What was that "#BlackFridayParking" thing all about? Good question

A very short answer: I direct you to Jesse Bailey and his blog Walkable West Palm Beach who explains the reason for #BlackFridayParking quite well. This is an excerpt:

If you’re looking for something more constructive to do on Black Friday than the typical big box consumerism binge, join us for Black Friday Parking. It’s a nationwide effort to call attention to the destructive nature of minimum parking requirements. These requirements hurt small businesses by raising the barrier to entry. They favor the large big box model, hurting our municipal finances, and spreading out our land use pattern to further subsidize driving at the expense of other modes.

Donald Shoup and his book, “The High Cost of Free Parking” is mentioned in the blog post and would strongly encourage you to read more about that.

The City of Lake Worth also has many issues when it comes to parking. Parking at the Lake Worth Casino, for instance, isn't free as opposed to most of the parking in the downtown but the Casino has it's own unique set of problems. It was designed for "peak parking" and this is how the lower western lot looks like most of the time:

But it has to be this way, right? To accommodate the peak parking requirements of beach-goers? No. The organizers of the Street Painting Festival last year solved this problem by having visitors park at Palm Beach State College and the Tri-Rail station and it worked out quite well. How well? They're employing a new and improved version for next years festival in February. Stay tuned.