Perhaps the overconsumption is on the businesses that have no parking infrastructure for their customers, relying on street parking instead. What if there was no street parking allowed at all? It’s probably too late to implement this idea, but interesting to think about.
That's more or less how Tokyo works. Almost no on-street parking, people have to prove that they have a parking spot when buying a car, liberal zoning so there are lots of very small pay parking lots around the city. It works really well IMO but it would be politically very difficult in North America.
Even if every business had a 1000 stall parking garage beneath it, curb parking would still be highly valued because it’s more convenient. And since it would be valued more than zero dollars, if the city charges zero dollars for parking, then we’ll still see over consumption and contention for those spots.
I agree 100% though that not having street parking at all is the way to go. My arguments about market pricing is more of a second best option – if the city is going to continue to provide land for this specific use, then we shouldn’t subsidize it or treat as a special case.
