alt Hacker NewsThat sounds like a recipe for getting a ton of cars into your city. Think of parking garages as "traffic generators". If you cater to cars you shouldn't be surprised if what you get is more cars. It's literally sending the signal to people that it's fine (and encouraged) to drive cars everywhere. After all, your tax dollars are paying for all that infrastructure
Maybe some people are fully car-pilled, but many people want to live in an area that isn't so car-dependent, it tends to make everything more spread out, noisy, polluted, and congested. It also imposes very large personal costs.
I mean yeah… getting cars into your city is like the whole point. Cars are filled with people and people work and spend money. Specifically outside money. This is a city that has no subway or rail, vehicles are the only means of moving people. If you rip out the parking you won't get a vibrant walkable downtown, people won't start taking the bus, demand rail or move downtown because "the downtown area" just isn't that valuable of a destination. You will get a dead downtown. In a sad twist of fate when your "business district" doesn't have the capacity to absorb workers commuting or people going out on nights and weekends you'll see commercial buildings spread out even more to areas that can. Little pockets of nightlife and office space crop up next to newly built 5 over 1 apartments with plenty of parking built adjacent to major suburbs.