When Michael Bloomberg was first elected eight years ago, I and many others thought such a wealthy mayor might assert his independence from developers who choose to serve their own self-interest at the expense of the city's long term needs. Six years later, the release of PlaNYC 2030 finally gave hope to that desire. The mayor put forth a vision that, despite some shortcomings, promised a framework for sustainable, equitable growth. For all the city's progress toward advancing those goals, however, it has taken several steps backward by continuing to build real estate projects that erode the walkable city. Mayor Bloomberg’s re-election provides an opportunity to correct these oversights and refine his administration’s legacy on building an equitable and environmentally sustainable city.

A rendering of the proposed Hudson Yards development on the far West Side. Only a hard-fought court battle against Mayor Bloomberg, the Department of City Planning, and other public agencies prevented this project from adding up to 20,000 parking spaces in Manhattan.

Unfortunately, creativity, innovation and commitment to the principles of sustainability stop with these few agencies. Other public servants charged with planning for the future of the city have abdicated that responsibility. The Department of City Planning, despite some exemplary work on open space design and enhancing opportunities for world-class architecture, has ignored planning for the New York City of 2030. Instead, it has focused on rezoning the city as if we still lived in the 1960s, using the language and planning concepts of that discredited era rather than preparing to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

Together with private developers, the city's Economic Development Corporation and other quasi-government entities, the planning department has embraced outmoded redevelopment plans for Willets Point in Queens, Hudson Yards on the far West Side, Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, and Columbia University's expansion into Manhattanville without any substantive regard to the principles and goals of PlaNYC.

These large-scale development plans fundamentally ignore the issue of sustainability. And they cast the form of the city in concrete for a century or more.

In these developments, the street is nothing more than square footage added to permit greater building heights and densities. Streets in these developments divide rather than integrate neighborhoods. Traffic lights are recalibrated, for instance, to facilitate the flow of traffic and hinder pedestrian movement by reducing crossing times. Perversely, these measures are dubbed “mitigation” in the environmental review process. Without them, the development would not be allowed to proceed. This is because the developments include more space for car parking than needed -- far above the norm in New York City -- creating more traffic and necessitating such "mitigations."

This runs against the principles of good urbanism and drains the life out of the city. The street is the common denominator of every neighborhood in New York. Streets, more than buildings, make up the city’s patrimony -- its "genius loci." When I grew up in New York in the 1950s, streets were our parks, our gardens, and our athletic fields. They facilitated activity, exercise, and civic discussion. They were places that fostered social interaction and social cohesion. They met needs that transcend any particular era. As we move deeper into the 21st century, we need to reintroduce these functions into our neighborhood fabric.

What does this mean in practice? At the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn, for example, development that enhances streetlife and improves the public realm -- development consistent with the principles of PlaNYC -- would not close streets, as developer Forest City Ratner intends to do. Instead, as proposed in the UNITY Plan, the street grid of Fort Greene would extend through the Yards, weaving into the Prospect Heights grid to the south.

The UNITY Plan for the Atlantic Yards site.

To build a sustainable city, we need to think and plan on a small scale, not just the mega-project scale. We need to engage more New Yorkers in the process of building neighborhoods, not just the politically connected or wealthy. The place where everything comes together, where we all meet and interact, and where sustainable planning must begin, is the street. The mayor has the intellect and the openness to understand this. He now has four years to reinforce what his administration has done well so far. Four years to change direction from past mistakes. Four years to focus on what has been ignored until now.

Last week the Department of City Planning released the "Queens Around the World Guide," a map to help cyclists see the sights, sample the cuisine, and frequent the merchants of the city's biggest borough.

The Queens guide subtly delivers the message that attracting cyclists means attracting business -- a nice little counterpoint to those who demonize bike lanes as a drag on retailers. As the DCP press release says, the map points out "many opportunities for riders to park their bikes and walk around the unique neighborhoods and shopping districts" of the borough. Which raises the prospect of a good companion project: How about a few bike corrals along the route? The potential to boost foot traffic is rather impressive when you consider that each on-street spot for car parking could turn into a dozen or so slots for bike parking.

DCP will be distributing the maps to local bike shops. For now, you can find it online. Maps for other boroughs are in the works, with the Bronx coming up next.

Photo: Department of City Planning [PDF].

We've said it before and it's certainly worth repeating: This zoning change is a good step forward that will bear fruit in the long run; the missing piece -- and it's a big one -- is bike access to existing buildings. To that end, the Bicycle Access Bill (Intro 871) would provide a much more substantial and immediate benefit to bike commuters by allowing them to bring their rides inside the workplace, if their employer consents. The legislation aims to reverse the policies of New York City landlords and property managers, most of whom don't allow bikes inside. By drastically reducing the risk of theft, the bill could boost bike commuting by as much as 50 percent.

After holding a committee hearing on Intro 871 last fall, legislators are currently tweaking the bill's language. We have a request in with sponsor David Yassky's office to determine when the revised bill will come up in committee.

