Parking
Streetsblog Basics
Fun Facts About the Sad State of Parking Policy
Surface parking stretches halfway to the horizon in the heart of downtown Wichita, Kansas. Image: Wichita Walkshop via Flickr. If you haven’t checked out the ITDP parking report we covered yesterday, it’s a highly readable piece of research, walking you through parking policy’s checkered past and potentially brighter future. In addition to describing six cases … Continued
February 24, 2010
Want to Foster Walking, Biking and Transit? You Need Good Parking Policy
The high-water mark for American parking policy came in the early 1970s, when cities including New York, Boston, and Portland set limits on off-street parking in their downtowns. They were compelled to do so by lawsuits brought under the Clean Air Act, which used the lever of parking policy to curb traffic and reduce pollution from auto emissions. This level of innovation went unmatched over the ensuing three-and-a-half decades. Only now are American cities implementing effective new parking strategies that cut down on traffic.
February 23, 2010
The Next New York: How NYC Can Grow as a Walkable City
In the last eight years, Amanda Burden's Department of City Planning has rezoned 20 percent of New York along relatively transit-oriented lines, while simultaneously promoting quasi-suburban projects at prominent sites and maintaining parking minimums that erode the pedestrian environment. In other words, the planning department is promoting growth in the right places, but enabling the wrong kind of development.
So in the next four years, will New York's planners adopt more sustainable practices or continue the status quo?
February 22, 2010
The Next New York: How the Planning Department Sabotages Sustainability
This is the second installment in a three-part series on the
reshaping of New York City and its consequences for sustainability and
livable streets. Read the first part here.
February 19, 2010
Mayor’s Office: Electric Cars Must Comply With PlaNYC Goal of Fewer Cars
New York City is not looking to create infrastructure for charging cars on city streets. Image: theqsqueaks via Flickr. “Electric vehicles are here. They’re coming, and they won’t stop.” Last night, DOT Deputy Commissioner Bruce Schaller opened a panel discussion on electric car adoption in New York City with an implicit message: We should be … Continued
February 12, 2010
NYC’s Rent-Stabilized Parking: A Hidden Subsidy to Drive
Falbo explained the rationale for including parking spaces in rent regulation as follows: "Tenants were enjoying a certain level of service at the time that the regulations were born and they wanted to maintain that level of service in the future. If you're getting it, you should be entitled to continue to get it."
February 10, 2010
Car-Sharing Instead of More Parking? LES Co-op Says: “Fantastic”
"Not enough parking" is a pretty familiar refrain from residents, community boards, and elected officials across the entire city. According to the New York Times, Seward Park's co-op board has avoided that route and settled on a solution that can actually reduce the amount of space dedicated to the automobile: car-sharing.
February 1, 2010
EDC Chief Seth Pinsky: Minimizing Parking “The Worst Thing We Could Do”
The NYC Economic Development Corporation's predilection for suburban-style, parking-filled projects earned it last year's Streetsie for worst city agency. Well, now we've got some more insight into what makes EDC tick.
January 29, 2010
Sustainable Streets Take a Hit in Bloomberg Budget Plan [Updated]
Mayor Bloomberg released his budget proposal yesterday and, with a $4.93 billion deficit to deal with, there's not much good news. Scanning the many gap-closing measures proposed for the Department of Transportation [start on page E-57 of this PDF], there are at least two significant developments for livable streets and sustainable transport -- one bad and one good.
January 29, 2010
Smart Growth Leader Tells Planning Commission: NYC Can Do Better
New York may be the most transit-rich city in the nation, but that doesn't mean big changes to the city's planning policies aren't necessary. That's the message Jeff Speck, a leader of the New Urbanist movement and co-author of the newly released Smart Growth Manual, delivered yesterday to the City Planning Commission.
January 5, 2010