Parking shouldn't be free. If it's to entice customers at a store/shopping mall, they can be provided an hour of parking for every x dollars spent.
Under-utilised parking spots should be leased or sold. (They sell for 80-300k where I live)
Under-utilised parking spots should be leased or sold. (They sell for 80-300k where I live)
Even if there's some sort of validation system if you buy something, dealing with the whole ticketing system on entry and exit is annoying, and in the circumstances where I don't end up buying anything I have to deal with paying for the parking. It's much less of a hassle to just avoid all that.
Sure, and if enough people agree with you, then businesses will choose to provide free parking of their own accord. But they shouldn't be required to, is the thing.
There are so many factions that will attack you for doing something, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
To blame parking spaces for raising prices is really pathetic and delusional.
The problem is that different factions of poverty activists will pick differing things to be offended by, so one group may think that having free parking space is the rich oppressing the poor, but if the store changes it to paid parking, other activists will say that is oppressing the poor. However it's reported the same way so it makes it sound like all poverty activists are in unison but they're not. But the media doesn't care as long as the rich are being vilified.
[0] - http://www.domain.com.au/news/kirribilli-car-spot-sells-for-...
There was a spot that went for 620k earlier: http://www.scmp.com/property/hong-kong-china/article/2040679...
It should be noted that car ownership is much lower here though.