Parking is an essential component of the transportation system and significantly influences the quality of everyday life. Parking decisions and policies affect the cost of goods and services, housing affordability, transportation choices, stormwater management, and air quality.

This plan outlines a 10-year vision to reimagine parking in the Rockford Region. It aims to enhance quality of life, optimize land use, and remove development barriers. The plan builds on local successes, such as RMTD’s shuttle services, pandemic-era outdoor dining conversions, and City Market events that repurpose parking lots as community spaces.

Use the slider on the image below to see how development in downtown Rockford has shifted from 1939 to 2021.

As societal needs for automobiles have changed, so has parking in the United States. As the 20th century progressed, the development of parking facilities allowed the personal automobile to emerge as the dominant mode of transportation in the U.S.

• In the early 1900s, the curb was the only place allocated for parking in American cities, as the modern parking lot did not yet exist.
• In the 1920s, personal automobile ownership rates surged, leading to an increase in the number of automobiles on urban roadways. Private and public parking facilities were created to reduce vehicle congestion and alleviate safety concerns caused by the increase in automobiles.
• In the 1940s, municipal zoning codes mandated minimum designated parking space requirements for each developed lot to ensure anyone traveling by automobile would have a place to park at their destination.

Historical parking patterns have significantly shaped the development of the cities we live in today. Parking requirements alongside the increased distance of travel allowed by automobiles prompted the expansion of American cities into undeveloped areas outside their original urban cores.

Today, urban planners strive to find a balance between too much and too little parking to ensure city development supports economic, environmental, and social well-being.

Parking impacts economic development, environmental health, land use patterns, and community safety. Parking offers many benefits when effectively managed. However, parking can also impose economic and community burdens and often results in adverse effects on the environment.

In Part 4 of the Parking Reimagined Plan, you can learn about the need for balanced parking solutions through the benefits and burdens of current parking practices.

To inform discussions on how, why, and in what ways parking should transform, it is essential to understand the current state of parking in the Rockford Region. This section provides an overview of the region's parking availability and demand.

The region has an estimated 557,699 to 977,100 total parking spaces. However, there are only 226,178 registered vehicles in the region. This means there is an oversupply of parking. The empty parking spaces can be repurposed into parks or community event spaces to better serve community needs.

The Parking Reimagined team is currently conducting an Occupancy Study to understand how many parking spaces are occupied in Downtown Rockford. This will help us quantify real-time demand for parking during all conditions throughout the week.

We received feedback from the public that there is ample parking throughout the region, except for Downtown Rockford during events. Our team is going outside to count the number of parking spaces occupied during events to help capture this valuable data. The Occupancy Study will be released by December 2025.

The goals and strategies for the Parking Reimagined Plan, included in Part 7 of the plan, were developed using national and local trends, regional data, and public input. The goals are organized in order of priority, as determined by the public.