Parking and Car Ownership in South Slope / 4th ave & 11th St

We are thinking of getting a car for quality of life reasons – to go to upstate NYC, long island and beyond. I’d also like to be able to go surfing at Rockaway and cycling in that area and a car gets me there easily. We also like driving and have rented lots of cars through Enterprise, Hertz, Zipcar etc but found that its always a hassle and about $500 a weekend at least.
1. Is alternate side parking really such a hassle when compared to having the freedom to just get up and go on the weekend at a moments notice?
2. I have seen apps like SpotAngel that seem to be helpful – are they really?
3. I have seen MANY Mazda CX 5s – does anyone here have one and do you like it and get much use out of it? A CX 5 Signature by any chance?
4. Has anyone tried using Taskrabbit or a similar service to have someone regularly park the car for you?
Car ownership seems to be an uphill battle in Park Slope – I’m hoping it will be worth it, but still struggling to justify the costs a nd hassle vs. freedom pay-off. I vacillate between taking the plunge and continuing in partial despair that it just doesn’t make sense to own a car I actually love.
Please help ?!
Nathan

wescosigns

in General Discussion 5 years and 10 months ago

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NeoGrec | 5 years and 10 months ago

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I’ve owned a car in Brooklyn for 20 years. It’s perfectly do-able. Prospect Heights has x4 days a week alt parking. Sounds terrible but, because of the “churn” created by this high frequency, it’s actually easier imho than in some neighborhoods. I always move my car the night before the change. Otherwise you become a prisoner of the system. Although I’ve never incurred serious damage when street parking, I wouldn’t dream of buying a new car unless I had a garage. That said, new cars are for suckers given the rapid rate of depreciation.

Lurker | 5 years and 10 months ago

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It definitely depends on neighborhood. I would never park a car you like on the street–ours got sideswiped the 2nd week we owned it, and unless you layer your bumpers in rubber pads you will soon have scratches, bumps and dings in every fender and bumper.

For expense, weekly street cleaning tickets would cost you $160-$200 a month if you just left your ar on the street, which may be cheaper than a garage. But even then I spend 2 to 20 minutes to park which is time I’ll never get back, and I have had it towed 5 times which I often successfully fight but costs you half a day of work to retrieve your car and costs ~400 if you lose. I’ve also been ticketed for insane reasons many other times and if I didn’t “need” a car to get my kids from school and do other errands I would sell it and do car-share.

slopefarm | 5 years and 10 months ago

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We’ve owned a car in south slope for the last 15 years. It takes a while to develop a street parking strategy (and I am not giving mine away online). Overall, it’s doable, a bit of a baseline hassle, and every once in a while impossible. If you can live with that, then enjoy. If there’s a car you really like, I suggest buying one that is a few years old, not new. We just replaced our 2000 model with a 2016. Live with the dings. Park close to the curb to minimize truck swipes. You’ll get the hang of it, but it is not a breeze.

CarmenR | 5 years and 10 months ago

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I owned a car for 4 years in park slope. I used it regularly for work-related travel in the northeast and you could not pay me to own one again. I spent so much money on tickets and towing and it got absolutely destroyed (I owned it outright and it was basically new when I moved here.) My husband and I now use car-sharing or borrow cars from friends, many of whom arent using them often and are happy to lend them to us for a day trip. I’d recommend you do the same. Also, depending on your family size, Car2Go is a GREAT option and they’ll be re-releasing the larger mini coopers (4 doors) soon. We loved them and a weekend trip is only like $200 and you can park anywhere.

bbrc

in General Discussion 5 years and 10 months ago

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I find the freedom of having a car invaluable.

The alternate side street parking schedule in Park Slope of only 1x week per side (2x total) is *infinitely* more manageable than the 2x per side (4x total) that exists in many other neighborhoods, including Harlem where I lived with a car for almost 10 years. Even better if you have the option to be home during street cleaning hours one morning a week (e.g. I can plan to work from home from 8:30-10 on Thursday mornings), because then you can double park your car for those 60-90 minutes (DOT seems to permit you to break one law in order to obey another) and you really only have to think about your car 1x a week.

For the amount that it sounds like you will be using it, I think that is a very small price to pay (for FREE parking). I do agree that it’s better to think about it as a “city car” that will get banged up from all the touch parking, but that seems consistent with you desire for an adventure (surfing/biking) car anyway 🙂

resident2 | 5 years and 10 months ago

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Unless you buy a car condo, or rent a safe monthly parking spot. There is no point in owning a car that you “actually love.” Between the vandalism, the occasional side swipe & other abuse any street car gets while trying to live in Brooklyn. The parking tickets etc will certainly cost far more than renting a car every weekend. And the parking, alternate or otherwise will just eat up all manner of time.