In Boulder, we cherish our land. We cherish the beauty of our home. And we cherish our duty of environmental stewardship. Yet nearly 10% of the City of Boulder’s very cherished and very limited space is dedicated to parking, according to a city fact sheet.

Really consider that for a moment. Ten percent of our city is paved over for parking. Now think about all the times you see parking lots sitting empty, black pavement soaking up the sun. Sure, when we occasionally come together for something like the Creek Fest or the Fourth of July, parking can feel scarce across the city, but in day-to-day life, it’s abundant. Maybe overabundant.

Across the city, we have allocated 1,517 acres to parking. There are three parking spaces for every household vehicle. When a 2,500 square foot restaurant is built here in the city, it is required to have 21 off-street parking spaces, which would take up three times (!) the land of the restaurant itself. And, here’s the kicker: If every resident and every in-commuter went out and parked somewhere in the city, we’d still have empty parking spaces.

Parking, of course, is necessary. It is an imperative part of modern existence. It is vital for most of us sometimes, and essential all the time for those of us who are differently abled and rely on their vehicles.

But we should all be able to admit that we have too much parking. (Again — 10% of our city!) And all this parking encourages our car-dependency. And our car-dependency needs to change.

Thankfully, last month the Boulder City Council unanimously voted to eliminate parking minimum requirements for new developments. The ordinance still requires another vote, but it is expected to pass and go into effect at the end of August.

>> so the idea of fewer parking spaces, and all the potential inconveniences that come with that, could be frustrating.

While this fear is legitimate, the fact of the matter is that we can and should be working to incentivize alternatives to driving.

It is important to clarify that the City Council’s vote will not remove any existing parking. It is a future-oriented effort. As Boulder continues growing and changing — as all healthy cities must — developments will simply not be required to include parking.

Does this guarantee that new restaurants and housing developments will lack parking? Absolutely not. It means the market will decide. By removing the city’s mandate, developers will have the freedom to determine what a given development needs.

This has multiple benefits.

For starters, it will make many developments cheaper. Building parking is shockingly expensive: One study found that a single parking space can cost between $9,000 and $50,000. Anything we can do to lower the cost of housing developments, and thus the cost of housing, is a win.

More importantly, though, building less parking is another small step toward transitioning away from being a car-dependent city.

Having smooth, convenient access to the places we need to go is imperative. But the reality is, we need to start getting serious about transitioning away from our car-dependent landscape. The key words here are “transitioning” and “dependent.” We don’t have to change Boulder overnight — and we shouldn’t. And we aren’t ever going to make driving impossible; driving, in some capacity, will always have a place in our society.

What we must begin doing is offering alternatives to our dependence — more walkable and bikeable communities and better and more convenient public transit. Removing parking minimum requirements for future developments is an ideal step in this direction. This small ordinance change will play a part in allowing us to begin transitioning toward a Boulder where cars, while still present, are not a necessity.

This should be a goal we can all agree upon. It may sound unappealing to some, but we should also be able to recognize the imperativeness of it. Transportation is the biggest polluter in America, and 57% of those emissions come from our personal vehicles, according to the EPA.

Driving, quite simply, is making our planet less habitable.

Removing parking minimums won’t fix this, but neither will it lock cars out of Boulder. It can, though, help us change how our city grows, how it changes, how it adapts for the future, and how we think of daily travel.

Our climate is changing; to have a hope of fighting back, we must be willing to change too.

Gary Garrison for the Editorial Board