Parking limitations are anti-pedestrian

I make this claim not to be outrageous, but because it affects the way I go about my daily activities downtown. I met someone for lunch today, on Dickson. I was lucky enough to catch a parallel parking spot right in front of our restaurant, so I didn't bother going to the WAC lot. The only difference between those spots and the WAC one? They have a two-hour time limit. After lunch, we decided to go to the library. Now, normally I'd just walk to the library from Dickson, as it's only two blocks. But I had my car with me. So I got in my car and drove the two blocks to the library's parking garage. I mean, sure, I could have just moved to the WAC lot, but what's the point? It made more sense to drive to the library.

I've had the same problems with the square before. Free parking on the square, two hour time limit. What would otherwise be an on-foot excursion is limited by the fact that we have to move cars every so often. This was especially an issue when I hung out at the square a lot during the summer of 2007. Thankfully, these aren't usually issues on Saturday, when most pay parking is free. You can just dump your car and walwk around at will. Of course, this leads to another problem: congestion.

I'm not really sure what the best option is, I just know that not having a consistent place to park downtown where I won't have to move my car (the WAC being one, of course, but they frequently fill up and are flirting with going for-pay) reduces the distances I walk and increases the ones that I drive.

Granted, I'm about to move to Center street, so I'll be downtown. My car usage should decrease by about 80%, and I couldn't be more excited.