this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Wasn't there a trial somewhat recently that tested removal of carparks and found that after an initial decline in patronage, most of the trial areas returned to the the prior level with some having higher patronage after the removal?
There was one in Wellington. Basically, some businesses got more business, some of them got less. I don't think the change either way was anything spectacular.
Can you remember which experiment this was in (I suppose it's probably either the highly contentious Newtown or island bay ones)
Yes, I am pretty sure this is the case. It's not hard to think that people that walk / cycle past a business will notice more things. They'll be lured in by those elaborate window displays you spent all morning setting up. They will smell the baked goods wafting by. They've probably worked up an appetite from all the walking/biking as well. They've maybe even had time to be influenced by your signage promising bargains, discounts etc etc. Cars are just zooming by, no attention whatsoever paid to your business unless they're A) already intending to go there or B) you have something outside so offensively eye catching and distracting that it probably should be outlawed?!
But only if they are local enough to be there by bike from the start. If anyone of you thinks that people ride their bikes 30, 40, 50km to the next city to do shopping, you might be in for a surprise. Those shops that would die without a car park are those who draw their crowd from outside the cities, too. And no, public transport is no option either for people from outside the city where there only is a morning bus and an evening bus.
Just to clarify, are you suggesting that people can't drive 30, 40, 50 kms, park in a building or around the corner and walk an extra few meters?
I don't know about you, but if I've driven an hour to go to a store and can't park my ute directly in front of it, I turn straight around and go home again.
That was never my topic.
In the next town (30km from here), it was as you described, and everyone was OK with that: Several underground parking garages and a large pedestrian zone in the city center. But this is getting more and more problematic. The new mayor decided to cripple the cities traffic infrastructure to force people into (inadequate) public transport or (imaginary) bikes. So now it is seriously difficult and time-consuming to reach those garages in the first place. Yes, there is park&ride outside of town and one could take a metro from there to near the city center, but the metro is very infrequent (30min interval) and initially took way longer than the trip by car. But instead of improving the metro connection, they crippled down the commute by car so it is now nearly as bad as the metro. And the next public transport stop is quite outside the pedestrian zone, anyway. Guess what, customers are pissed, retailers are pissed. And the bikers did not even get a worthwhile cycling infrastructure out of this.
On top of that (but that is really a personal problem) the metro station at the P&R is so badly built that I have problems getting my wife (who is handicapped) on the train in the first place. So we only use it when we need to go to places that are actually reachable with the tram. For access to the pedestrian zone, we still have to fight our way to the underground car parks in the city center, or go to places outside the crippled city.
As someone else has pointed out, cycling and walking is something that only takes people a very short distance away from home, so the catchment area for your business is very small, compared to someone else who drives. It's also a very weather dependent activity, and you're quite limited in what you can carry.
Something like a bakery is fairly generic, any will do, so as long as people can get to your store you'll be OK, but a store that is quite niche will likely struggle.
This is one advantage shopping malls have, they're typically close to public transport, and have covered parking.