It's partly an information availability problem. Parking usage patterns tend to be based around factors other than availability, which leads to more extreme pea

It's partly an information availability problem. Parking usage patterns tend to be based around factors other than availability, which leads to more extreme peaks and valleys than are necessary. If people could see what the mall parking lot was like at any given time and decide when to go based on whether parking was likely to be available, you could probably make the lot half the size. You already see this in many places around traffic; people in LA seem to plan their lives around when the freeways are known to be backed up.