Pols Rallying for Residential Parking Permits
This Monday, several City Council Members and a number of neighborhood groups are holding a forum for Brooklynites to chew on the idea of residential parking permits. The town hall-style meeting will focus on whether the permits, which would probably cost a small annual fee, could help alleviate curbside parking problems and traffic in Downtown….
This Monday, several City Council Members and a number of neighborhood groups are holding a forum for Brooklynites to chew on the idea of residential parking permits. The town hall-style meeting will focus on whether the permits, which would probably cost a small annual fee, could help alleviate curbside parking problems and traffic in Downtown. Council Members David Yassky, Letitia James and Bill de Blasio have organized the event, which is expected to draw several hundred residents, and DOT comish Janette Sadik-Khan is scheduled to attend. Councilman de Blasio sees the forum as the first step in developing parking strategies for all of Brooklyn. “Lack of a coherent parking strategy has been an ongoing problem in Brooklyn, de Blasio told us. I think this forum represents a step in the right direction, and I look forward to extending this conversation to communities throughout the borough. Regardless of the fate of congestion pricing—which would almost certainly increase competition for spots—Downtown’s population is expected to swell in coming years, thus exacerbating the already great demand for curbside parking spaces. Councilman Yassky said it is long past time for New York to consider adopting the permits, especially in Downtown. Other big cities have used this strategy successfully to reduce traffic and ease parking difficulties, he said. Four years ago, when the Bloomberg Administration was seeking approval for new development around Metrotech, Deputy Mayor Doctoroff promised—in writing—that the administration would try residential parking permits in the surrounding neighborhoods. The administration needs to make good on this promise.
The forum will take place at 7 p.m. on Monday, February 4th, at the St. Francis College auditorium on Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights.
Congestion Pricing and Resident Permit Parking [Brownstoner]
Photo by mike lowe.
Boston, Chicago and Washington D.C. all have neighborhood parking permit systems. Last I checked the sky has not fallen from above those cities. Residential streets are typically by permit only and the commercial streets are meetered. Visitor pay for the right to park, or they take public transportation. These systems help reduce traffic, improve air quality, and make our streets safer. What is there to debate?
Residential Permit Parking is a horrible idea. Congestion Pricing and RPP are two entirely separate matters. Linking them together is false and is only for political purposes. Think about it: if you regularly commute to Manhattan, then you are already committed to garage parking in Manhattan. If the $8 fee makes you change your mind about that, then are you going to make your commute even more miserable by driving from your house to Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights, then searching for street parking, then taking the subway?! NO. You will follow the path of least resistance. You will either use public transportation if that is an option, or you will suck it up and pay the $8 if you don’t have an option. The point is that neighborhoods that have good subway access and plenty of amenities are the LEAST in need of help. True, these neighborhoods are being used to some extent by people in other neighborhoods with poor public transportation as a weigh station to Manhattan, but these same people are already NOT driving to Manhattan, so congestion pricing will have no effect on them. The answer is BETTER public transportation to poorly serviced neighborhoods. RPP is a sham!! Congestion pricing ALONE will alleviate BOTH problems if the funds are used for better outer borough public transportation. There is also a lot of commuting between outer boroughs and very poor public transportation between them.
RPP should not PRECEDE congestion pricing; if it is determined to be useful at all (and this should be through study, not emotion or NIMBY-ism) then it should only FOLLOW congestion pricing.
RPP will balkanize NYC and make neighborhoods who already have it all have even more of it all. The rest will be left out. And do you think another level of bureaucracy is good for NYC? It’s an EASY sell to people who live in an RPP zone, but it is very bad policy for New York City.
just charge alot of money for curbside parking and use it to fund mass transit improvements and bike lanes.
and motorcycles are REALLY easy to park. we must all learn to adapt to the realities of 21st century life.
Well, 8:43, unless your company registers the car in your neighborhood, you better have company-financed, off-street parking too.
OK, I have a company car, necessary for site visits all over the tri state on a almost daily basis. The car is mine to use on evenings and weekends for personal use. Where does permit parking leave me on days when I can use the subway instead?
An addendum to 8:36 & 10:11 — 8-8 is not “business hours.” Years back, I drove to Adams Morgan (in DC), which was then not as safe as today, to have dinner. Drove around for about 45 minutes before finally finding a non-resident meter. Maybe 8-6 is more workable.
As a current Brooklyn Heights resident and a past DC resident, 8:36 above has it correct.
The permits are only enforced during business hours M-F — the permits are only there to keep commuters from parking. And even during those business hours you were able to park for up to 2 hours in another “zone”.
Also, the zones were quite large. All of NW DC was divided into 6 zones. As a comparison, I could imagine all of Dumbo, The Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Red Hook as one zone.
In my 10 years in DC, all of those years with a car, not once did the permits ever really put a crimp in my life.
Let’s hear it for Parking Permits!
While living in Washington, DC several years ago I had to have a zone parking sticker to park in my neighborhood. It definitely did not guarantee a space, but rather served as a parking spot hunting license.
However, there were many advantages to the permit program…most significantly it cut down on the number of commuter-parkers and forced residents to register/license their cars in DC, generating revenue through the licensing and permitting process (permits were less than $50/year). As the permit rules were only enforced M-F, 8a-8p it did not keep you from visiting friends, visiting other neighborhoods, or driving around town in general; but it might have made you more cognizant of your timing. Having a dinner or weekend party didn’t require permits for guests but unless I was willing to pay the $20/daily fee to park in the garage at the office (or move the car every two hours to avoid a ticket), I took public transportation to work.
While neighborhoods in downtown are leading the rally for parking permits, neighborhoods like mine – Kensington – need them as well. In our search for parking (one car, a hybrid at that) we see the same out-of-state plate cars on our blocks every day and as we’re located between the F and Q trains the commuter-parker numbers are creeping higher and higher…even my own brother-in-law drives in from Mill Basin to catch the Q, he claims it faster than taking the Express Bus or train-bus that would be required from his own neighborhood.
Would love to see this come to Williamsburg. I am a block from the L, and my street is full every day with New Jersey cars. On the days when I do need to drive, which isn’t that often because its such a pain to find parking in all the Garden State parking lot that I would rather walk 2 miles from the subway stop, I have to park under the BQE if I get home before those Jersey people go back home which could be as late as 7:30. I’m all for congestion pricing, raising the Hudson tunnel tolls to lets say $50 each way, and then putting in residential parking if it would just keep those freaking Jersey people from taking up every single spot in Williamsburg. Don’t they have a PATH train and NJ Transit???