Read Jason Wang’s May 12th op-ed in We-Ha.com, “Re-Imagining Our Town Center Begins With Re-Imagining Parking,” where he watched parking spaces in front of several stores in West Hartford Center on a Saturday afternoon and found:
” – During those 2 hours, 0 people parked in any of the 7 storefront spaces and walked in. Again, the stores received ZERO potential customers from storefront street parking. Z-E-R-O.
– On the other hand, 153 people walked in from locations farther away. Many emerged with purchases!
– The 7 storefront street parking spaces turned over only 13 times in 2 hours….
This little study shows that retail in West Hartford is far more dependent on foot traffic than on the absolutely highest convenience of parking. The lack of parking turnover suggests that even dramatically expanding street parking spaces would hardly increase the number of potential customers in comparison to foot traffic.”
Read Jason Wang’s full essay in We-Ha.com