> from voters who fear a lack of parking at the businesses they frequent
IOW they want a handout from the city (free parking) to support their lifestyles.
IOW they want a handout from the city (free parking) to support their lifestyles.
I don't know why this has caught on so strongly online that like water and gas hookups, electric, roads, and trash/yard waste pickups to single-family homes aren't supporting a specific lifestyle but public parking? Those evil suburbanites ruining everything. My hometown Columbus and the policy of mandatory parking is still working out great. New developments are building more parking than required of them and they're the hip trendy areas. The only places in the city where it's an issue is in and around "The Short North" where you can't fit any more parking and they moved to an app based pay system everyone hates. Whenever I'm home and want to go out with friends it's much easier to hit up Bridge Park or Franklinton because they have massive garages.
Forcing private businesses to have parking, even if they make a business decision to not have it, is a tax on those businesses. And on all the businesses that would have been viable without that tax.
I have no issue with paid public parking. It needs to exist.
Or if we love free public services so much, we can talk about why public transport isn't free.
I think public transport should be free, keeping on the Columbus track I have no idea why COTA even bothers to charge. They instituted a monthly price-cap that's at most $62/mo and (or at most $31 plus 50% reduction on the per-fare cost if you're broke). And while not an insignificant amount of money to the riders it's bottom-of-the-bag chip dust to COTA itself. Oh no, more people might use the nearly empty busses, the horror.
The point of charging for parking is not just to collect funds, it's to make sure parking is available.