First off: are you really so cheap that you can’t spend $4 on a parking meter? The meters don’t exist to screw over drivers, they’re there to help businesses—they don’t want people to just park all day while they go and do other things, they want the street spots to be for visitors and store patrons. No one is avoiding downtown because of meters, that’s ridiculous. Any serious urban main street has meters.

Secondly, you’re right that more workers would also help the cause but that’s not going to happen. Even before the pandemic, the trend was moving away from old school financial districts. Businesses were just as happy being in lofts in Valley as they are being downtown. Also, finance jobs generally have been declining for years, even in Boston. Work from home exacerbated the problem.

These days, more housing means more workers Most professionals work from home 2-3 days a week. So if they live downtown that means they’re going out to lunch and shopping just like office workers used to, but unlike office workers they’re also around on nights and weekends. The line between home and work is blurred so we need more homes downtown.

Finally: of course, luring people from the burbs is an important part of the equation, but that happens by being a great place. If it’s worth coming to, people from the burbs will come to Providence, even if it means paying for parking. For it to be worthwhile, however, it needs to be vibrant and walkable and fun. It doesn’t matter if parking is easy if it’s not a place where people want to go. In fact, parking is ONLY easy in places where people don’t want to be. If a place is successful then it’s inherently difficult to park because a lot of people want to be there and will be fighting for parking.