The DCP study follows DOT's release last summer of a Request for Expressions of Interest to gauge the potential of a public bike system. City officials characterized the new report as a research document akin to a feasibility study, not an indication that bike-share implementation is imminent.

With New York's streets crammed to capacity at peak hours and subways and buses handling historically high levels of ridership, now is an opportune moment for bike-share, which can be implemented quickly and at modest expense. A network of public bike stations as dense as Paris's Vélib would make existing transit options more attractive and relieve crowding on packed trains and buses. Consider these examples from DCP's report:

Over 14,000 northwest Brooklyn residents (Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Fort Greene, etc) work in northwest Queens (Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside). While the distance between these areas is short, insufficient transit means that 42% of these commuters drive to work each day. In addition, for some households, the introduction of a bike-share program may help them avoid or postpone the purchase of a car, as trips to transit or other short trips could then be made by public bicycle.

A subway commuter living on the Upper East Side and working in lower Manhattan or Midtown currently walks to the Lexington Avenue subway (4/5/6), one of the most congested subway lines in the city. With a bike-share program in place, that commuter might bicycle to an express stop or choose to bypass the 4/5/6 all together and bicycle to 63rd or 59th Streets where transfers are available for the F and N/R/W trains. Similarly a bike-share system would allow a Morrisania or Mott Haven resident working at Columbia-Presbyterian, City College or Columbia University, to bicycle to the D train instead of taking a bus or the crowded 2, 5 or 6 train into Manhattan and turning around to go back uptown into work.

The report proposes a phased roll-out, starting where demand would be most intense and expanding to cover all of Manhattan and significant portions of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. The map comes after the jump.

A photosim of the East Houston Street plan; existing condition shown inset. Image: DCP.

Up-to-date plans of the new street geometry were not available as of this writing, but the design is based largely on the Department of City Planning's East Houston Street Pedestrian Project, finalized in 2006. A spokesman for the Department of Design and Construction said the project would incorporate many, but not all, of the recommendations in that report [PDF].

There's a lot to like in the 2006 plan, including two big pedestrian areas where Houston angles across the regular grid of Manhattan at Avenue A and Avenue D. Based on recent descriptions, the final project will incorporate those two plazas. Street space would also be reclaimed with wider medians, pedestrian refuges, and sidewalk neckdowns to shorten crossing distances. But will the new East Houston feel safe for cyclists?

Currently, 70 percent of drivers on East Houston Street speed, according to studies conducted by Transportation Alternatives. "It's hard to imagine that paint will offer the kind of protection mainstream New Yorkers will need to feel safe biking on this crucial, yet dangerous corridor," said TA's Wiley Norvell. "The city has innovative physically-protected designs on hand, and to not use them on Houston would be a huge missed opportunity."

In response, DOT emphasized the project's pedestrian improvements. DOT considers protected bike paths less-than-ideal for typical two-way streets, and the agency expects the removal of two traffic lanes to reduce vehicle speeds.

Even if traffic calms somewhat, the buffered lane will invite the same double-parking that plagues other Class 2 lanes. People choose to bike based on their perceptions of safety, and a buffer can only shift perceptions so far.

"Houston is by no means a typical two way street," said Norvell. "It is exactly the type of wide arterial roadway that calls for a physically separated lane. This city's bike network will continue to remain unusable for the average New Yorker until streets like Houston are provided with the protected lanes they require to be safe."

Intro 871 would make it much easier to -- gasp! -- bring your bike to work. Photo: Transportation Alternatives [PDF]

Should the zoning amendment pass, it would be good news for New York City bike commuters in years to come. The lack of a secure place to put your ride is one of the main obstacles to commuting by bike, and the zoning change will gradually alter the equation as new housing, workplaces, and commercial development get built. (The amendment now includes exemptions for low-income housing, but not the bike parking-for-car parking swap proposed at a previous hearing.)

A related measure, the Bicycle Access Bill (Intro 871), could deliver immediate benefits to nearly all bike commuters in the city by improving access to existing workplaces. As things stand, most landlords and building managers simply don't permit people to bring bikes inside. Intro 871, sponsored by David Yassky, would help remedy the situation and has already progressed through one hearing in the transportation committee. A revised version of the bill is expected to be released in the next few days, and Yassky's office is "very optimistic" that a second committee hearing will take place within approximately six weeks, according to spokesman Danny Kanner.

Intro 871 is one to keep a very close eye on. While a majority of the council has signed on as co-sponsors, the Real Estate Board of New York has signaled its opposition the bill. Not that the pro-bike side is without its own heavy hitters. A group of high-powered business leaders and lawyers sent this letter [PDF, or follow the jump] to Council Speaker Christine Quinn, asking her to continue the "championing of sustainable, healthy and cost effective transportation modes" (disclosure: Streetsblog publisher Mark Gorton is one of the signatories). Quinn's office has not returned inquiries about her stance on the bill.

