these people took over exactly two parking spaces. and they paid quarters for the parking spaces just like anyone in a car would have (though, yeah, it's illegal to use the space for more than one hour at a time technically). there are many thousands of parking spaces available in park slope. these people were using just two of them. is that really making your life harder?

meanwhile... not necessarily your individual car but ALL of the cars and traffic on the street are definitely making my life noticably harder every single day. the honking, car alarms, dangerous walking and biking, the immobilized nearly useless buses, nasty exhaust being spewed into my kid's face, the increasingly extreme and erratic weather caused by the burning of fossil fuels, resource wars over oil... these are the very real impacts of your car, my car and everyone else's car. there is no question that all of these cars are making my life a whole lot harder.

if taking over two little parking spaces can generate a discussion about that and maybe begin to help new yorkers see that our current car-dominated transpo and land-use system is really a little bit crazy then i'm happy to hand the two parking spaces to these guys for the day.

i really think a solid case can be made that an innocent car trip to the new fairway grocery store in red hook causes a whole lot more problems than this parking squat, no?

I would suggest putting some effort into getting a rail line or bus service to go to wherever it is you work, but you can't build train and bus lines going everywhere; at some point somebody's going to need a car.

But the idea is that, due to inefficient, inadequate planning over the years, coupled with outright subsidies/deference to automobiles, more people than should be necessary end up driving cars out of need.

It's not saying that no one should need a car, it's saying that there should be better transportation infrastructure so that people who otherwise wouldn't need cars could make that choice. This would make the city better for everyone. Fewer car drivers means more public space for bikers, pedestrians, shoppers, etc., and conversely, less traffic and more parking space for those who genuinely need cars.

But most important, if on-street parking were priced more rationally (and, say, if the revenues generated went directly towards improving transit, bike and ped facilities), you probably wouldn't have to spend so much time circling the block. You could have more time with you family. You wouldn't have to be so angry about all this. Maybe $250/year for parking would be worth it.

Such folks are obviously not PS material, and I hope they stay away from our lovely (but getting more crowded) hamlet. You need only to live here and spend your weekends here to appreciate the humor in the subject. If you don't, well, move along. Posting diatribes complaining about something you don't understand only makes you look foolish.

So, never mind...

Note that the blog says"New York City regulations say that metered, curbside parking spaces are only to be used for the storage of vehicles. This kid made sure the rules were being followed." (in reference to the kid's TOY auto).

But bicycles are defined as legal vehicles in all 50 states (last I
checked), so this would be perfectly legal (anywhere), and no matter who interpreted the ordinance...as long as they had at least one bicycle in the
space.

Apparently, the parking squatters didn't read the law this way, but could it be that he was right? If he is, any bicyclist could park in the street in Park Slope for $.50/hour, which opens all sorts of possibilities.

Not that I'm suggesting anything...

AARON: The space these dorks took over was a metered space! Not free parking.

Bingo. I have a right to own a horse, but I don't expect the city to set aside free land for me to stable it.

As to the "traffic calming"--that's a good point, and I'd back you if parked cars were the only way to achieve this. They're not--speed bumps, lights, extended curbs, there's a million other things that could be used which would net a much bigger benefit.

Whether you own a car or not is YOUR BUSINESS, not mine. And where you park it is your problem, not mine.

As for cities providing free parking, I agree it may not make sense on some kind of macroeconomic level, but honestly, where are people supposed to park? Mind you, I don't own a car, so I'm not necessarily advocating personal car ownership in this type of urban environment. But people have the right to own a car (and I have owned a car in the city in past years, when I had young children, and when I was spending more time leaving the city by car on the weekends), and until we are in a position to provide reasonably-priced options (and $500 to $1,200 a month for a garage space -- if you can even find one -- is not a viable option), simply banning parking on public streets just isn't reasonable.

Pedestrian dedicated streetscapes - do you mean plazas, or street corners? - are boring when people don't use them, and people don't use them when they are disconnected from other places, have no uses in them, no places to sit, are at the wrong spot, and so on. It is very easy to create a place that people won't use.

An extended sidewalk with some seating on a street is Park Slope will not be a "boring urban space" any more than a parking spot is.