The history of public car parks

Newspapers from the 1930s show that by then, there were both commercial and private car parks operating in areas such as Hillier Street in Sheung Wan, Chater Road, and Pedder Street in Central. The government also provided parking spaces at popular leisure spots, including swimming sheds along Castle Peak Road.

In 1940, the Police Department introduced the first formal parking regulations, designating a total of 15 car park sites across Hong Kong and Kowloon, mainly in Central and Tsim Sha Tsui, which were managed by the Hong Kong Automobile Association. Once these car parks came into operation, the surrounding streets were designated as no-parking zones for the sake of traffic management.

However, early car park sites were often selected without comprehensive planning, and frequently met with opposition from local residents and other road users. After the Second World War, the number of vehicles in urban areas surged while the streets remained crowded with rickshaws, goods vehicles and hawkers. The demand for parking intensified. In 1947, the Hong Kong Tramway Company appointed S.R. Geary, former General Manager of Road Services for the London Transport Board, to improve tram services. After observing traffic conditions in Hong Kong, he proposed the construction of underground car parks to relieve surface congestion.

However, until 1950, the government continued to rely on finding vacant urban land or demolishing existing buildings to create surface car parks. The late 1950s marked a turning point; as reclamation works progressed and the Star Ferry Pier was reconstructed, a three-storey car park was built alongside the pier. This was the city’s first multi-storey parking facility. Initially, a fee of fifty cents was charged per car to cover operating and maintenance costs, which also marked the introduction of paid public parking in the city. Later in 1962, a similar three-storey car park was developed as part of the City Hall project.

Together, these two parking facilities marked a shift toward multi-storey structures as a solution. Entering the 1960s, as the number of vehicles in Kowloon continued to rise, an 11-storey car park with 857 spaces was built on Middle Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Plans were also made to develop similar facilities on Canton Road and in Yau Ma Tei.

Perhaps the most well-known example to Hong Kongers was the Yau Ma Tei Multi-storey Car Park, which was famous for having a hole through the middle. The north block at 250 Shanghai Street (phase 1 of 2) was built in 1970 to address growing parking demand in Kowloon’s urban core. The building also served broader community functions, with the Yau Ma Tei Public Library on the lower floors, and the Immigration Department’s West Kowloon office along with other government departments occupying the upper levels.

When the Gascoigne Road Flyover was planned in the mid-1970s, government engineers faced a dilemma: demolish the car park, or alter the route? In the end, they did neither. When designing the south block of the car park, they incorporated the flyover into the structure, passing through its third and fourth floors. It was completed in 1983, becoming one of Hong Kong’s most distinctive urban sights. 

The emergence of multi-storey car parks led to the replacement of the previous scattering of surface car parks. For example, surface car parks in Central were superseded by the Rumsey Street Multi-storey Car Park in Sheung Wan, completed in 1973. Meanwhile, the government continued to build similar facilities in new towns and developing districts, including those at Murray Road, Yau Ma Tei, Aberdeen, and Tsuen Wan, which were completed between the 1970s and early 1980s.

The changing role and value of multi-storey car parks

Early multi-storey car parks were typically placed in the heart of the city, making them very convenient for drivers. However, as the city continued to develop, an increasing number of buildings and shopping centres began to incorporate parking facilities into their structures. In fact, the government began to require it. Today, the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines require commercial retail developments to provide 1 parking space per 200–300m² of gross floor area in Zone 1 (high-density) areas. Private and public housing, churches, medical facilities, and schools have their own requirements. Nevertheless, government-operated car parks have remained popular due to their comparatively affordable fees.

When planning public car parks, the government has adopted a “single site, multiple use” principle by combining car parking with other public facilities. For example, the Sheung Fung Street Car Park in Wong Tai Sin has a market on its ground and second floors. The now-demolished Murray Road Multi-storey Car Park once housed the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s headquarters on its top floor. Government offices can still be found on the ninth and tenth floors of Rumsey Street Multi-storey Car Park, including the Civil Service Bureau and the Department of Justice, alongside facilities such as a Student Health Service Centre / Special Assessment Centre.

However, in land-scarce Hong Kong, car parks that long occupied prime urban sites gradually came to be seen as failing to realize the full commercial potential of the land they sat on. Therefore, in addition to relying more on the private sector to provide parking, the government favours demolishing its older public car parks to maximize their development potential. It currently costs roughly between HK$300,000 and HK$1,000,000 per parking space to build a multi-storey car park (depending on whether the structure is above or below ground), which the income from parking fees alone cannot justify. Therefore, parking needs to be integrated with more profitable land uses such as retail or office space. 

