Does your town have shortages of parking spaces for customers, residents, and visitors? Many towns have these challenges, and free parking (which isn’t ever free) is no answer compared with free market parking.
Over at the blog Pedshed.net, dedicated to “Walkable Urban Design and Sustainable Placemaking,” there’s a post on how Redwood City, California and other cities are trying a free-market approach:
“One solution is free-market parking. Set parking meter prices so that 85% of spaces are occupied and 15% are open at any given moment. This idea has been getting more attention lately, and Redwood City, CA is the locality that has put the most advanced implementation into action.”
This won’t be suited for every small town, but there is ample evidence in support of it. See, for example, an article that Douglas Kolozsvari and Donald Shoup wrote on the topic: Turning Small Change into Big Changes.
This way not work everywhere as well — a truly struggling area, not a congested one — would not be a target for this approach. If few show up, and traffic is low, your parking problem is really a lack-of-customers problem.