The city council in Austin, Texas recently proposed something that could seem like political Kryptonite: getting rid of parking minimums.
Those are the rules that dictate how much off-street parking developers must provide — as in, a certain number of spaces for every apartment and business.
Around the country, cities are throwing out their own parking requirements – hoping to end up with less parking, more affordable housing, better transit, and walkable neighborhoods.
businesses are not that stupid. They will look at how customers get there. They know that customers who drive will mostly not go there if parking is too difficult. Customers who walk (take transit…) though will be happy to have have to walk across that parking lot, so if those are your customers get rid of the parking lot to make customers happy. If customers bike, then bike parking is important. They then will make what they think is the correct trade off.
Sure if there is no parking some people who really like your business will park on the street. However unless you have a rare niche most people will just go to a competitor.
This makes cities better as excess parking - means the city is less dense and transit works best with dense cities. Just a few parking lots converted to something else where there is already density (all cities have some place dense enough for this!) makes it easier for great transit to happen in the city.