Dear Speaker Quinn,

We write to you today as professionals and as cyclists. We are both business people and lawyers and we wish to be bicycle commuters. Many of our peers as well as employees of the companies we own, manage, and work for are discovering the physical, mental, and practical benefits that come with cycling. Yet there is a crucial inequity that separates us from those who commute by car: secure storage. It is not only this imbalance, but the opportunity for a solution, that prompts this letter. We urge you to continue your championing of sustainable, healthy and cost effective transportation modes by supporting City Council legislation Intro. 871, The Bicycle Access Bill.

When people drive to work they have several ways to store their cars. They can look for a curbside parking space, they can park in an off-street garage, or they may even have a parking facility in their destination building. Cyclists have to deal with issues of access, inconvenience, and security. Although the DOT and some BIDs have made great strides in providing curbside bike racks, supply has not kept up with demand in midtown and the financial district. Most riders have to chain their bikes to whatever sign, pole, scaffolding, or rack they can find in the vicinity.

A good bike is of value to both its owner and a thief, so many of us are reluctant to leave our bikes on the sidewalk even when racks are available. The better the bike, the more likely a theft. Some 70,000 bikes are stolen every year in New York City and less than 2% are ever recovered. Every time we ride to work, we gamble on whether or not our transportation will be there for the ride home, many of us will not cycle to work if we can’t park indoors.

Bicycle commuting is efficient in many ways. Riding to work allows people who are committed to fitness, but who work long hours, to combine transportation and exercise. More bicycle commuters mean fewer private and hired cars on the city’s clogged streets and fewer passengers on overcrowded subways and buses. Moreover, people who cycle to work have been shown to be more productive and happier on the job. And, as property owners and managers who permit access to buildings have already discovered, it will not increase operational or insurance costs.

PlaNYC 2030 calls for the promotion of cycling as a sustainable mode of transportation. Because Intro. 871 is an important step in achieving this goal, we urge you to support it.

This proposal for Brooklyn's Park Circle -- Grand Army Plaza's twin traffic disaster at the opposite end of Prospect Park -- comes from Streetsblog Flickr pool contributor Sean Kenney. Currently, extraneous asphalt and accelerating vehicles abound here (check after the jump for a shot of existing conditions). Says Sean about his re-design:

With this concept, the intersections (and traffic lights) force motorists to negotiate standard, slow, 90-degree turns. The reclaimed street space for plazas or park space (the tan areas) can also host a separated bike lane for access to the park and greenways.

Like GAPCo's proposal for Grand Army Plaza, this design could revive a rarely used public space by connecting it to the park and making it more accessible to pedestrians. The Department of City Planning showed a similar concept for Park Circle at a meeting sponsored by Community Board 7 last month, presenting it as more of a far-off vision than a near-term possibility. (Read Sholom Brody's write-up on the Livable Streets Community site for a full recap.)

Based on the results of a DOT public workshop at that same meeting, safer pedestrian crossings around the perimeter of the circle could be in the offing later this year. While we're re-envisioning this space, I'd also like to see some enterprising developer raze that curb-cutting Commerce Bank at the corner of Prospect Park Southwest and replace it with a building that actually engages the sidewalk. Other suggestions?

What Park Circle looks like now.

The west side of Park Circle viewed from Coney Island Avenue.

The community input portion of the evening focused on the DOT project, culminating with an exercise in which small teams marked up maps of Park Circle with their ideas and reported back to the whole group. Participants were working from a blank slate -- DOT hasn't put forward any plans yet.

There was widespread agreement that traffic entering and exiting the circle moves dangerously fast, and that the west side, where cars rush to and from the nearby urban speedways, is crying out for at-grade pedestrian crossings and safer cycling conditions. I hesitate to read too much into the specific ideas that surfaced, which were all over the map, but several participants supported demarcating more pedestrian space, and a few advanced the notion of a protected bike path around the perimeter of the circle. One older woman I spoke to wasn't into bike lanes so much, but she thought that DOT really nailed the new Madison Square and wanted to see a similar treatment that "works for everybody" at Park Circle. Regrettably, woonerven did not come up.

DOT and DCP plan to use the results of the workshop to inform short-term improvements and longer-term plans for the area.

A diagram showing proposed bike parking requirements for one class of residential construction. Source: DCP (PDF)

The zoning change faces less opposition than the bill -- which would achieve a much bigger impact -- but yesterday's hearing was not without debate. You've got to like the sound of the compromise that might be on the table, though. Reader Nathan Skodola sends this recap:

The opposition was largely organizations involved in low-income housing. Apparently federal subsidies for housing of this kind are determined on a per-unit basis, so adding a non-occupied room gets no extra money. However, virtually all of the opponents would favor the bill if they could exchange a mandatory car parking spot for 20 mandatory bike parking spots. The commissioners seemed very receptive and for the most part in favor of the change.

The commission will weigh yesterday's testimony along with recommendations from community boards and borough presidents.

Both the zoning change and the Bikes in Buildings Bill may come before the City Council around mid-March, says Transportation Alternatives. The bill first needs to clear the Transportation Committee, which held a hearing on it late last year. Following that hearing, the bill is being reworked to clearly require bike access, as opposed to storage, said Tim Roberts, policy director for sponsor David Yassky. The key provision to keep an eye on is the escape clause, which will have to grant exemptions to landlords who need one, without giving too much leeway to those who don't.

