Plan to cut car parks - bad for business, or good for all?

Here's another side to the picture of doom and gloom painted by The Press today,  We're told of the threat to  inner-city retailers of removing parking spaces in favour of cycle lanes and parking, when they are already struggling with a faltering economy
and strong competition from suburban malls, where parking is free.  Even though the proposed cycle lanes have nothing to do with the loss of parking spaces, the story highlights a popular misconception, that CBD parking is an essential prerequisite to a prosperous central city retail environment.

In fact, in contrast to what you may expect, studies in Europe have shown that cyclists and pedestrians actually make better shoppers than drivers.Back in 2007, Mikael from Copenhagenize.com wrote:

It has come to our attention that in some cities, there is resistance
from the community - namely commerce - towards such things as bike
lanes and bike infrastructure in general. We see it from time to time
in Copenhagen, too.

Back in the 1960's, a radical idea was born.
Pedestrianising the city centre. There was very vocal resistance from
the shops. There were even cries of "we're not Italians! We don't want to walk around the town!" The car was king.

It happened anyway ... Did
commerce suffer? Not at all. On the contrary. Pedestrian and bicycle
access without motor vechicles created the ideal shopping concept.
Sales increased.

Studies across Scandinavia and Germany, where cycling has been encouraged by councils and governments since the 1960s, have shown that improving the pedestrian environment is the way to improve the economics of city centres.

Motorists are in the minority in shops in urban areas - between 25 to 40 % of customers, depending on the day of the week.

Barely 25 % of motorists leave a shop with two or more bags of goods
(as opposed to 17 % of cyclists). Therefore, 75% of motorists have
nothing to prevent them from using other transport forms. The study
concluded that a large number of motorists could do without their cars
when shopping, leaving them open to using another mode of transport.

... a survey carried out in Strasbourg indicated more than 30% increase of
visits to the shopping area of the city after pedestrianisation and
closure to through traffic in the town centre.

The choice is simple.  Do we want our city centre to be a giant car park, roads clogged with people driving from one shop to the next.  Or do we want to create a living, breathing urban centre, a place where people want to spend time.  Garden city or drive-thru city?