And in Edinburgh when I lived there you had to pay for the permit, IF you could even get one because all the permits were taken up by the people who lived there already. Edinburgh has a lot of tenement housing (long rows of flats built before the car existed as a consumer good) so there isn't 1 space per domicile. It is common to drive around for 10 - 15 mins looking for a space.

Yeah - I was talking about Edinburgh where I lived in the centre for 30+ years. In some areas where there are only buildings on one side of the road the density of residents parking is actually fine - though I appreciate that most areas aren't like this.

They have these in Bath, where I live, but the issue is that they 'zone' an area and then shift the problem out of that zone into neighboring zones. Also residents parking usually only applies a restriction Mon-Sat 8:00-18:00.

I think we need to be more radical and apply zones across the whole of the city and apply restrictions 24/7. Discounts for a zone would apply if resident, no off road parking, and city car (no diesel/small).

Commuters would only be allowed permits if city car. Nottingham also brought in Workplace parking permits.

Cities have the infrastructure in place (good public transport combined with park and ride) to encourage people to leave their cars at the edge of cities. Residents within cities should not be driving to work within the city. Neither should parents be dropping kids off by car.

Naturally there are always people that need cars. Even Copenhagen cannot get below 9% car usage despite 62% of people cycling.