It's time to revisit just how far this perk should go and it's time to recognize that abuse of parking privelages is a serious issue- AND impedement to rational solutions to some of the city's traffic woes. As a taxpayer, I'd rather pay some incrememental increase to financially compensate these city workers for their 'lost' benefit than continue to subsidize their continued disregard of public regulations.

And I am absolutely trying to take away Anne's friend's permit. I'm riding my bike down to Flatbush right now! Seriously, I don't want to get rid of them immediately, but I do want to see them phased out over the next ten years. These permits are most definitely part of the problem. They create a class of government workers who have a complete windshield perspective on the city and are thus very likely to oppose any transit improvements and promote the building and preservation of roads and parking. They also patronize car-oriented businesses and buy car-oriented real estate.

And honestly, I'm not much happier to have people driving through my neighborhood to get from Westchester to Brooklyn or Suffolk to the Bronx than I am to have them driving through here to get to Manhattan.

... but I'm not sure that I understand why, in discussions about Traffic Mitigation in the Central Business District, it's relevant to address parking permits for government employees who do NOT enter into the CBD for work puposes.

Yes, they are a factor in regional transportation policy... and yes, the public transit options for tangential trips are terrible. Nonetheless, aren't the above slideshow and related policy ideas limited to the CBD? Is anyone really trying to take away placards from someone like Annie's friend who is first referenced in post #14?

There are many ways to modify the parking placard system to allow for tangential trips in the outer boroughs while still addressing issues of traffice reduction and abuse in the CBD. I'm sure that some of these will be addressed in the new frenzy for parking reform.

With that said, I haven't seen a serious proposal to do away with the placard system entirely - please let me know if I'm wrong. In the meantime, it might be helpful to avoid getting sucked into debates over anecdotal evidence that doesn't really apply to the policies at hand.

Just think of how many subway yards, police precincts, public schools, and public hospitals are in the outer boroughs, and how many people who work in them live in the outer boroughs or the suburbs. At transit, there is a different "pick" with transit workers re-assigned every few months. If you start your shift at the yard or bus depot nearby, good for you. But lots of transit workers live in the burbs, and the majority drive.

And we agree that that's idiotic, right? In a town where transit runs around the clock, to have the transit staff driving? A bus driver who's been behind the wheel for ten hours straight, I do not want to see him or her then get into their own car and get back on the road to drive back to Dix Hills(!).

This is idiotic, it's unsustainable, we don't want to encourage it. Fer chrissakes, stop telling me that we've got to appease and accommodate these people and their foolish choices, and tell me how we can improve the outer-borough transit system, or else get them to move their houses or their jobs so that they can take transit like reasonable human beings.

I'm sick of hearing one sob story after another about Sally who lives in New City and can't depend on the bus. Well why the fuck does Sally live in New City and work in Brooklyn? Is that my problem? Why should I have to subsidize Sally's parking space and road facilities with my tax dollars, when Joe who lives half an hour away on the B54 bus can get there without a parking space?

Not handy, but the only source for it is 2000 census journey to work or PUMS data, since other data series assign the entire workforce of government agencies to the (Manhattan) headquarters. This was analyzed based on 1990 data back when I was at City Planning.

Just think of how many subway yards, police precincts, public schools, and public hospitals are in the outer boroughs, and how many people who work in them live in the outer boroughs or the suburbs. At transit, there is a different "pick" with transit workers re-assigned every few months. If you start your shift at the yard or bus depot nearby, good for you. But lots of transit workers live in the burbs, and the majority drive.

There isn't going to be a bus from Dix Hills to Morrisania. Carpool is the best option.

Any time, Lew

However, as I knew from the gitgo, my plan contained several elements that are in fact beyond the narrowly defined purview of the Sham commision.

for the record, two of my plan's 9 elements did in fact "make the cut" (raising parking costs and the added taxi stands).

However, when CP goes down in flames, I will continue to press my plan, which i hope will have the votes at least to pass the City Council.

Stay tuned.

Lew from Brooklyn

That would make a loud statement that this--this bold avant garde of a greater environmental movement (and I know it's not just an environmental effort) that traffic mitigation could be--was deciding that nothing greater, with a longer view, can be done to get us less dependent on ALL cars.

Because hybrid, zero emissions, or whatever--cars are still bad for the environment and public health and safety in lots of ways, not the least of which is that they spread populations out geographically. It's stupid.

And more immediately, even a hybrid, waiting to enter near the Lincoln Tunnel, helps bring to a standstill all the other non-hybrids around it, which then spend more time spewing heat and poison.

