City Challenge: User Perception on the Governance and Quality of Parking Spaces in Central Business District of Kumasi, Ghana

City centers across the globe are areas of intense socioeconomic interaction and population flow, receiving huge public and private investments. The rapid increase in urbanization and mobility in developing countries to an extent, shows how pressure is increasingly exerted on providing parking spaces, particularly, in city centers. Governments of developing countries face challenges in planning for the constantly increasing population and this beset them in terms of guiding economic development and fast-tracking investment in urban infrastructure–parking spaces. City centers across many African countries have seen a tremendous increase in automotive and commercial activity due to urbanization. This has resulted in massive vehicular traffic congestion in this part of the city with unclear governance systems in planning for and managing parking spaces. The study sought to assess the management of parking spaces in central Kumasi (Adum), examine the willingness of users to pay more for managing traffic situations, and determine the factors that account for the management outcome in ensuring parking availability and decongesting the city center. The results showed that the parking fee was not appropriately set to reduce the demand for parking spaces and is being utilized as a revenue-generating strategy. A primary barrier to employing parking charges as a demand control approach is the willingness and ability of parking users to pay for the use of the facility, along with the poor operation of public transportation. Also, the study showed that the problem of parking inadequacy is partly behavioral, which requires thorough understanding and redress. The study concludes that adequate parking facilities should be provided alongside the increase in commercial activities. Future parking spaces should be preferably off-street parking spaces to help reduce the traffic congestion associated with on-street parking.