In Memory of Donald “Shoup Dogg” Shoup

1938 - 2025

Photo credit: UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

We were truly fortunate to have been taught by Professor Donald Shoup during our respective times at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Don was our advisor, guiding us through our undergrad and grad programs and thesis/capstone projects. He was pivotal in sharpening us to challenge the status quo as practicing planners. He was inspiring, curious, provocative, hilarious, and we all miss him dearly.

Don Shoup was decades ahead of his time, not just in academia but in the Urban Planning industry as a whole. The revolutionary parking reform and economic policies in his book, “The High Cost of Free Parking,” are as applicable today as 20 years ago during its first publication in 2005. He boldly opposed the business-as-usual mindset that cities need parking to thrive, and instead showed us that free parking is the exact reason why cities don’t thrive!

Long before Shoup became the legendary “parking rockstar,” he was an electrical engineering intern at a telephone company in the Netherlands. But what really stuck with him? It wasn’t the fact that the government used the first two floors of the building to tap into private phone calls, it was the underground bike parking. Not one, but two full levels, packed with bikes from every employee, executives included. And with a ramp, you could bike right up and out—no dismounting needed.

That moment mattered. It was one of those small but formative experiences that challenged the way he saw cities. Why weren’t bikes as popular back home? That question didn’t just linger—it reshaped his career and steered the course of ours as well.

Because of Shoup, we learned the importance of data-driven policymaking and the economics of urban planning. While best known as the prophet of parking reform – pushing cities to prioritize places for people over cars – his influence extends to all facets of our cities and the built form. At the heart of his work was the value of public goods and services, the power of pricing to influence behavior and reduce climate impacts, and the importance of public policy to combat the tragedy of the commons.

Don’s economic and parking lessons have personally imbued our advocacy and professional practice as we’ve collectively worked to influence policy, projects, and plans across the Bay Area and every tech mobility innovation coming out of Silicon Valley.

Bay Area advocates and planners are acting boldly on many of Shoup’s ideas:

We’ve encouraged policymakers, civil engineers, and planners to rethink how they allocate and manage street space. Across our region, we are removing parking to accommodate bike lanes, and bringing economic vitality to local businesses where 12 customers can park their bikes in the same space as one customer who arrives by car. Better yet, we’re turning surface lots into high-density housing and transit-oriented communities.
SVBC’s advocacy was instrumental in encouraging the City of San Jose to update its parking ordinance in 2023, removing minimum parking requirements for development proposals in favor of multimodal transportation.
Closing down streets to cars and adding parklets to extend cafe dining space in the public right-of-way became commonplace throughout the Bay Area during the COVID-19 Pandemic. We continue to defend these wins.
Park(ing) Day became a phenomenon first celebrated in San Francisco in 2005, and has spread worldwide. Participants take over street parking spots for one day, reimagining what the space could be used for to raise awareness about the high cost of free parking, roadway safety, multimodal transportation, climate change, and more.
Shoup’s principles even guide our advocacy on shared micromobility and tech-enabled mobility options like rideshare, and self-driving cars (e.g. Uber, Lyft, Waymo and Zoox).
Express lane implementation, pushing back on highway widening, and the list goes on…

Don Shoup was an exceptional educator who seamlessly blended economic theory with practical insights we continue to draw upon as planners years down the line. He made his perspective relevant and ideas accessible. He spoke clearly and convincingly, resonating with people regardless of their familiarity with urban planning concepts.

He encouraged his students to be involved in the public process at all levels, question the status quo, and press for meaningful change–whether on campus, on local advisory boards, on city councils, and through advocacy organizations (like SVBC!). Always humble, he often reminded us in class and during office hours that he was just a professor. It was up to us to go out into the world and apply our knowledge, push for reform, and improve our cities and communities.

He walked the walk, talked the talk in cross-sector settings, and biked through his old age. Always traversing campus on his signature bike, impeccably dressed in his signature tweed blazer and stylish retro helmet. Most of all, he never stopped caring and believing in his students’ ability to bring about change as practitioners in their own right.