Paying for parking changes the calculus of life. It makes everything significantly more expensive and really puts a damper on membership type things.

Like we've got a membership to the children's museum. But parking is ~$15 a time so we go far less frequently than we otherwise would.

Economic arguments about freeloading are good and something I theoretically agree with. But in practice when the other option is 2 busses & 45 minutes you end up not going to as many places as you otherwise would.