After evaluating downtown streets, city staff reported their findings on public life. Photo: Shin-pei Tsay.

Calling the assembled city staff "the pied pipers of the new way of doing business," Sadik-Khan touted the city's transition to more human-centered street metrics. "The tools that we've used in the past have done a really good job of helping us measure cars and traffic," she said, "but as we're looking to improve the condition of our streets for other users of the system -- for pedestrians, for cyclists, for people whether they're walking around, riding around, chatting, strolling, having lunch -- we need a much more comprehensive approach."

After a powerpoint from team Gehl, everyone got a feel for what Sadik-Khan was referring to. Fanning out from City Planning's Reade Street headquarters, 11 groups headed to different sites downtown, timers in hand, to see how well New York's streets and public spaces serve the people who use them. The evaluation combines hard stats like pedestrian and cyclist counts with open-ended questions that touch on the quality of the public environment and how well it supports social activity. The same technique underlies much of the data presented in World Class Streets.

DOT Assistant Commissioner Andy Wiley-Schwartz, who heads up the Public Plaza Program, said that the day's events presage permanent changes. "We are going to be working on different ways of building some of these methodologies into our standard operating procedure," he said, "so that we are more versed in studying street life." DOT will both perform the evaluations on its own, he added, and insert the work into consultant contracts.

Many of the city's urban planning advocacy groups were on hand, including the Regional Plan Association, Project for Public Spaces, and the Municipal Art Society. The multi-agency get-together drew their praise. "I think it's great that DOT, DCP, and EDC are collaborating on this initiative to create more sustainable streets in New York City," wrote MAS's Elizabeth Werbe in an email message. "This inter-agency cooperation bodes well for the city, considering the expertise of Gehl Architects in providing innovative tools to measure the conditions that allow for the development of pedestrian and bicycle friendly environments, in addition to the analysis and methodology needed to translate these findings into recommendations that will improve the public realm."

Another thing that bodes well, says Gehl, is simply the act of observing places close-up -- "to get people out there to see with their own eyes what's going on... by the end of the day, you know a lot about the city beyond the figures that you got."

"Our proposed citywide bicycle parking requirements will make it possible to secure one's bike at home and at work, thereby making it easier to commute to work, to school and run errands by bike," said Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden in a written statement. "This is one key piece of a larger package of city efforts to support bicycle ridership."

Before becoming law, the amendment must pass through the public review process, which gives veto power to the City Council. DCP estimates that the new zoning could be enacted within six months.

Another pending piece of legislation, the Bikes in Buildings Bill, would mandate access for bikes in existing commercial buildings and enjoys majority support in the Council. The bill is reportedly opposed by the Real Estate Board of New York, but according to a story in the Daily News yesterday, co-sponsor David Yassky appears confident that it will clear committee and pass:

Councilman David Yassky (D-Williamsburg) said legislation that would allow bikes to be stored in private office buildings would buoy ridership, which city officials hope will reach 18,000 by 2015.

The legislation, which could be voted on by the end of the year, would allow bike access in thousands of commercial buildings across the city, ensuring that all riders would have space to store their bikes during the workday.

"When we [pass the legislation], I predict the number of bike commuters will rise even further, making our city greener, healthier and less congested," Yassky said.

REBNY President Steve Spinola wrote to his members in September asking them to voluntarily comply with a DOT program to expand bike access and parking in office buildings, indicating that he would continue to oppose mandates like the new zoning amendment.

Here are the details from DCP on those requirements.

The new zoning would require that bicycle parking spaces be enclosed, secure, and accessible to designated users, such as residents, employees, or in the case of public parking garages, the general public. To ensure the new requirements do not encumber new developments, required bicycle parking would not count against the permitted floor area. The new zoning provides that:

• Residential buildings with more than 10 units must provide secure bike parking for 50% of the units, or one space for every two units.  
• Commercial office buildings must provide one space for every 7,500 square feet.
• Retail and most other commercial uses, as well as most community facility uses, would be required to provide one space for every 10,000 square feet of floor area.  Smaller buildings, where three or fewer bicycle spaces are required, can waive the requirement.
• Universities and hospitals will be required to provide secure bike parking but special provisions would allow these institutions to locate spaces more flexibly in a campus setting.
• For industrial and semi-industrial uses, religious institutions, and certain other facilities with varied employment densities or unusual space demands, bicycle parking would not be required but would not count against permitted floor area.
• Public parking garages would be required to provide one (1) bicycle parking space for every ten (10) automobile parking spaces.
• Requirements would apply to new buildings, enlargements of 50% or more, and conversions to residential use.
• Fifteen (15) square feet would be required per bicycle parking space. The amount of parking space required per bicycle can be reduced to as little as 6 square feet per bicycle with the submission and approval of a more efficient layout.
• In order to address a wide range of building configurations, bicycle parking may be provided in a variety of locations, including on the ground floor of a building, in a cellar or in a parking garage.

