driving can easily create traffic safety hazards.
Sidewalks are blocked by illegally parked vehicles, forcing pedestrians to step onto the roadway and compete with cars for space, thereby increasing safety risks.
It exacerbates motor vehicle exhaust emissions and traffic noise pollution.
A large number of vehicles, driven by inefficient detours to find parking and prolonged idling while waiting for a spot, increase fuel consumption and carbon emissions, exacerbate air pollution, and also contribute to traffic noise pollution.
This has become one of the major threats to urban environmental health today.
It increases urban management costs and undermines urban harmony.
According to interviews with reporters, over the past period, the Jinan Municipal 12345 Citizen Service Hotline has been handling an average of more than 3,000 cases each month related to parking management—accounting for roughly one-third of all cases assigned to public security traffic‑management departments. These cases primarily highlight issues such as insufficient parking spaces in older residential neighborhoods leading to illegal parking; chaotic parking秩序 and fee‑collection practices around scenic areas and commercial districts; and a lack of proper parking signage near newly built roads and residential complexes, resulting in disorderly parking.
During law enforcement, several incidents have also occurred in some localities involving disputes between illegally parked vehicle owners and enforcement officers.
Recently, in a residential community in Yuhong District, Shenyang, illegal parking has become rampant, and four law enforcement officers were attacked by residents when they went to issue parking tickets.
New construction faces bottlenecks in revitalizing existing stock.
An official from the Traffic Police Detachment of the Jinan Municipal Public Security Bureau told reporters that, as of the end of 2018, Jinan had a total of 2.265 million registered motor vehicles, with nearly 1.523 million of those in the urban area.
The urban area currently has 1.138 million parking spaces. Based on the internationally accepted ratio of 1:1.2 between vehicles and parking spaces, Jinan’s urban area would require a total of 1.828 million parking spaces, leaving a shortfall of 690,000 spaces.
Experts point out that, for a long time, many regions in China have suffered from inadequate parking demand forecasting, with parking infrastructure failing to keep pace with the growth in vehicle numbers.
According to interviews conducted by reporters, in line with the principle of “primarily relying on ancillary parking facilities, supplemented by public parking lots, with on‑street spaces serving as a complement,” as set forth in the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development, the Ministry of Public Security, and the National Development and Reform Commission’s Guiding Opinions on Strengthening Parking Infrastructure, the appropriate share of these three types of parking facilities in Jinan should be 80%, 15%, and 5%, respectively. However, the actual proportions are 93.8%, 4.7%, and 1.5%, indicating a severe imbalance in the supply structure and a critical shortage of public parking capacity.
Notably, in some cities, newly built parking spaces in older residential neighborhoods and urban renewal areas are virtually nonexistent.
Experts point out that, since the acceptance phase of construction projects no longer verifies indicators such as the number of parking spaces required to be provided or whether multi‑level facilities have been built in accordance with the design plan, some newly developed residential communities face issues of underground parking spaces either not being built at all, being under‑built, or being diverted for other uses.
On the other hand, due to the difficulty of site selection for construction projects, it is often challenging to identify suitable land within the built-up areas of many cities—particularly in central districts with high parking demand—for the development of public parking facilities.
“Newly built parking facilities require substantial investment, yield limited economic returns, and have long payback periods. Coupled with the absence of supportive policies, they offer little appeal to private capital, making it difficult in the short term to close the parking‑space gap by simply increasing the number of spaces.”
Lin Weiquan, captain of the Traffic Facilities Engineering Brigade of the Nanning Municipal Public Security Bureau Traffic Police Detachment, said.
To alleviate the shortage of parking resources, in recent years, many cities have sought to develop parking information platforms, employing strategies such as time‑shared sharing and parking guidance to address the challenge of finding available spaces.
Many respondents noted that parking information platforms across various regions have already reached a high level of technological maturity; the key challenge now is how to facilitate broader information sharing among parking resources, thereby maximizing the utilization of existing parking capacity.
A journalist’s investigation revealed that, at present, many cities have yet to establish a robust system for reporting and updating basic parking‑lot information, and government authorities’ grasp of such data largely remains confined to the initial registration details.
When information changes, the competent authorities remain unaware, resulting in delayed access to parking‑lot data and severely undermining the accuracy of both operational oversight and public information dissemination.
Zhou Minghui, deputy general manager of Shenyang Static Traffic Investment, Construction & Management Co., Ltd., said that without a substantial pool of parking‑related data to support it, even the most well‑designed platform would be meaningless.
A journalist’s investigation revealed that many public parking facilities are reluctant to integrate their parking‑space data into the city‑wide parking information platform.
The vast majority of on-site parking facilities at Party and government agencies, enterprises, and public institutions, as well as parking spaces within residential communities, remain closed to the general public due to issues such as security concerns and differing fee‑collection entities, resulting in underutilization of available parking resources.
An official from the Transportation Construction Management Division of the Shenyang Municipal Bureau of Urban and Rural Development stated, “Shenyang currently has more than 60,000 underutilized parking spaces allocated in residential complexes.”
If these underground parking spaces are brought back into use, they would help address one-quarter of Shenyang’s parking shortage.
”
Mobilizing diverse resources to address the parking shortage.
In the face of the current urban parking shortage, numerous experts and industry insiders recommend addressing the issue from three key angles and mobilizing diverse resources to find solutions.
First, optimize parking supply and regulate travel‑related parking demand.
Liang Qidong, vice president of the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, and other experts recommend renovating older residential communities. Where conditions permit within the community, they suggest designating parking spaces to address parking needs on-site, thereby minimizing traffic impacts on public roads and reducing reliance on street parking. Additionally, they advocate advancing the conversion of surface parking to multi‑level underground facilities.
Increase the supply of land for small and micro parcels, marginal plots, and idle sites; appropriately develop multi‑level parking facilities in core areas; and implement diversified measures to expand public parking capacity, thereby ensuring that residents’ basic parking needs are met.
To address the challenges of nighttime parking in residential neighborhoods and parking for school drop-offs and pick-ups, time‑limited parking spaces can be designated in older residential areas and around schools to help meet pressing parking needs.
Second, conduct a comprehensive inventory of parking resources and promote the sharing of parking facilities.
Lin Weiquan stated that the comprehensive survey and certification of berths are of paramount importance; without a complete set of baseline data, subsequent management cannot even be considered.
It is recommended that the government commission a professional research firm to conduct a comprehensive survey of existing parking spaces, establish a foundational parking database, and ensure that “the total number is clear and the situation is well understood.”
Improve the registration system for urban parking facilities to ensure that newly built, renovated, or expanded parking facilities are promptly registered, thereby enabling timely updates to the parking infrastructure database.
Zhou Minghui recommends that the relevant authorities introduce appropriate laws, regulations, or guiding documents to encourage the integration of various parking resources into parking information platforms. Furthermore, in tandem with “smart city” development, he advocates leveraging technologies such as the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence to establish a “reservation-based travel” parking model.
Third, strengthen top-level design and refine relevant policies.
Urban parking management involves multiple departments, including housing and urban–rural development and public security traffic management. Experts recommend coordinated collaboration on issues such as parking planning, parking space allocation, and pavement marking, while integrating resources and expertise from all stakeholders to jointly address parking challenges.
In response to issues such as the lack of standardized pricing for underground parking spaces in newly developed residential communities, respondents recommend promptly enacting policies to regulate the sale, rental, and management fees for parking services in residential complexes, thereby promoting efficient use of parking spaces and alleviating parking shortages. At the same time, they call for stringent measures to crack down on developers’ practices of hoarding properties, arbitrarily inflating prices, and offering units for sale only while refusing to rent them out.
