01-12-2016, 09:59 AM
I've seen the same research showing that car users can spend less than transit/bike/feet users, but when the modal split is still ~85-95% car, depending on area, increasing the 5-15% of non-car users' trips/spending by, say, 10%, is easily outweighed by an equivalent reduction in the money generated by the 85-95% of drivers. I say this as someone who has never owned a car, who takes GRT/bike/carshare/feet to my destinations. Making sure that things still work for all users is important, and if we've seen anything with roundabouts, it's that many drivers can't be bothered to understand even the simplest changes to what they expect. I still think we're smart enough to solve this. I'd love it if we got to a point where, say, everyone downtown expected to pay a small reasonable rate for parking, but when they went to buy their coffee/groceries/movie ticket, they could have a phone app generated QR code scanned by the business, wherein they'd either say they're heading back to their car <30 minutes from now, or that they'd be back in ~2.5h (if, say, buying tickets to an Apollo movie). Eliminate the separate transaction, or the hunt for a place to perform it. Besides the point, of course.