Parking

On Wednesday, Jeffrey Zupan, Regional Plan Association's transportation analyst, issued a comprehensive rebuttal of the main traffic reducing measures proposed in Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free's anti-congestion pricing report, “Alternative Approaches to Traffic Congestion Mitigation in the Manhattan Central Business District."

Congestion pricing advocate Carolyn Konheim and consulting partner Brian Ketcham are advising the Bloomberg administration to drop its resistance to a congestion pricing Environmental Impact Study.

Room Eight contributor and Streetsblog commenter Larry Littlefield has a thorough critique of the congestion pricing alternatives released last week by anti-pricing group Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free. 

There seems to be some confusion by both friends and foes of congestion pricing as to what it actually is. "Congestion pricing" is a term of art that refers to congestion tolls, road pricing or road tolling or other road user fees. It is a concept distinct from charging for parking. The foremost expert on charging more for on-street parking, UCLA professor Donald Shoup, explains as much in the "Congestion Pricing" section of his book The Cost of Free Parking. But if Shoup is not enough, the USDOT's Federal Highway Administration has provided a handy web site containing its definition of congestion pricing. Since the USDOT has promised NYC $354.5 million if it adopts a congestion pricing scheme covering the Central Business District of Manhattan, the agency's definition of congestion pricing matters.

Evicted from their Park(ing) Day spot by the 78th Precinct last month, Park Slope Neighbors (with the PD's permission) observed the event over the weekend. StreetFilms' new producer Elizabeth Press was there, talking to participants, passers-by and motorists who support human-oriented use of valuable public space.

As City Council Member Jessica Lappin trains her sights on businesses that employ bike delivery workers, her colleague from Queens, Hiram Monserrate, has vowed to take on another pressing issue: making it cheaper for people to drive to sports stadiums.

If you're the type of person who has been following the Yankee Stadium parking garage story, or the Hudson Yards zoning story or the story about the city block in Prospect Heights that's being leveled and turned into a gigantic surface parking lot, you may enjoy James Howard Kunstler's column this week. The author of The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency, has lately noticed that many American towns "are obsessed to the point of mania with the issue of parking and more generally the management of cars, and much of their spending is directed to those ends." He writes:

Yes, the Yankees' season is over. But on the bright side, this morning the city handed the team a nice consolation prize: $225 million in tax exempt bonds for parking deck construction at the new Yankee Stadium.

With construction of the new Ninth Avenue separated bike path in Chelsea still underway it is way too early to draw any conclusions about the project. The new medians and planting beds haven't been built, the markings aren't done and DOT still needs to install new traffic signals. Once the Muni-Meters are turned on, every other block will be reserved for paid commercial parking -- deliveries only. Likewise, DOT says that it is working with the police department on ramping up enforcement but that hasn't started yet either.