Nor would it reduce pollution or carnage on the streets. The 30% of traffic (at most?) freed up by eliminating taxis that serve many people per car per day would quickly be refilled by personal cars serving one person per car per day. Of all the alternatives to pricing and parking reform, this is the most boneheaded.

Taxis do pollute far more than the average car (The average commuter drives maybe two hours a day, while taxis that overall get far worse gas mileage are out there essentially 24/7), so let's get rid of them. If everybody coming into Manhattan should be taking public transportation, what's the problem with requiring those in Manhattan to do the same?

Not only do taxis roam around clogging streets, causing accidents, and spewing pollution 24 hours a day, but they get to MAKE MONEY for the privilege of doing so.

Manhattan residents should be able to get around just fine using the subway, buses, and walking. Shouldn't they?

Perhaps for those who live in the vicinity of Methodist Hospital or other major employers, and who drive around during the day, daytime parking is an issue.

In Windsor Terrace, however, there are plenty of spaces available in the middle of a weekday, as residents who drive out far exceed non-residents who drive in -- to park and ride, or to go to Prospect Park. So why insist those spaces remain vacant, rather than be used by someone who wants to go to the park or subway?

And even if there wasn't, by the time people show up from elsewhere, residents already have a parking space from the night before.

The problem in Windsor Terrace is returning in the evening and finding a spot. The absolute killer is Sunday Night, because much of the area N of the expressway has Monday/Tuesday alternate side.

I would want the overnight permit to:

1) discourage those who don't need cars from having them.

2) discouraging those who could get by with one having two or more.

3) discourage those from places where parking is even tighter (ie Manhattan) using the neighborhood as a free parking garage.

BTW, a family on our street who have since moved away used to park five or six cars, including, or so I'm told, those owned by relatives who live a distance away. They used to arrage the cars to save spots. Drove some people crazy.

In theory, one could operate a paid public parking service for Manhattanites in a neighborhood like mine, as long as someone was home during alternate side to double-park. Don't laugh. Lots of outer borough catering halls in places like Bay Ridge offer "valet parking" that is really having guys shift cars around on the street.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Also, at last night's meeting, the residents-only hour was proposed for daytime to keep park-and-rides out. For instance, 1-2pm on the south side of the street and 2-3pm on the north side of the street.

Larry, I'm not sure that overnight parking is where the problem is. Why would "those from elsewhere" be storing their cars in Windsor Terrace overnight? That seems like a reverse park 'n' ride, doesn't it? And I don't think the 45% share of drivers who are cruising Park Slope for parking are doing it at 2 am -- it's during daytime hours when hospital workers, DOE permit parkers and park 'n' riders are contributing to increased competition for spots. Frankly, I don't know how much park 'n' ride traffic contributes to the problem, but I wonder why someone would drive from farther out in Brooklyn to have to cruise Park Slope for a free spot rather than just drive to the nearest subway station and ride from there. That seems silly, and not very environmentally sustainable, to boot.

For the record, I own a car and absolutely do consider it a privilege, especially parking on the street for free. But I think RPP could add to a robust congestion plan, which I heartily support.

hat I disagreed with (and I didn't make this clear in my comment above) was the notion that the existing "lottery" allocation of free parking with no attempt to manage demand was the beter way to manage curbise spaces. This view was expressed by one of the paid political staff at my table, an assistant to Congressmemeber Maloney. He proudly proclaimed that he was attending the meeting on the government payroll as he sat down at our workshop table, halfway into the workshop, and began forcefully expressing his views on parking. I can't imagine that Congressmember Maloney would have been pleased by this; certainly I (her constituent) was not.

The DoT did have an interesting idea of limiting the RPP restriction to only 1 hour a day. That way, law enforcement resources can be targeted during that one hour, but you still keep out day-long parkers while allowing short-term delivery and commercial parking before and after the "Residents' Only Hour."

And frankly, I don't think opposition to parking and riding is right, and is a valid complaint about snobbyness from Fidlerland.

After all, 60 years ago Fidlerland is where the Brooklyn middle class fled at a time that Brownstone Brooklyn was poor. Now the residents there are waking up to a shift the other way. Why practice exclusionary zoning?

Who are these Park Slope residents who care if someone from Marine Park parks on the street near the subway while they are off at work? If they use transit, their car is already parked before they leave. If they drive, they aren't there, and when they come back the Marine Parkers are leaving.

I can understand the complaint of people in Brooklyn Heights, where traffic congestion is worse. But most of the drivers there are heading to the free bridges. Equal bridge tolls would stop that.

Speaking as a resident of Windsor Terrace, some of the locals drive their cars out of the neighborhood during the day, and a smaller number of people from elsewhere park in the neighborhood during the day. I don't think that's a problem. I think it's a little selfish of those who do.

What I want is a resident permit to park overnight on the street, say from 8 pm to 6 am. That way, I don't have to return from out of town and worry that those from elsewhere are storing their cars on my block.

I think Park Slope residents are looking for a reduction in competition from Marine Park or Ditmas Park visitors, though RPP would force people registered in NC or PA to register their cars here. And that wouldn't be a bad thing in itself.

I don't think that RPP would necessarily lead to a surge in car buying. Sure, a few people who don't have a car may buy one, but I don't think the vast majority of those who are getting by without one now are going to run out and plunk down $30,000 just because it takes five minutes to find a spot instead of 15.

I doubt there are good stats on pre/post RPP effects, but if anyone knows of any, please fess up.

If there is some benefit in allocating the resource so that the most people have access to it (even limited), then discrete vouchers will work better than annual hunting licenses.

You'd think that all the aggravation from the big write-downs he's been having to take on bad mortgages and the like would have been enough that he wouldn't have to cruise Streetblog for post's criticizing his love of double-parked stretch Hummer limos in order to feel something. I just don't get the attraction of visiting blogs that get one ticked off; I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't spend a lot of time reading MultipleSUVOwner.com or RunOvertheCyclist.net. Life's too short.

And Hilary, if you quit tennis, then maybe some people will quit their cars! But you still had a better chance of playing a few sets with permits than without, since your competition was only those people who had a permit rather than the entire universe of tennis players.

What's to prevent spoofing your vouchers?

I am against residential permits unless they are rationed to the number of spaces in the zone or some small percentage over (maybe up to 50%). A car is a car; what difference does it really make to me if it has Pennsylvania plates or New York plates?

And Steve, your "RPPs will encourage residents to drive more" hypothesis, in various forms, has been supported in the past by Hilary and myself. I don't know if there's been any actual field testing of it, however.

The facilitator of the DoT workshop described a similar scenario, likening a residential parking permit as a "hunting license" that guaranteed no one the right to a parking space and likely carried forward the current competition among residents for spaces. The point of the various plans presented was to weed out various others from the hunt, such as local employees, long-term visitors, and/or short term visitors (or to charge them more for their "hunting license" than residents). The four different plans did this in slightly different ways.