Monday, August 24, 2026

"Downtown parking does not have to mean parking directly in front of the business you’re visiting"


"This grinds my gears probably more than it should. We can host a festival downtown and somehow thousands of people figure it out. They park three, four, five blocks away. They walk. They cross streets while they carry their kids and their shopping bags and their giant lemonades. They wander from one end of downtown to the other for HOURS.

And listen, I completely get it. There’s a lot happening in one place. The streets are full of people, neighbors, vendors and music and food and things to see, so of course people are willing to walk around.

But I’m still hard pressed to believe that on a random Tuesday, having to park a block or two away from a downtown business suddenly makes downtown “too hard to find parking in. Meanwhile, we will walk from the absolute BACK FORTY of a Walmart parking lot without thinking twice.

Downtown parking does not have to mean parking directly in front of the business you’re visiting. Go around the corner or a couple blocks away. Get your steps in. Pop into another business on the walk. Notice a store you didn’t know was there. Grab lunch while you’re downtown.

Festivals and street fairs are wonderful, but a small business who took a chance downtown cannot survive on the half dozen of those a year when 5,000 people show up.

They need you on Tuesday and when there isn’t a band playing. They need you when Main Street isn’t shut down.

Our downtowns don’t need us to show up only when someone throws a party for us, they need us when they’re simply open."