Repurposing Car Parking Can Improve Commerce

According to an article by David Zipper, "a growing body of evidence suggests that retailers ultimately come out ahead if their neighborhood becomes more inviting to shoppers arriving by foot, bike or transit." Thanks in part to pandemic-related programs that freed up street space for new uses, Zipper writes, the "privileged status that cars enjoy in urban shopping areas is being questioned as never before."

Zipper describes how various cities have repurposed former parking spaces and the reservations that some business owners still have about eliminating car parking. But data shows that business owners' fears, often based on their own experience and the assumption that most people drive to shops, are misplaced: a 2012 study in the Portland region "found that only 43% of bar patrons, 63% of restaurant customers and 58% of convenience store shoppers drove — the rest took transit, biked, or walked." In many urban settings, the customers that frequent small businesses don't drive to their destinations. 

Research also shows that economic activity grows when bike infrastructure is installed. In Toronto, an analysis showed increased consumer spending after bike lanes were installed in one commercial district. Jeffrey Tumlin, the director of San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency, suggests implementing small, reversible, community-informed pilot programs to ease business owners and other opponents into new street designs and show how parking conversion actually affects commerce.