At its core, curbside management is about creating an organizational blueprint that improves mobility and safety for all users through balancing tradeoffs and optimizing curb use. When the right set of tools and incentives are aligned with broader city objectives, interactions at the curb become seamless to the benefit of cities and users alike.

The Curbside Management Plan (CMP) is a citywide, policy-informed framework that guides how curb space will be allocated, regulated and adapted over time. The CMP establishes a consistent approach to balancing competing demands at the curb—such as parking, passenger loading, freight delivery, transit access, micromobility and pedestrian activity—while advancing the City of Austin’s adopted goals related to safety, equity, mobility choice and environmental sustainability.

Unlike traditional street design guidance or block-by-block parking studies, the CMP focuses on managing the curb as a coordinated, citywide system. It provides the City and its decision-makers with a common language, a set of typologies and decision logic that can be applied across neighborhoods and contexts to support near-term operational decisions and inform coordination with longer-term planning efforts—without prescribing future capital or policy actions.

Austin Transportation and Public Works (TPW) leads all facets of mobility planning. Within TPW, the Parking Enterprise is responsible for many aspects of curb management and works in partnership with other TPW divisions to support a holistic, coordinated approach.

As TPW and its Parking Enterprise division move forward with implementing the CMP, a clear definition of curb-use priorities will help ensure smooth, consistent adoption and operations. The CMP is about creating an organizational blueprint that improves mobility and safety for all users through balancing tradeoffs and optimizing curb use.