The Chairperson of City Planning Commission may authorize a reduction or waiver of bicycle parking spaces when subsurface or below-ground infrastructure conditions make bicycle parking infeasible.

Earlier this week Transportation Alternatives announced the winners of its "21st Century Street" design competition, selecting three entries from more than a hundred submissions re-imagining the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street in Brooklyn.

Juror Michelle de la Uz, director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, listed safety and the pedestrian environment as her top concerns. "That intersection has been the site of significant injuries to pedestrians, and it's screaming for a re-design for all the different users," she said. "What's going on at that intersection is representative of the whole stretch. When you go to Sunset Park, there are four, soon to be five schools along Fourth Avenue. Public safety has to be a priority instead of just moving traffic."

The jury split top honors among three designs:

• Streets for Everyone, by New York-based Rogers Marvel Architects, which features a center median bike path on both streets (shown above in section; plan shown here)
  
• Shared Space, by Steven Nutter of Somerville, Massachusetts (section, plan)
  
• Streets Come Alive, by Philadelphia's Team LEVON, which takes the prize for most pedestrian space (section, plan)

T.A. wants to see the competition's best ideas factor into the city's long-term plans. "A lot of the City's current work is about triage -- bringing paint and asphalt to streets that really need immediate safety fixes," says Wiley Norvell. "The design competition was about leapfrogging ahead of the current generation of street designs to provide much more active and dynamic public spaces. We hope the DOT and City Planning take note of what's been generated."

Lots of drawings after the jump.

Team LEVON's "Streets Come Alive"

Michael Nutter's "Shared Space"

Honorable mention went to Brooklyn's own Mark Anders, whose proposal was well received for deftly allocating space between multiple modes. T.A. staff selected as their favorite "HUMUS = HUMAN," which crams in as much vegetation as possible, capturing copious amounts of stormwater in the process.

Mark Anders' design, shown in plan

"HUMUS = HUMAN"

In one of the wilder entries, Streetsblog technical director Nick Grossman and graphic designer Carly Clark teamed up with landscape architect Wayken Shaw on "The Underpass," which places two basketball courts beneath the F train tracks that cross over Fourth Avenue.

"The Underpass"

Maybe not officially, but the agency's minimum residential parking requirements are a big inducement to car commute. That's the implicit finding of a new study by University of Pennsylvania planning professor Rachel Weinberger (and others, including yours truly), released today by Transportation Alternatives and a who’s who of leading planning, transit and environmental groups. The study, "Guaranteed Parking -- Guaranteed Driving" [PDF], compares Park Slope, Brooklyn with Jackson Heights, Queens, and finds that, despite Park Slope having higher car ownership, Jackson Heights residents are 45 percent more likely to drive to work in the Manhattan Central Business District and 28 percent more likely to commute by car in general.

And it isn't because Jackson Heights has no transit options. Commuters in both neighborhoods are served by multiple subway and bus lines, and the ratios of transit trip times to driving times are comparable. Additionally, other proven predictors of travel choice suggest Park Slope commuters are more likely to drive, not less. Park Slope is wealthier, denser and has higher home ownership. It also has a higher proportion of government employees. 

The study's key research finding is that in Jackson Heights, 31 percent of car owners have a parking spot at home, compared to only 5 percent of Park Slope drivers. The study concludes that because of this, Park Slope car owners, who do not want to lose their coveted curbside spots, are less likely to drive to work.

The reason for the parking disparity is that much more of Jackson Heights has been built since 1963, when the city zoning code introduced residential parking requirements. The finding has far reaching sustainability implications, since the Department of City Planning requires driving-inducing residential parking for between 40 and 150 percent of new dwelling units.

In August, Weinberger teamed with Transportation Alternatives and other groups concerned about parking reform to issue "Suburbanizing the City". That study estimated that the city's parking requirement would generate a billion miles of new traffic a year by 2030. "Guaranteed Parking" substantiates that finding, and provides more evidence that New York City zoning regulations promote driving to work, even when viable transit options are available.

Last week we visited the city’s parking doctor and got the wrong medicine. In this episode of city parking malpractice, the parking doctor is doing the wrong tests.

In Manhattan south of 60th Street, new off-street parking is allowed only by special permits issued by the City Planning Commission. This rule is the main transportation legacy of the federal Clean Air Act in New York City. It stems from a long-running legal challenge from environmentalists dating back to the late 1970s. The rule has resulted in the Manhattan Central Business District having one of the lowest ratios of parking to people in the developed world.

Unfortunately, this success story is being swamped by a wave of accessory parking in new residential towers. According to Lindsey Lusher at Transportation Alternatives, city records indicate new parking in the Clean Air Act zone is being built at a record pace. It turns out that the City Planning Commission, with the consent of the Manhattan Borough President, "can" grant special permits for new parking in the Clean Air Zone. However, due to court decisions and political pressure from real estate developers, the planning commission has approved hundreds, perhaps thousands, of special permits, and attempted to disapprove only a handful.

