Libertarian parking

Columbusite has a post on a report analyzing parking by Donald Shoup. Columbusite sums it up:

He also offers a tri-fold solution; charge fair-market prices for parking on the curb, return revenue generated by parking to the neighborhood in which it was made, and remove zoning requirements for off-street parking.

I support all of that, actually. Particularly interesting is the last item. I think many businesses would continue to provide parking regardless of zoning requirements, depending on what their customers (and employees) want. After all, no one is going to build a mall on the outskirts of town with no parking. Likewise, employers will consider free parking for employees based on what the labor market is demanding. Businesses could make those calculations on their own, based on what makes sense for them- as opposed to what regulations require. A downtown or other high-density neighborhood business might decide they don’t need any parking at all. Getting rid of off-street parking regulations is just a good libertarian solution!

I had something similar a while back.