Polish cities facing a parking crisis

Polish drivers struggle every day to find somewhere to park their cars and their dissatisfaction with this situation is easy to see in the many comments they post on social media. There is no doubt that parking while running errands in the city is a challenge. The reason is most visible in Warsaw: for several years, the safety of pedestrians and cyclists has clearly been prioritised over driver comfort. This is reflected in the removal of parking spaces in favour of new cycle paths or the installation of bollards that prevent parking along pavements (this has even become a phenomenon known as “bollardosis”). The shortage of parking spaces exists not only in large urban centres, but also in county towns, although in the latter case it is often caused by the absence of paid parking zones. These inconveniences may mainly harm private entrepreneurs. A service unit without nearby parking loses motorised customers, and if they made up the majority of its customers, the business has to move to a new location, for example to a shopping centre, or ultimately close permanently.

A common parking-related problem in many cities, regardless of their size, is the constant delivery of numerous new residential developments. Anyone, who lives near new blocks of flats, does not own a parking space and has returned home by car on a Sunday evening, at least once has almost certainly faced a situation, when the nearest car park was completely full and it was necessary to look for a space in another car park, in another part of the estate. New residential developments are not, admittedly, the only culprit. In the past, underground garages were not built: multi-family housing from before the 1990s is characterised by a lack of internal parking spaces and only occasional external garages, while in the 1990s, and in smaller towns also in the first decade of the 21st century, blocks were most often built with just a few individual garages at ground level. In the past, however, no one anticipated how quickly new multi-family buildings would appear in the future.

According to data published by Statistics Poland (GUS), in the last several years, from 2020 onwards (in fact from 2019), there has not been a single year, in which fewer than 200 000 dwellings were completed across Poland. This is a large number, especially compared with 2015, when the number of such dwellings was much lower, at just under 150 000. The dynamic increase in the number of newly completed dwellings before 2020 can be seen even more clearly by going back another five years: in 2010, the number of new dwellings completed was only slightly lower, at around 135 000. It is worth adding that detached houses are also counted as dwellings in this statistic, so it covers the entire residential market. In theory, the development of residential construction in Poland should not be a factor in the parking crisis, because today the standard is to provide new parking spaces alongside multi-family housing projects, most often in the form of multi-space underground garages. However, if we take into account GUS data on newly registered passenger cars, the number of parking spaces accompanying new dwellings is not sufficient and is clearly lower than the number of new cars, because since 2019 the annual number of newly registered passenger cars has not fallen below 400 000. What is more, in 2019 and 2024 it exceeded 500 000, and in 2025 it reached 600 000. It is worth adding that these figures do not include newly registered used cars imported from abroad, so the increase in the number of cars is even greater.

The above comparison between the number of new dwellings and the number of new passenger cars would make more sense if we assumed that there are as many new parking spaces as new dwellings (flats and detached houses). It is known, however, that spatial planning instruments, and in particular local spatial development plans (MPZP), define the minimum required parking space ratios for new residential development, for example a minimum of 1.5 spaces per dwelling, which is a ratio often used for multi-family housing. Ratios may differ: the highest apply to detached housing and may amount to 2, while the lowest apply to central urban development and may even be below 1. If, therefore, 200 000 dwellings were completed in a given year, then with an average ratio of 1.5 at least 300 000 parking spaces were theoretically created, and the surplus of new cars becomes smaller, but it still exists. There is also the issue of parking spaces that have not been purchased and are not used. It can be assumed that most of these spaces are used thanks to a practice often applied by investors, namely imposing an obligation to purchase a flat together with a parking space. However, one should remember parking spaces whose purchase is not required and which are expensive, and which consequently remain unused. In addition, large cities have begun to apply lower ratios, a measure justified by good access to public transport.

The shortage of parking spaces is deepened to some extent by the possibility of bypassing local spatial development plans through the use of the special housing act, the so-called “Lex Developer”, which allows a residential project to be carried out on land designated for a purpose other than residential development. In theory, a new estate may take the place of a potential public car park with wider availability. In addition, in August 2025 the special act was amended so that it no longer imposes a parking space ratio and gives the municipal council greater freedom to determine the minimum number of spaces (previously the municipal council could only increase the ratio), which may reduce the availability of parking spaces in the case of some projects.

Park & Ride (P&R) car parks may be a solution to the parking problem in the centres of large cities. This is a compromise solution that combines the use of a car with travel by public transport, and such car parks are located at transport hubs. According to GUS data, there are places, where many such car parks are being built, for example Wroclaw, where there were as many as 36 in 2024 (for comparison, Warsaw had 17), and Cracow County, where their number increased from 5 in 2020 to 22 in 2024, but there are not many such places in Poland. In Warsaw itself, only one P&R car park was created in 2020-2024. The limited scale of implementation of this solution may be due to the target group of drivers being too small, namely mainly those commuting to a large city from smaller towns. The results of the September 2025 Warsaw Barometer survey indicate that as many as 71% of Warsaw residents had not used P&R in the three months preceding the survey, and in previous years this percentage was even higher. Everything therefore suggests that P&R car parks do not significantly relieve pressure on car parks in city centres. As regards new surface parking spaces built separately, outside residential developments, the negligible number of building permits for car parks across Poland may be worrying, even though a building permit is not required for all such car parks; among permits issued since 2020, only one can be found for the construction of a car park in Warsaw.

Is access to public transport good enough to improve the situation? An analysis of GUS data from the last several years shows, in addition to an increase in the number of new cars, an annual increase in the number of stops (bus and tram stops), and from 2023 a renewed rise in the number of newly registered buses. In Warsaw itself, the number of stops also increased, but this does not mean that the public transport network improved in every part of the city outside the reach of the metro. In fact, transport may fail to keep pace with the intensification of new residential development, as illustrated by the area on the border of Kamionek and Grochow or by Ursus. New metro lines are indeed planned in all these places, but only in the distant future. The same applies to Warsaw’s Chrzanow: the estate began to expand long before the extension of the second metro line started, and bus transport became insufficient for this part of the capital. Since 2024, the number of new buses has been around 2 000, although it is worth adding that in the 2010s annual numbers of new buses could significantly exceed 3 000. The most important statistic, however, is the number of passenger journeys, which is growing year by year. This may be influenced by the improved network of stops and a more modern bus fleet, but it should be noted that the growth observed since 2021 was preceded by a sharp decline in 2020, most likely caused by the outbreak of the pandemic, and only the 2024 figure approached the levels recorded in the previous decade. If, however, the number of passenger journeys is returning to that level at a time when the increase in the number of cars is higher than it was then, this indicates the growing popularity of public transport.

Summary

The shortage of parking spaces is undoubtedly worsening and is both the result of deliberate measures to restrict car traffic and of urban planning chaos caused by the growth in the number of new residential developments. If the aim of local authorities is to create “car-free cities”, they should consider reducing the costs associated with operating service units in city centres in order to compensate for the outflow of motorised customers, as well as creating paid parking zones in cities governed by city mayors. The figures do not suggest that Poles are about to suddenly give up buying cars, so it is worth considering the construction of multi-storey car parks. The development of public transport gives grounds for optimism, and this mode of transport can already be more convenient than a car in some cases, but there is still much room for improvement, especially in the capital. The public transport network should precede residential developments, as it once did in the case of Kabaty, so that it can attract passengers. In the largest cities, carsharing may be an alternative to owning a car, but only on condition that regular customers are rewarded through loyalty programmes, which are currently lacking. The solutions listed above are essential in order not to worsen the already poor parking situation in Polish cities and not to lead to a parking crisis.

Mateusz Palczewski
Specialist, GIS Analyst