A key legal reason for this promiscuous permitting is the strange way New York City’s environmental laws are interpreted when it comes to parking. Each new parking garage is considered in isolation from its neighbors. Because of this, the coalition of environmental and planning groups which released the "Suburbanizing the City" parking report asked the mayor to change the environmental review process for parking.

2. Revise environmental rules so that parking impacts are fully accounted for.

We recommend that the city revise CEQR rules for the special permitting process so that the cumulative impact of new parking garages on neighborhoods is considered. Currently, the impacts of a new parking garage are considered in isolation from impacts of other new parking garages. The cumulative impact of large amounts of parking are not considered, and overall impact of additional traffic on neighborhoods is ignored. For example, in Hells Kitchen in Midtown Manhattan, thousands of new residential parking spaces have been added in recent years. Yet, there has been no assessment of the cumulative traffic or environmental impact. Impacts of each new garage are assessed only if the garage generates 50 or more car trips in a peak hour. The problem with this approach is that two or more nearby garages could generate many more than 50 cars per hour, even though each individual garage would not. The net result of this approach is that very large traffic impacts are being ignored. One way for the City to deal with this issue would be to set a maximum number of parking spaces that would be environmentally acceptable, based on an environmental review, for each area of the city. These environmental reviews would consider cumulative effects. Once the maximums are set, special permits would be granted only if the total number of parking spaces within each area remained below the maximum acceptable number.

The groups know full-well that revising CEQR is a major undertaking. But an environmental law this myopic and ineffectual does little to further the public good and must be changed.

Photo of Chelsea traffic by ATHLETE Director Dave/Flickr

What would you do if you went to the doctor, and before speaking to you, taking your vital signs, or learning about your condition, she prescribed a powerful drug and kicked you out the door?

New York City's land-use doctor is the City Planning Commission, and the drug it doles out is the Zoning Resolution, a 1960s-era set of laws that is gradually transforming swaths of the city into more suburban, car oriented environments.

City zoning requires substantial parking at all new residential buildings. In many neighborhoods that means an astoundingly higher level of parking. For instance, the Zoning Resolution requires new residential buildings in walkable Park Slope to have eight times more off-street parking than the existing housing stock. So what does the planning commission base its powerful prescription on? Not much, according to Suburbanizing the City [PDF], a study just released by Transportation Alternatives, the Regional Plan Association and a host of other prominent transportation and planning groups. The study projects a billion miles of new driving by 2030 due to the planning commission's off-street parking requirements. Yet, in the recommendations accompanying the report, the groups write:

It appears that City planners do not know how much off-street parking exists, how much parking is planned and permitted, or how existing or planned new parking contributes to traffic, air pollution and carbon emissions.

As a first step toward diagnosing the extent of the parking problem, the groups ask the mayor to "fully assess the amount of existing and planned off-street parking" and take the following actions to accomplish that:

• Inventory existing and planned off-street parking. The City should create a complete, public, inventory of existing, permitted and planned off-street parking. Using this information, the City should fully assess the relationship between residential, retail and commercial parking requirements, driving and travel choice. This information will provide a baseline to assess the impact of additional parking.
• Measure how much driving is created by new off-street parking. City agencies do not know the impact of new parking. Neither the Department of City Planning nor the Department of Transportation have computer models, surveys, sampling or studies that reveal the local or cumulative impact of parking requirements.
• Determine parking demand based on the assumption that off-street parking has a cost. Currently, the Department of City Planning and environmental documents project demand for parking based on the assumption that it is free. This results in very high demand assumptions. The City should estimate demand for off-street parking based on appropriate price levels.
• Measure the effect of increases in parking growth on neighborhood and citywide traffic congestion. Through permits and as of right building, the City is increasing the city’s off-street parking supply, while the capacity of the street network remains static. New traffic as a result of new cars on the road (facilitated by the availability of parking) must be closely analyzed.

Given the mayor's sustainability push and the highly-touted PlaNYC, it seems logical that the City Planning Commission would take a careful look at Robert Moses-era, driving-inducing parking requirements. But old habits die hard. Ask the doctors. For hundreds of years they tried to cure the common cold by bleeding the patient. For some, the cold went away; many others died.

Photo: Ben Fried

1. Fully assess the amount of existing and planned off-street parking.
2. Consider measures to significantly reduce required parking.
3. Revise environmental laws so that parking impacts are fully accounted for.
4. Freeze special permits and stop directly subsidizing new parking.

The full slate of recommendations starts on the third page of this PDF. With more than a billion miles per year in extra car traffic on the way if current practices remain unchanged, advocates say the city must first acknowledge the impact of off-street parking. "What is almost as scary as all this new traffic is the fact that the city is not even aware of the problem," said T.A.'s Paul Steely White. "The Department of City Planning does not know how much parking exists, nor how the parking supply affects traffic congestion."

Decisions such as whether to allow developers to exceed parking limits in Manhattan are currently based on small-bore factors, like traffic counts on nearby streets. The cumulative impact of all the off-street parking that's being added through these exemptions remains unknown. That hasn't stopped the Planning Commission from approving a slew of them, the effects of which will be felt for decades. "The city takes a very local view of parking," said report author Rachel Weinberger. "They have to take a citywide view of what additional car ownership means."

