Erik Feder
"The Parking Expert"

But to the point at hand: how to fairly redistribute commuting costs? People often talk about distance fares as a option distinct from congestion pricing (mostly because the car lobby is stonger). This would certainly have a counter-intuitive effect. But how about this question? Given ridership, Manhattan has more rail miles per resident, per ride, and no doubt the highest maintenance costs. And the three largest expansion projects in decades are benefitting only here.

Has there ever been a successful model of density pricing (that is, increasing costs for rides closer to the center) for public transit? It's simply congestion pricing for people, and adding it to congestion fares (East River tolls) would offset the increase for outer borough residents.

At any rate, that's besides the point of the larger conversation, but it's worth mentioning.

Number two's point was to the point: Whose environment do these drivers think they're in? I used to live on East 63rd Street, and would suffer everyday from the congestion, noise, pollution and general agita that would come across the Queensboro Bridge from drivers who think the subway's below them.

For those who live in places in the boroughs where transportation to their jobs isn't good (and that doesn't apply to the banker who can take a train, a subway or an express bus, but doesn't like the attitude of the people on those), did anyone force them to move to those places, as opposed to somewhere with better options? We have the best transportation system in America.

In the 1950s and 60s, traffic engineers turned many of New York’s streets into auto sewers, with wide, one-way lanes, narrow sidewalks and no on-street parking to buffer the pedestrian from the traffic. 80% of Manhattanites don’t own cars, and most Manhattan workers take public transportaton. It’s time we stop letting a small number of drivers degrade the quality of life for all us.

Despite price incentives I'm suspect of your idea that the poor own more cars than the middle class. Parking is not the only expense of car ownership. Furthermore, NYCHA residents may have subsidized parking at home but they have to pay the same as other drivers if they commute to Manhattan. (What are the rates of non-CBD housing projects commuting to the CBD, anyway?)

Parking at public housing projects may be an issue to be considered but I don't believe it's low hanging fruit in this discussion in the way that the driving habits of government employees are.

Do you live in Manhattan? Have a car? Say what you want about regional transit car "convenience" (a fact I likely agree with), I'm speaking specifically about midday, intra-borough travel. It is almost never a convenience on weekdays. There are probably a sizable, but not overwhelming number, of people traveling from one secured (owned/rented) parking location to another each day within Manhattan, but I doubt it is the majority.

It is certainly incremental, so you can attack it as one part of the problem, but the anecdotal evidence of this neighborhood isn't without merit. And it is just as much a slice. NYCHA facilities have lots of land area (21,000 spaces in the five boroughs) with the following rate structure:

"The new annual fee for a NYCHA parking permit/sticker is $75.00 ($65.50 for Seniors and the disabled) for NYCHA residents and $150
for non-residents. In addition, also effective April 1, monthly recurring charges for reserved spaces will be $20.00 for residents for outdoor parking spaces and $35.00 for residents for indoor spaces; and $35.00 for outdoor parking
spaces for nonresidents and $75.00 for indoor (not including tax)."

Note: this is not do demonize 'the poor'. Given the dispersion of NYCHA facilities and where working class jobs are located, and (as noted by the Times and here) the poor public transit options make car ownership a highly rational choice. And it is not an insignificant factor.

It's convenient to create a myth of the SUV drivings UES resident (the obverse of Reagan's Cadillac-driving welfare mother) because that presumes we can fix a thorny problem with some cheap moralizing.

We now have data showing the outer borough public transit improvements would have the biggest impact on car congestion, a point transit advocates have been arguing for years. It's a big problem with big numbers. Even if you got all 20,000 Manhattan commuters to give up driving, you would only be solving less than 10% of the problem and not changing materially affect auto density (since, presumably, all those cars are housed in Manhattan all the time).

http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/06/16/the-46-million-parking-perk/

Schaller’s analysis of 2000 Census data shows that if government workers commuted by auto at the same rate as their private sector counterparts, 19,200 fewer vehicles would enter Manhattan each day. The parking spaces freed up by these vehicles could generate $46 million annually in parking meter fees.

Also, driving a car IS considered a convenience most of the time, what planet are you from? That's why so many people continue to insist on doing it here and elsewhere, despite their loathing for traffic and, sometimes, supposed concern for the environment or global warming.

However, I think you make a good point about much subsidized housing including subsidized parking. I don't know the facts on that and I would be interested to know the parking provisions at NYCHA facilities and the actual car ownership rate among those residents. Also a good point about the proportion of daily vehicles that are government workers as opposed to the statistic about 35% of government employees driving - how many people does this translate into? This I know has been covered, in Bruce Schaller's report "Necessity or Choice". I don't know the #'s off-hand though.

I live on the LES, where a large number of car owners appear to be working class, both the car services guys, some who do reverse commuting (was just talking to a guy who lives in Baruch Houses and commutes to Jamaica each day) and/or working locally, based on the patterns of parking in the morning.

The 'rich UES drivers' is somewhat of a red herring, since there simply aren't that many of them. Larger apartements, less density, etc. Driving a car isn't considered a conveience most of the time, so why would the wealthy demand it for intraborough travel?

Since city housing is subsized, as is parking (not just because of on street), you probably have a high percentage of car ownership at both ends of the economic spectrum. The biggest shift in car ownership in the city is middle class over the past two decades.

The data point that was egregiously underreported is the driving to work number for government employees. It should be fairly easy for that to be calculated. The '35%' number is useless on it's own. If that 35% number translates into over 20% of car trips into Manhattan, then it is a congestion issue that could be addressed immediately, without tolls, DOT or anyone involved.

One thing about a lot of reporters covering local issues for the major papers that I have found is that many of them live in Brooklyn and Queens, NOT Manhattan. Since they don't necessarily have a straight commute back and forth to any one location, many of them use their own cars or taxis to get around in the outerboroughs to different areas.

Streetsblog, a site that is an advocate for “livable streets,” has some commentary on the article, although it is off the mark in discussing its origin. The idea didn’t come from anyone on the paper’s editorial board, which oversees the opinion section. (There’s a firewall between the opinion staff and the newsroom. See this Readers’ Guide about news and opinion in the paper. The public editor also addressed the subject.)

Like many ideas in the metro pages of the paper (the New York/Region section of the Web site), this idea started with the reporter, William Neuman, who covers transportation. Willie noticed some new transit and census data and was looking for an interesting way to present it to readers. (Another hook is that the Bloomberg administration is undertaking a long-term planning process to address transportation and other city issues). The reporter brainstormed with the city editor, Wendell Jamieson, and then they pitched it to the newsroom editors who decide the page one line-up.

We’ll leave the opinions and policy pronouncements to the editorial page, Streetsblog and — if you care to weigh in below — readers of the Empire Zone.

It looks like we've got the South Bronx, East Harlem, and Bed Stuy in the first catagory while the UES, South Shore of SI, and Eastern Queens in the quintile mostly to drive. Just as a ballpark figure I'd estimate the average incomes of those two areas as $25K v. $75K.

I'd say these maps show the populist argument against congestion pricing to be quite a farce.

(I think we have M8, SI3, Q7, and Q13 as the Community Districts driving the most and BK 3,4,8,9,16, BX 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and M9 and M11 as the Community Districts driving the least. Unfortunately I can't find income levels for the CD's)

Coming back, the V. is free.

(But yeah I guess it's a good sign that this lame trend piece is about traffic.)