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Show j THE TOWN DOCTOR 1 (THE DOCTOR OF TOWNS) j , - says ! was learned that of the parked cars in the down town area, (the check being made in the morning, at noon and in the late afternoon) 23 per cent of the available parking park-ing space was occupied continuously continu-ously from morning to night by the same cars, 81 per cent of which were owned by local business busi-ness and professional people two merehants having two cars each for the full day ; also that the average parking time per car was two and one-half hours ; therefore each car parked continuously deprived de-prived three and one-fifth ens-tomers ens-tomers of a space to park. In other words, the merehants in this town, by their earlessness, thoughtlessness, or for their own convenience, were driving a fifth of their trade away. At the same time, this surrey proved that m many cases local merchants had ample parking space at the rear of their stores, some of whom had available garage space, unoccupied. unoccu-pied. The majority of the merchants in this town complained of lack of business or stated that they could "stand" more business many "cried" about business when they could, by a little thinking think-ing plus a very little amount of effort and inconvenience, automatically auto-matically made possible an increase in-crease of business of from 15 to 20 percent for themselves and the community. You cannot expect business from other towns or from motor traffic if you do not provide a I AUTOMOBILE PARKING IS VITAL TO COMMUNITY ' BUSINESS. The parking situation is a seri- !ous problem to every city, town and village in the eountry. It is not always the fault of the present generation that many t communities have horse and bug- )gy thoroughfares, and seldom can an increase of parking space in the business section be created fast enough to keep up with the ever-increasing number of auto- mobiles. At the same time, the amount of retail business done in a community and the amount of business to be derived from motor traffie depends to no little degree de-gree upon the amount of available avail-able curb parking space. A given block can accommodate only so many automobiles an adjacent lot has a given- capacity and no more. Therefore, it is a problem of two things turn-over of space or getting more cars in and out of one space in a given length of time, and eliminating the deadline or non-business productive pro-ductive cars that occupy the a-vailable a-vailable space. The first is a matter of a parking park-ing time limit, requiring a city ordinance taking into consideration considera-tion that the specified time limit is equitable ; such an ordinance is Ionly as good as enforced. The second is a mater of common, everyday ev-eryday business judgment and foresight and cooperative fairness by and among the business people and citizens in general, and in this way parking space of most communities can be, figuratively speaking, increased all f!he way I from ten te-twenty per cent. I Jiff recent survey of parking 7onditions in a midwestern city, it II ; place for potential customers to park the cars they use as a means to get to your city. And remember, if your community, com-munity, your town, doesn't do it, some other town will and the town that dees will get the business. |