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Comment by timeinput | Hacker News Reader

I think the businesses do kind of know their customers.

This is an exaggeration of what (I think) happens: all of their current customers only ever drive there and park in front of their shop. They say oh with no parking I won't come any more. Then they stop coming. They lost all their customers! Everyone who can now safely walk to the shop (who couldn't / wouldn't before for multiple reasons) starts walking there. There are a lot more people who can now safely walk to and patronize the shop, and they do. The shops foot traffic went up by 10x. They still lost all their customers.

I think it's probably good that it's easy for people to walk / bike / bus to this shop, and the shop owner probably does to, but they still may have lost a lot of old customers.

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I think this is basically hitting the nail on the head. My town has closed a lot of street parking in the downtown, and as a result I rarely do shopping or dining there now because I don't want to park in a garage 3-4 blocks away when I used to be able to park on the same block if not right in front of the business. In other words, I had no other reason to be downtown, so making it inconvenient is going to make me less likely to go there.

But I'm sure there are people who are downtown anyway (work there, etc.) and who now don't want to walk back to the garage to get their car and drive somewhere for lunch, so they just walk to someplace close by.

So businesses probably lose some old customers, and gain some new. It might be a net positive for them.

> But I'm sure there are people who are downtown anyway (work there, etc.) and who now don't want to walk back to the garage to get their car and drive somewhere for lunch, so they just walk to someplace close by.

This raises a question: why didn't those people walk to someplace close by before your town closed downtown street parking? Even when their cars were conveniently nearby a short walk to a nearby lunch place should be faster and more convenient than a drive to some distant place.

One explanation that seems plausible is that they did not know of the nearby places. When they are at home and decide to go out for lunch they go to some national or regional chain like Subway or Wendy's or Denny's. There's one of those a reasonable drive from work and so they go there. When the parking change made that a hassle they started paying more attention to non-chain options and noticed the local places.

It would be interesting to try to reintroduce street parking in some form that will again draw in people like you but that would still discourage people who work downtown from just hopping in their cars and driving to a chain restaurant for lunch.

Another possible answer: It sucks to be a pedestrian around cars, so people decide to drive.

As a pedestrian, cars take up space and block your vision when they're parked, they're dangerous, loud, and (can be) smelly when they're moving, and even when the cars themselves aren't around, the space between buildings is dominated by their required, exclusive infrastructure of asphalt.

Usually when parking is removed, it's replaced with planters, seating, and things for people instead of cars, which makes it more attractive to be a pedestrian.

More choices. The places within easy walking distance get boring after a while. Also because it’s cheaper (but they probably aren’t fully considering the cost of the drive)

In general, road diets that make things worse for cars typically make things better for other modes of transportation.

People walking and biking are much more sensitive to changes in the urban environment because they're not in a climate controlled metal safety box. Lots of things can change that impact how much people are willing to walk or bike around. Having fewer/slower cars around, for example.

> Everyone who can now safely walk to the shop (who couldn't / wouldn't before for multiple reasons) starts walking there.

I'm struggling to imagine reasons why a significant number of people will now start walking to these businesses. What are some of these multiple reasons that have now been overcome to an extent as to cause shop traffic to increase ten-fold?

This actually makes a lot of sense to me. My wife is disabled, so I’m probably one of those customers he would lose along with his parking, but there are probably 1.5x as many homes in my neighborhood (of condos) than there are vehicles actively parking here. It would likely be a huge boon for the places I frequent now. It might even have an effect of slightly countering market downturns as people in trouble sell/lose cars and move to public transit temporarily

One extremely promising change I’ve been seeing a lot of lately: the most undesirable parking spaces in large lots are being ripped up and replaced with small businesses. I’ve seen a new coffee shop and gas station with 4 pumps go up in my town so far. Love it!

> Everyone who can now safely walk to the shop (who couldn't / wouldn't before for multiple reasons) starts walking there. There are a lot more people who can now safely walk to and patronize the shop, and they do.

You’re hypothesizing that people are purposefully avoiding these streets because they have cars driving on them?

Yes? Cars are loud, they smell, take up a tremendous amount of space & are gigantic metal boxes that can cause serious injuries even at low speeds.

In Amsterdam there's been countless examples of this exact thing. Businesses booming after they rip out parking and make roads forbidden for cars, and I can anecdotally say I also love whenever they rip out parking near me in the Netherlands.

> In Amsterdam there's been countless examples of this exact thing.

Anything by way of peer reviewed empirical evidence?

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