r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	artfuldodger1212
Comment	>Making parking a nightmare will drive people out of the city centre and into out-of-town facilities. There is a wealth of recent peer-reviewed research out there that directly counters this very familiar argument. Recent studies in the UK and the US found that pedestrianisation efforts as stand alone initiatives significantly INCREASED footfall in every business sector. from retail, to hospitality, accommodation all saw increases in trade ranging from 35-65%. Glasgow itself is a somewhat effective case study. Despite driving into the town becoming increasingly difficult footfall and custom was significantly up on city centre high streets in Q3 and Q4 last year while Silverburn and the Braehead had reductions up to 40% in the same quarters with Braehead going into administration until very recently. A recent slate of case studies from Just Economics further bore this out with one of the successful case studies being Kelso in the Borders, not exactly a bustling transport hub. You are right that it is putting the cart before the horse because the only way you can sell increased investment in public transport is to drive ridership up. It is a chicken and egg thing but the cities who have been successful in getting to where we need to get ripped the plaster off and limited cars which in turn drove active and public transport which lead to developed infrastructure. Obviously it would be ideal if the all singing and dancing public transport came first but I can't find a single case study where that has happened. We need not try to reinvent the wheel here when there are now countless examples we could follow.
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/10y5uq0/fucking_sick_of_knowing_more_about_responsible/j7zbzkd/
Created	Fri 10th Feb 2023 2:12pm
Status	normal ()

>Making parking a nightmare will drive people out of the city centre and into out-of-town facilities.

There is a wealth of recent peer-reviewed research out there that directly counters this very familiar argument. Recent studies in the UK and the US found that pedestrianisation efforts as stand alone initiatives significantly INCREASED footfall in every business sector. from retail, to hospitality, accommodation all saw increases in trade ranging from 35-65%.

Glasgow itself is a somewhat effective case study. Despite driving into the town becoming increasingly difficult footfall and custom was significantly up on city centre high streets in Q3 and Q4 last year while Silverburn and the Braehead had reductions up to 40% in the same quarters with Braehead going into administration until very recently.

A recent slate of case studies from Just Economics further bore this out with one of the successful case studies being Kelso in the Borders, not exactly a bustling transport hub.

You are right that it is putting the cart before the horse because the only way you can sell increased investment in public transport is to drive ridership up. It is a chicken and egg thing but the cities who have been successful in getting to where we need to get ripped the plaster off and limited cars which in turn drove active and public transport which lead to developed infrastructure. Obviously it would be ideal if the all singing and dancing public transport came first but I can't find a single case study where that has happened. We need not try to reinvent the wheel here when there are now countless examples we could follow.