Hybrids still congest, is what I'm saying, rather verbosely. Don't exempt them.

Secondly, taking away government parking permits would have a much smaller effect on people who commute by car to neighborhoods poorly served by public transit than it would for other parts of the city. Most of the neighborhoods in New York with the worst parking are commercial areas also served by the best pubic transit: for example Downtown Brooklyn, Downtown Manhattan, and Midtown Manhattan. Eliminating government parking permits could have a big effect in these areas, and not horribly inconvenience those who need to drive to remoter areas in the outer boroughs.

The IRS thinks that it's taxable and requires people to report it as income (both the parking component and the mileage). At least for the "official" permits, the City reports it to the IRS, and it shows up on employees' W-2's. I don't know whether PD W-2's show the value of the "precinct" permits that have somewhat shadowy legitimacy (and which constitute the majority of placards, and abuse thereof), but in principle this too should be reported to the IRS. If there's a cop lurking here, he/she might chime in ...

The unions are not all-powerful. The city can negotiate down any payment proposed by a union.

The city can also say, "Look at this, we've actually been compensating you more than we've said in previous negotiations! So I don't think your raise needs to be as high as it was in the last contract." They can also say, "let's have a cash payment for this instead, or actually buy you Metrocards, instead of making you pay for the cards out of your own pre-tax wages."

Or the unions can do this themselves. Not all unions are quite so stick-in-the-mud as the Teamsters on this issue; in fact, I'm going to try and lobby the PSC today.

Step 1: Mayor & Finance Commissioner declare parking privileges as taxable income with value of $5,000.

Step 2: Collective bargaining with city unions results in a raise independent from all productivity bargaining of the (for example let's say 30%) marginal tax levied on that same $5,000, or $150.

Step 3: City sales tax increased to fund Step 2.

Step 4: City paychecks include $150 extra withholding, sent directly to IRS.

Now can you explain without bringing Halliburton, Robert Moses, or Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian revolution into the argument how exactly this benefits you, me or any New Yorker? Remember, we're still getting the reduced meter use, the extra pollution, and "all the other public costs of private auto use," because nobody has given up their permits.

while i understand that historically the neighborhoods worst served by transit often made that decision themselves generations ago when the thinking was that any "civilized" person would own a car, those demographics have largely shifted to the point where the neighborhoods with really great transit choices tend overwhelmingly to be the wealthiest.

Ooo - they're really not, Anne. I agree with you to a large extent, but transit privilege does not correspond to wealth in any meaningful sense in this city.

It's true that some of the neighborhoods with the best transit connections - Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, Soho, Tribeca and Greenwich Village, and even Long Island City, Chinatown and Harlem - have gentrified over the past 15-20 years, and some - Brooklyn Heights and um, yeah - have always been wealthy.

But there are plenty of neighborhoods with great transit connections that haven't been wealthy in my lifetime. East New York, Gowanus, Jamaica, the shabbier parts of LIC, Jackson Heights, Washington Heights and Inwood, a good chunk of the South Bronx: all served by three or more subway lines, plus commuter trains and express buses. Subway-wise, Crown Heights is no worse off than most of Park Slope, Corona and Hamilton Heights are not much worse than Forest Hills, Bed-Stuy is in just as good shape as Carroll Gardens, Inwood is better served than Midwood.

Most of the "transit-underprivileged" neighborhoods are pretty wealthy, or solidly middle-class: think Riverdale, Seagate, Fresh Meadows and the southern two-thirds of Staten Island. The exceptions are neighborhoods where the Third Avenue and Myrtle Avenue elevated trains were torn down and the promised subways never buit - and Brownsville, well, I don't know what's up with that.

I know - what you're talking about are mostly "tangential" trips, from the part of the Bronx served by the D to the part served by the 2, for example. Those are just as crappy for people in the wealthy neighborhoods as for people in the poor neighborhoods; it's just that the wealthy people who need to take tangential trips can afford a car.

I'm all for transit improvements, but many of these people are the ones who've been blocking funding for transit improvements. A sustainable transportation policy can't wait for all these people to be served; if the teachers don't get free parking, maybe Randi Weingarten will put pressure on the Mayor and the Governor to actually fund meaningful BRT/LRT in a reasonable timeframe.

again, i'm not advocating for driving; what i'm trying to emphasize is the massive transit inequities between different parts of the city, and the need to realistically address them when discussing "sustainable transportation policy".