free parking in busy destinations creates shortages, which compel arriving parkers to cruise for spots, which puts hundreds of millions of miles on the road each year, or double-park, which generates traffic congestion. This traffic is not the product of a lifestyle trade-off. There is no social benefit to be weighed against the lost gasoline and lost time. It’s pure waste. One study from 2017 found that U.S. drivers spent, on average, seventeen hours searching for parking every year—$345 per person in wasted time, fuel, and emissions—and the numbers were much higher in big cities.
