I was discussing with a friend about downtown parking and returned to the argument that there would be a significant number of parking spots available if the city and the merchants stopped using so many for "free" or for a handful of dollars per month.
How many vehicles belonging to city employees remain parked (for "free") for the whole day? How many store employees do the same?
Ultimately, if there are not enough spots available the best way to regulate is to have meters. I can hear people howling against having to pay with meters but could they take one minute to compare what the cost would be to install modern meters and what the cost is going to be to build an underground parking?
Either way you pay but I bet the cost of an underground parking is much higher than the simple user fee generated by meters. My friend told me "meters are ugly": they don't have to be :) We can ask local artists to design beautiful meters and we don't need to have one meter for each parking spot.
The desinformation about the parking issues is amazing. Read Donald Shoup. At the end of the day maybe we'll have to pay as we park (and not pay if we walk or bike) but meters would be much cheaper than a huge underground parking and getting rid of all the existing costly and abusive parking privileges would already free a significant number of slots.