Nashville- One Metro Council woman is saying free parking is too plentiful in Music City. Her argument is that since we have LOTS of free parking spaces, it's an incentive to drive downtown alone and park. That puts more cars on the road. And that's the traffic problem. Yup.
Metro Council member Angie Henderson said, "Some 84% of people who work downtown, drive downtown alone. There, in a nutshell, is our traffic problem."
She thinks too many employers provide free parking. She brings up that Bridgestone has over a thousand parking spots for it's employees and also rents out more at the Music City Center.
Henderson thinks if there were less spaces, we might do things like take the bus. She said, "If you have free parking at your employment, you are almost guaranteed to make that trip alone".
She particularly resents the tax breaks Nashville is giving places like Bridgestone, then they offer free parking. A bit of a stretch of to make the solution "no free parking for employees of companies that got tax breaks to build downtown".
She does make some more reasonable suggestions. She adds that employers should offer incentives to employees to take alternate means of transportation.
Many do. State employees and Vanderbilt employees get incentives to take the Music City Star and buses to work, for example.
I for one, have never thought, and probably never will think
"There's just too much free parking in Nashville."
If there is, someone please show it to me.