Comments on: New Study Shows City Can Reduce Congestion Through Parking Policy

By: BicyclesOnly

BicyclesOnly — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 20:38:57 +0000

The parking garage tax and the curbside meter rates should be managed in exactly the same way as the municipal tax on cigarettes. Private autos may have a more diffuse and less easily measured impact on public health than cigarettes, but they are clearly in the same class of top-tier hazards the city government should be managing agressively. If we can ban trans-fats, we can heavily tax private autos.

By: JF

JF — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:40:49 +0000

That's being rolled out here in Queens:

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=10&aid=82597

By: christine

christine — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:37:10 +0000

According to the EPA it would take planting 1,630 trees to offset this carbon foot print .

There shodul be a new metere in cars, everytime the carbon consumeed is equivalent to a tree, there is a GIANT WHACK sound inside the car with vibrations etc.. as if a tree had fallen on their cars..

The Green gods are angry !

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:11:04 +0000

Unfortunately, parking pricing would be a replay of the congestion pricing debate, full of false populism.

If you allocate a scarce resource by queue, rather than by price, there are always insiders who get to be queue jumpers, and they tend to be the people that matter. Ie. the placard holders, and those who find a way to privitize public space (put in a curb cut and you, and no one else, is allowed to park on the street in front of your house).

The price of allocating space for motor vehicles by queue? In addition to the wasted time, which some people seem to have an abundance of somehow, there is all the gas burned sitting in traffic and driving around, and the resulting contaminants in the air.

By: Doc Barnett

Doc Barnett — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:59:52 +0000

Parking reform is the most effective option remaining to this administration, but there are enough unscrupulous government employees out there (who create free parking by buddy system) to congest our streets on their own. Massively and physically eliminating street parking is the only way to curtail that group (or automated enforcement, as with congestion pricing). Scant street parking, combined with naturally expensive off-street parking (please eliminate tax breaks), could reduce traffic to levels desirable to those not in cars, but the money that congestion pricing would collect for the public instead goes to parking garage owners.

By: Queens Crapper

Queens Crapper — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:53:36 +0000

"...the study bolsters the argument that parking policy, which rests in the city's hands, is the most effective way forward to rein in traffic."

Maybe you should have tried this approach instead of wasting taxpayer money touting your failed congestion pricing plan, Mayor Bloomberg.

By: JK

JK — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:17:38 +0000

Don't worry. It's the sound of Streetsblog nation nodding in agreement. This is a good report and nice coverage.

By: Shemp

Shemp — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:26:35 +0000

I guess we can see here how sexy, populist and easily grasped the idea of parking reform is...