Parking

Happy New Year, transit riders! Congress has a special present: Some of you will be getting a tax increase this year.

A wave of new residential construction projects in places like Seattle, Boston, and Miami are showing that, yes, modern American cities can build housing without any car parking on site.

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio ran on a platform with ambitious goals to reduce traffic deaths, improve bus service, increase bicycling, and make the city more affordable. As New York City’s first mayoral transition in 12 years gets underway, Streetsblog is asking advocates and experts how Mayor-elect de Blasio should follow through and implement a progressive transportation policy agenda. Today's post comes from Rachel Weinberger, director of research and policy strategy at NelsonNygaard Consulting Associates.

Despite a policy book that included a top-notch street safety plank, Bill de Blasio never quite linked progressive transportation policy to social equity during the campaign. But the candidate's campaign promises to reduce inequality did focus on the high price of housing, including a pledge to require developers to set aside a certain percentage of their projects for below-market units. To make housing more affordable for everyone, the de Blasio administration will have to revamp the city's zoning code, and parking reform -- an affordable housing issue the Bloomberg administration barely touched -- should be part of that.

Developer TF Cornerstone has begun the process of getting rezonings and special permits from the City Planning Commission for its residential and retail project on 11th Avenue and 57th Street, which would replace a string of auto dealerships and a 1,000-space parking garage with a new project containing either 395 or 500 parking spaces, depending on the retail tenants.

Alan Durning is the executive director of Sightline. This post is #15 in the Sightline series, Parking? Lots!

A reader sent in this photo of what looks to be several dozen minivans in Williamsburg parked all over the sidewalk and bike lane on Kent Avenue.

This post is #14 in the Sightline series, Parking? Lots! Alan Durning is the executive director of Sightline.

We hope you enjoyed part one of our Q&A with Alan Durning. Durning is publishing a series of articles on his blog at the Sightline Institute -- where he serves as executive director -- about the ways that underpriced parking drives up rents, eats up space, and makes no sense.