Rainy Day Rally to Step Demo for Yards Parking

Those who claim that the provision of parking here is a good thing, please remember that this parking is intended to be INTERIM. What does this mean? That these many acres will be parking only until Phase 2 -- which is supposed to consist of 10 (12?) high rise apartment towers.

So these parking lots do not consist of a long-term transit plan for the arena. And even if these parking lots were the long-term transit plan for the arena, it would be a lousy plan. Parking lots encourage people to drive. So a whole lot of people are going to get very accustomed to driving -- because there will be parking available -- thus causing horrendous traffic jams radiating outward for many blocks from the arena. This will be quite lovely for the residents of Fort Green, Park Slope, and Prospect Heights. (To those who say that bad traffic will encourage people to take all of that mass transit that supposedly makes this a "transit-oriented" development, we all know that traffic jams have never stopped anyone from driving.)

Of course, if this project involved real planning around the traffic issues, we'd be seeing something very different. We would be seeing planning that would create strong disincentives to drive. Most important would be creating the conditions under which it would be extremely difficult to park your car -- no on-site parking, zoning to prevent the development of parking garages, and residential parking stickers for the immediate vicinity to the arena. Additional measures such as congestion pricing for traffic going into Manhattan below 59th St. would further alleviate the congestion at Flatbush/Atlantic/4th Ave.

But none of these things are being done. Instead, a vast swathe of Prospect Heights is being torn down and turned into a giant parking lot. The build-out on Phase 2 could be as long as 15-20 years, depending on economic conditions (remember, FCRC isn't under any obligation to build anything at all if it's not profitable). Thus, we can look forward to this part of Prospect Heights being a parking lot for a long time to come. Talk about blight!

Posted by: SPer at April 16, 2007 11:37 AM

"Of course traffic jams discourage people from driving! If there were no traffic jams, I would drive to work in Manhattan!"

Really? If traffic jams stopped people from driving to Manhattan, why are there traffic jams in the first place? My guess is that if you had the free parking enjoyed by most of the NYC residents who are commuting by car to Manhattan, you might drive too.

The research: (www.transalt.org)

"Ninety percent of auto commuters live and work in areas where most commuters use some other mode to get to work (i.e., rail, bus, walk, taxi).
Only 10% of CBD auto commuters commute between home and work areas in which auto is the typical way to make the trip. The choice of auto is motivated by the comfort and convenience of driving, speed of travel, availability of free parking or a combination of these and other factors. Very few people who drive in the Manhattan CBD lack an alternative mode.

AND:

A survey of over 1,600 motorists in the
Manhattan CBD shows that fewer than one-half of those parking in the CBD personally pay for parking. The majority of CBD parkers have employer-provided parking, are reimbursed by their employer or park at unmetered curbside spaces.

Posted by: SPer at April 16, 2007 2:26 PM

Anon at 3:35 -- sorry sounds like I misunderstood you. My main point is simply that congestion does not stop people from driving. And I actually understand that. I have a car and would drive to Manhattan a lot more often, traffic notwithstanding, were it not for the difficulty parking.

Posted by: SPer` at April 16, 2007 4:30 PM