Parking
Streetsblog Basics
City Still Wants to Privatize Parking Meters, But Not Pricing or Enforcement
New York City is still interested in contracting out the operations of its roughly 82,000 metered parking spaces, according to a report in today's Wall Street Journal. A prime motivation, it appears, is the belief that a private company could more quickly roll out high-tech additions to the city's parking system, such as sensors that provide real-time parking data. In the next few weeks, City Hall will put out a request for qualifications to put together a short list of potential private partners.
May 14, 2012
Thanks to Brooklyn Parking Minimums, 360 Degrees of Ground Floor Parking
Parking minimums have struck another blow for terrible urban design, this time just three blocks from the transit mega-hub of Atlantic/Pacific, where nine subway lines and the LIRR converge. A new luxury apartment building going up at the corner of Bergen Street and Third Avenue will dedicate its entire ground floor, facing both the side street and the avenue, to one big, open garage.
May 7, 2012
Bad News: Forest City Breaks Bike Parking Vow; Good News: Less Car Parking
When Brooklyn's Barclays Center opens with a Jay-Z concert this September, it will be one of the most transit-accessible arenas in the United States. But as Streetsblog has noted before, the transportation planning for the stadium is excessively car-oriented. Developer Forest City Ratner had been planning to build an 1,100-space surface parking lot, marring the pedestrian environment and inducing more driving to the stadium. As opening day nears, there's good news and bad when it comes to parking.
May 4, 2012
Free Parking: The Agony and the Lunacy
A reader passes on this notice, one of many distributed on Park Slope windshields. We present it without further comment.
April 27, 2012
San Francisco: Reclaiming Streets With Innovative Solutions
Tom Radulovich, the executive director of the local non-profit Livable City, describes the recent livable streets achievements in San Francisco as "tactical urbanism" -- using low-cost materials like paint and bollards to reclaim street space.
April 25, 2012
East River Plaza Parking Still Really, Really Empty, New Research Shows
East River Plaza, the big box mall designed for Massapequa and placed in East Harlem, still has a thousand-space parking garage. And given its location in one of the lowest car-ownership neighborhoods in the country, the garage is still as empty as when it opened, despite big subsidies for parkers.
April 20, 2012
Report Details How Onerous NYC’s Regressive Parking Minimums Really Are
New research from New York University's Furman Center [PDF] provides added evidence that New York's parking minimums are forcing developers to provide unwanted automobile infrastructure, leading to less development, higher housing costs and more traffic.
March 21, 2012
Quinn Deal Reduces Parking — and Housing — at St. Vincent’s Site
Responding to requests from the community board and advocacy groups, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn did what neither the City Planning Commission nor Borough President Scott Stringer would: reduce the excessive number of parking spaces planned for the Rudin family's redevelopment of the St. Vincent's Hospital site.
March 16, 2012
Reforms to Parking Minimums on the Table for Many NYC Neighborhoods
Last month, the New York Times gave some much-deserved attention to the parking reforms working their way through the Department of City Planning. In a pair of articles, real estate reporter Marc Santora revealed how efforts to reform the city's outdated parking minimums, which promote driving and make housing less affordable, are progressing. (Santora unfortunately made a number of factual errors -- misstating the extent of parking maximums in Manhattan, for example.)
March 12, 2012
Unhealthy “Foods”: Huge Whole Foods Parking Lot Will Discourage Walking
The proposed Gowanus Whole Foods is moving forward after eight years of planning and debate, following a vote by the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals today. With it will come a 248-space surface parking lot: a semi-suburban design plunked down amidst some of Brooklyn's most walkable neighborhoods.
February 28, 2012