The recommendations in the report include a mix of incentives and other measures to stem the tide of excessive off-street parking. The widespread practice of "bundling" a parking spot with the price of housing, for instance, rewards car ownership and weighs down car-free households with an unnecessary cost. Cities including San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. are moving away from this practice, and New York could do the same. Another concept is to nudge developers in less transit-oriented neighborhoods to include space for car-sharing instead of private cars.

Here's a sampling of other ideas being proposed:

• Doing away with mandatory parking minimums and instituting maximums that would vary based on a development's proximity to transit
• Prioritizing the pedestrian environment above the dictates of convenient parking by banning curb cuts on key streets for pedestrians and transit
• Establishing impact fees on new parking spaces that take into account their full costs to the public.

Streetsblog will be taking a closer look at these recommendations and more in the weeks ahead.

Photo of residential driveway in Queens: Forgotten NY

Planning advocates recommended doing away with parking requirements and "unbundling" the cost of parking from the price of housing. "There's no reason for parking to be paid for by people who don't own cars," said Tri-State Transportation Campaign director Kate Slevin, adding that the construction of parking should be "a choice rather than a necessity."

Minimum parking requirements are especially ill-suited to affordable housing developments, said Elena Conte of the Pratt Center for Community Development (pictured at the mic). "[A parking minimum] really makes no sense at all for communities where less than 20 percent of households own cars, because it drives up the cost of housing and takes up valuable space that otherwise could be used to create additional units or public space."

Representatives of Environmental Defense and the New York League of Conservation Voters rounded out the proceedings, calling on the city and state to take stock and head off the traffic-congested future that excessive off-street parking threatens to bring about. "We're building the infrastructure to encourage more people to drive with very little understanding of the environmental impacts," said Josh Nachowitz of NYLCV.

T.A.'s Paul Steely White tied the issue to preserving New York's streets for people on foot, noting that more off-street parking means less sidewalk integrity: "Curb cuts enable cars to drive across the sidewalk and block the sidewalk; it erodes the pedestrian environment."

Major planning groups, including the American Planning Association, the Regional Plan Association, and the Municipal Art Society, have also signed on to the report and urged Mayor Bloomberg to revise the city's ad-hoc policies governing off-street parking. According to one organizer behind the effort, this marks the first time all three organizations have lined up behind the same transportation reform.

Streetsblog will have more soon on the recommendations being advanced by this coalition.

If New York City maintains current parking policies, the traffic generated by the addition of new off-street spaces will likely exceed a billion miles per year by 2030, according to a report released yesterday by Transportation Alternatives. That distance is roughly equal to eight months' worth of all driving in Manhattan below 86th Street. By comparison, congestion pricing is projected to cut traffic by less than half that amount.

The report, "Suburbanizing the City" [PDF], is the first to address the effects of off-street parking requirements on traffic. Developers are essentially building higher rates of car ownership into the very fabric of the city -- between 40 and 50 percent above current levels, the authors conclude. In many cases the inclusion of parking is mandated by the city's zoning requirements. This is a recipe for induced demand: The more parking is provided with new residences, the more people will drive.

"As the pace of residential development is speeding up to provide for a growing population, this increase in the parking supply will unleash a torrent of unnecessary car ownership, unnecessary driving, and unnecessary traffic and pollution," said T.A.'s Paul Steely White. "All of this traffic trouble will largely erase the transportation improvements and carbon savings from PlaNYC."

One of the barriers to addressing the problem is a lack of information. The report notes that the Department of City Planning neither tracks the cumulative amount of parking in the city, nor measures the impact of parking on traffic and pollution. The proliferation of accessory parking in Hell's Kitchen and the possible addition of a 2,300-car Costco garage on the Upper West Side are symptoms of the city's ad-hoc approach to parking management. All told, says report author Rachel Weinberger, the biggest impact on traffic might come from the construction of smaller, one- to three-family residences required to include off-street parking.

A broad coalition of planning and environmental groups is lining up behind the report. Streetsblog will have more on yesterday's joint press conference (also see articles in AM New York, Metro, the Post, and the Sun) and recommendations for addressing the parking glut. Key findings from the report follow the jump.

• In many cases, the city's residential off-street parking requirements exceed existing off-street parking. As a result, new residences built under the zoning code will have far more parking than existing residences. This will shift neighborhoods from pedestrian-oriented to more car-oriented places and undermine their pedestrian character.
• New York City zoning regulations mandating parking at new residential developments will increase auto ownership rates and add over 1 billion annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 2030. This is 40% to 50% more than if the City were to maintain its existing rate of car ownership. (A billion VMT is equivalent to 8 months of traffic in Manhattan south of 86th Street.) Auto use associated with required parking at new housing will add over 431,000 metric tons of CO2 per year by 2030. (By comparison, the city's new, high-mileage, “green” taxis and black car initiative will reduce CO2 emissions by 351 thousand tons a year.)
• Residents of new residential development are at least 40% to 50% more likely to own automobiles than today's New Yorkers.
• The Department of City Planning lacks crucial information for making informed decisions about the amount of off-street parking it requires in the Zoning Resolution. The agency does not know how much parking there is, how much is required, or how much driving new park- ing will produce.
• There is no evidence to suggest that reducing off-street parking requirements would lead to less development, lower growth or other negative consequences.