For example, the Middle Road Multi-storey Car Park was demolished in 2014 and redeveloped into an 18-storey shopping mall, H Zentre. The  land lease conditions required its developer to provide a specified number of public parking spaces. H Zentre now provides 300 public parking spaces at relatively low fees (around HKD 26–28 per hour, approximately 15–20% less than nearby alternatives), striking a balance between market-driven development and public parking needs.

In 2021, the Yau Ma Tei Multi-storey Car Park was demolished to make way for the Central Kowloon Route Project after serving the district for over half a century. This eliminated 700 parking spaces from the district without a clear immediate plan to replace them. This exacerbated longstanding dissatisfaction with insufficient parking in the district. (More recently, Transport Secretary Mabel Chan recently said that in spite of the demolition, the overall number of parking spaces in Yau Tsim Mong and Sham Shui Po Districts grew by 2,500 between 2021 and 2025.) 

However, public multi-storey car parks still have some relevance. In recent years, the construction of new housing in Sheung Shui led to the resumption of numerous vacant lots that were being used as temporary car parks, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of available parking spaces in the district. To ameliorate this, the government built a new multi-storey car park on Ka Fu Close, next to Choi Shek Estate, providing 326 private parking spaces. In accordance with “single site, multiple uses”, badminton courts, a basketball court, and landscaping areas were incorporated into its roof.

Limited Space, Induced Demand

Beyond the issue of land value maximization, another reason why the government rarely builds standalone multi-storey car parks now is that it wants to avoid encouraging more people to drive into already congested urban areas. 

The amount of space in urban areas is finite, but the number of private cars keeps rising. In 1947 when S. R. Geary first proposed the construction of underground car parks, there were fewer than 4,000 private cars on Hong Kong’s roads. In 2024 (the most recent figures available from the Transport Department), there were 630,711 registered private cars. The years between 2014 to 2024 saw a 16% increase. Current government policy therefore prioritizes commercial vehicles over private vehicles in parking space provision. 

Moreover, thanks to a phenomenon called “induced demand” that is well-understood by urban planners and traffic engineers, trying to accommodate a constantly growing number of vehicles ends up being counterproductive. Induced demand can be summarized as “if you build it, they will come”. When a new road is built to make the journey between two destinations faster, more and more people will use it until it becomes congested. 

Similarly, when new car parks are built in a very busy area, more people will be encouraged to drive there. Some will switch away from public transport, others will make journeys that they previously avoided, and a few people might decide to buy new cars since it is now convenient to park near their workplace. Soon the car park will fill up, traffic congestion will increase, and there will once again be a shortage of parking. This is why some mayors of global cities such as Paris’s Anne Hidalgo have chosen to remove thousands of parking spaces from city centres to encourage public transport use, walking, or cycling instead. 

Hong Kong’s government has not adopted such a bold strategy, but attempts to maintain a tricky balance between satisfying drivers, managing traffic congestion, and utilizing land resources efficiently, resulting in inconsistent and sometimes contradictory actions. 

With land scarcity and ongoing parking demand, redefining the role of public car parks will remain a key challenge in Hong Kong’s urban development.

This article was written by contract researcher Ng Cheuk Hang.

References

Transportation and Logistics Bureau, LCQ11: Provision and planning of car parking space, 28 May 2025.

〈禧利街將改為停車場 小販一律搬遷〉(“Hillier Street to be Converted into a Car Park; Hawkers to Be Relocated”), The Kung Sheung Daily News, 8 August 1930.

〈警司頒佈停車場則例並劃定港九各區停車場〉(“Police Commissioner Issues Car Park Regulations and Designates Car Park Locations Across Hong Kong and Kowloon”), The Chinese Mail, 8 August 1930.

〈籌建新大會堂提出龐大計劃〉(“Proposal for the Construction of the New City Hall Calls for an Ambitious Plan”), The Kung Sheung Daily News, 18 June 1951.

〈新天星碼頭及三層停車場下月九日同時請葛督開幕〉(“New Star Ferry Pier and Three-Storey Car Park to Be Officially Opened by the Governor Grantham on the Ninth of Next Month”), Wah Kiu Yat Po, 22 November 1957.

〈尖沙咀中間道月內招商與工建造十一層停車場〉(“Tsim Sha Tsui Middle Road: Tenders to Be Invited Within the Month for the Construction of an 11-Storey Car Park”), Wah Kiu Yat Po, 6 March 1963.