By Henry Grabar
Happy Halloween! To celebrate this spooky time of year in my house, we like to dim the lights, set out a few candles, and read from a pumpkin-colored book of nightmares: The Little Book of Boston Parking Horrors. Written in 1986, Michael Silverstein and Linda Elwood’s manifesto is best enjoyed for its mordant cartoons. But like all important works, it has accrued multiple meanings with the passage of time. For the authors, evidently, the horror in question was the harrowing experience of being a car owner in Boston. As if it weren’t bad enough with all those damn ducklings trying to get in your way!
Reading the book in 2026, however, we can experience a kind of meta-horror: The horror of being so fixated on the right to park that we fail to see all that must be sacrificed in its interest. Here are some Boston Parking Horrors for the contemporary reader: The Boylston Street bus lane was erased because, the Boston Globe reported, too many people used it for parking. A faster commute for bus riders on Blue Hill Avenue is on hold, pending concerns about, among other things, parking. A bike path in East Boston? Killed for parking. Last year, a 71-unit apartment building in Southie was approved by the city planning department pending a zoning change. The zoning change was denied, following letters from elected officials including the sitting US congressman, because the building had no parking.
The right to free, on-street parking is not in the Constitution. But Boston has, on the books, a law that tries to maintain it anyway: The city’s code commands anyone building homes or anything else to include a certain number of parking spaces. This is not an effective antidote to the city’s parking sickness. More parking isn’t free: The cost of building garage parking can be as high as $60,000 a space, with underground parking running up to $150,000 a space. It all takes up precious square footage that could be used for other things. Of course some folks want to pay six figures for a parking spot—but no one should be forced to pay for parking when they rent or buy a home.
There is currently a proposal in the city council to do away with this requirement for new homes, allowing builders to construct the amount of parking they feel future occupants will want and need. That will permit more housing, at a lower price point, along with building designs that are more faithful to the city’s traditions. Try rebuilding Back Bay with one parking space per apartment—it would look like Burlington Mall. Dozens of other cities, including San Francisco, Austin, and Minneapolis, have stopped requiring parking. Several states have followed suit.
Even drivers may want to get behind this reform. Every new parking space substantially increases the chances that a Boston household will own an additional car. That means more traffic, and down the road, more competition for parking. Not finding parking is scary. But not having enough homes for everyone who lives here is scarier still.