"Streets to Live By" marshals data from several cities to make the case for investing in livable streets in New York.

Today Transportation Alternatives released "Streets to Live By" [PDF], the report previewed last week in the Observer. It seeks to define what makes a street livable and to synthesize a broad range of data, culled from numerous cities, on the effects of policies that put pedestrians first.

This doc is a big one, and we're still sifting through it. An early impression: The evidence gathered here related to economic development, health, and social wellbeing suggests that a number of city agencies should be shepherded into the livable streets fold. From the report's recommendations:

Improvements that support livable streets, whether through new construction, street rebuilding or zoning amendments, should be the standard. Coordination and creative problem solving between these agencies, including the Department of City Planning (DCP), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Department of Design and Construction (DDC), Economic Development Corporation (EDC), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and Department of Sanitation (DOS) would be best led by the DOT and the Mayor’s Office of Planning and Sustainability.

The report also names the Department of Health and the Department of Small Business Services as agencies that can forge stronger ties to a livable streets agenda, and calls for a livable streets training program aimed at the city's community boards. "We recognize that the jurisdiction of each agency only goes so far," says T.A.'s Shin-pei Tsay, "and we hope there can be greater collaboration between them."

A map of the area near Washington, D.C.'s new ballpark. Streets with variable-rate or permit parking are in color.

After calling attention last month to the traffic-reducing power of parking reform, Transportation Alternatives has released a follow-up report with a parking prescription for New York. "Pricing the Curb" [PDF] looks to innovative programs underway in Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Chicago for inspiration. With DOT taking steps toward setting variable-rate prices for curbside parking -- which it calls "peak rate parking" -- the report urges the Bloomberg administration to go further. A full-featured parking policy is one way the city can take on traffic without Albany's approval.

There's a lot of good ideas here. For instance, to win public support for curbside prices that will actually achieve vacancy targets (the higher the price, the more spots remain open), T.A. highlights D.C.'s practice of using parking revenue to fund a menu of livable streets improvements, which has won over skeptics. As DOT engages community boards in the development of pilot programs for peak rate parking, a similar solution here could help prevent prices from being watered down.

T.A. also has some advice for the Department of City Planning. While DCP has put few checks on the proliferation of public parking facilities attached to new residential construction, the report notes that San Francisco is specifically targeting off-street parking in its reform effort.

Another highlight: On page 15 there's a reprint of T.A.'s interview with D.C. council member Tommy Wells, who has made livable streets issues a central part of his platform.  

The full text of T.A.'s five main recommendations comes after the jump.

1. Raise curbside meter prices and employ variable pricing in key areas
   Metering should be viewed as a tool to reduce double parking and cruising for parking. Premium curbside parking in the Manhattan Central Business District and adjoining neighborhoods is ten to fifteen times cheaper than off-street parking. In contrast, Chicago and San Francisco are introducing higher meter prices on thousands of meters in their central neighborhoods, and increasing meter hours. New York City business, planning and environmental groups recommend that the same should be done here.
2. Buy more Muni-Meters and try new parking technology
   Modern meters are cheaper to maintain, more reliable, raise more money and are better at busting traffic congestion. San Francisco and Chicago are investing millions in state of the art parking meters, and electronic sensors which monitor curbside occupancy and automatically adjust parking rates. Meanwhile, New York City has a severe shortage of popular Muni-Meters, and has few meters capable of accepting credit cards.
3. Set meter rates citywide based on curbside vacancy, not politics
   All three cities in this study are using vacancy targets to determine their meter prices. This means they are raising and lowering their meter rates so that at least one parking spot per block is always available. This practice eliminates most double parking and cruising traffic. In contrast, NYC meter rates vary widely depending on the community board and local politics.
4. Reinvest parking revenue in neighborhood transit, cycling and walking
   Washington D.C. has created an innovative program to return the revenue from higher parking meter rates to neighborhood streetscape, bus, pedestrian and cycling projects. This has turned neighborhood skeptics into supporters of parking reform. Can you think of a few places that need sidewalk repair or better bike infrastructure in New York City? This type of reform could pay for it.
5. Monitor, enforce and cap off-street parking
   San Francisco recognizes that more off-street parking means more driving. The city is "unbundling" the cost of parking from new residences, reducing or eliminating requirements for building parking near transit and exploring ride sharing as a way to reduce car ownership and use. In contrast, NYC City Planning, which is responsible for setting off-street parking requirements, does not know how much off-street parking there is, how much will be built, or how much traffic that parking will generate. New York City should develop a complete inventory of curbside and off-street parking for every borough, and measure the amount of traffic created by that parking. Most importantly, New York City needs to establish goals for the amount of parking it wants based on environmental and traffic targets.