Pass Go: Free Parking

New Haven might as well take the next logical step: free street parking on weekends and after 5pm week days.
It is a case of New Haven being penny-wise and pound-foolish to charge for public parking during these days and times. If the city is serious about attracting RESIDENTS and visitors to come downtown and shop and patronize restaurants, they need to do something radically different about parking.
People can go to suburban communities and relax and shop without worrying about getting a ticket or getting towed.
In order to be more competitive and user-friendly, New Haven must do much more than allow parking in the crown street garage one day a week!
It only makes common sense to do things to attract mos=re people into town than to repel them!

There is a big problem with the idea of attracting more folks downtown by offering free on-street nighttime parking: all the downtown parking spots are already taken (even given that they aren't currently free). It is not physically possible for more folks to park downtown at peak night hours, so making on-street parking more attractive cannot actually attract more folks, only frustrate folks who will find no available on-street parking. This is basic physics: two cars cannot occupy the same physical space.

Free street parking cannot change the number of folks who park on the street, but it will change who parks on the street. Free street parking will be grabbed in the early evening hours by employees of restaurants, bars and clubs, meaning that very few actual customers will be able to take advantage of the supposedly free parking. Almost all customers will be shifted into parking garages, which folks don't like as much.

To be clear: free street parking will simply take spots away from downtown visitors and shift them to employees (who arrive earlier).

Now, if there are some nighttime days, hours or areas when there are currently a lot of empty spots, then by all means cut the parking price in those cases (maybe to zero if there are really a lot of empty spots.) Maybe Monday night should be free, or something, or the farther reaches of downtown should be cheaper, etc.

For many, many years people could park downtown after 4 or 5 pm for free. People found parking spaces. You can park downtown and elsewhere in the city on Sundays for free. People can find parking in the downtown area.
Most spaces will not be hogged by individuals for the entire day I am sure.
The logic of Esbey eludes me. Other towns manage to do this (offer free parking) and most people can be accommodated. Hartford offers free parking on Saturday and Sunday downtown. Why can't New Haven?
Physics has nothing to do with this parking issue! What was done in the past can be done in the present!
New Haven should seriously consider changing their current parking restrictions to attract more people, residents as well as visitors.