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.

Following United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten's "deeply troubling" letter to Mayor Bloomberg earlier this month protesting the city's directive to reduce parking placard issues by 20 percent, this week UFT chapter leaders and delegates approved a resolution not only demanding an exemption from placard reform, but calling on the city to increase the number of placards and parking spots reserved for motoring teachers.

This in and of itself is not terribly surprising, except that in December UFT members passed another resolution condemning America's avaricious consumption of fossil fuels, dependence on foreign oil, lack of interest in alternative energy, and production of greenhouse gases.

Hmm... where have we seen this before?

Here are the two rezos in their entirety, first from December:

Resolution on Protecting the Environment -- Reducing Dependence on Fossil Fuels

Whereas, it is a well established scientific fact that greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming, resulting in great dangers to our environment; and...

Whereas, the use of fossil fuels such as oil and coal results in greenhouse gas emissions; and

Whereas, little is being done in the U.S. to reduce the use of fossil fuels and develop alternative energy sources; therefore be it

Resolved, that as an important first step to reduce the use of fossil fuels and lessen dependence on foreign oil we urge the adoption of a meaningful increase in fuel efficiency standards to 35 miles per gallon or higher for vehicles; and be if [sic] further

Resolved, that other steps be taken to reduce the use of fossil fuels and lessen dependence on foreign oil including the requirement that utilities generate at least 15% of their electricity from renewable energy sources; and be it further

Resolved, that the nation reward the development of alternative energy sources such as bio fuels and solar power, which would help free the U.S. from imported oil which amounts to 60% of the oil consumed in our country.

And here is this week's resolution:

Resolution Opposing Any Reduction in Parking Permit [sic]

WHEREAS, many New York City public schools are difficult to reach by public transportation, many teachers travel between schools, and most schools do not provide off street parking for staff so that educators need to rely on street parking; and

WHEREAS, educators receive parking permits from the Department of Education that enable them to park on a portion of their school block during school hours only; and

WHEREAS, these permits, unlike Department of Transportation Permits, do not allow holders to ignore meter or no parking zone or alternate side regulations; and

WHEREAS, on numerous occasions the UFT has raised the need for more parking for teachers and has been told by the city and DOE that this is an economic bargaining issue; and

WHEREAS, the City has recently announced a plan to reduce the number of parking permits for all city employees by 20 percent; and

WHEREAS, available parking is clearly an incentive to attract teachers to high-needs schools, and rescinding permits at a time when we're making strides to attract the best and brightest to teaching in the city makes no sense; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT urge Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein to exempt UFT members from any reduction in parking permits; and

RESOLVED, that we call on the Mayor and Chancellor to join with the UFT to look for ways to increase the number of both parking permits and parking spaces for educators.

This quarter's Journal has stories on the benefits of regular "programmed" fare increases, Seoul, South Korea's successful bus rapid transit system and the future of transportation in the northeast corridor. That last one is somewhat awesomely titled, "From Megalopolis to Megamodal" and includes some interesting charts comparing the CO₂ intensity of different passenger and freight transportation modes, and U.S. petroleum use by sector. (Wasn't "Megamodal" the name of a big heavy metal band in the '80s?)

Also, U. Penn professor Rachel Weinberger, one of the authors of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC, interviews MTA Chief Elliot "Lee" Sander, who worked as the Director of the Rudin Center before his appointment to the MTA. Sander discusses the challenges facing the MTA and lays out his seven-part "strategic focus" for the agency. On December 12, The Rudin Center is hosting a breakfast with Lee Sander. If you would like to attend, RSVP online by December 7.

Below are some excerpts from the interview, which you can download in its entirety here:

RW: Looking forward then, what do you hope to accomplish in the next four years?

ES: I would like the MTA to be the best in class of large, older public transportation agencies in the world. I have identified seven areas of strategic focus that we will be working on aggressively to help get us there.

First, I want to dramatically improve workforce development at the MTA. That includes our formal relationship with organized labor, how we interact with our workforce, and how we deal with issues such as succession planning and executive development.

Second is institutional reform. There's a need for significant institutional reform at the MTA. We have seven different agencies that have essentially been run as independent organizations. This is incredibly inefficient. In a 21st Century world where the objective is to break down boundaries and create value through synergy, the MTA, as currently constituted, is the antithesis of a well-integrated, "flat" organization.

The third area is customer service. A new initiative that Howard Roberts has begun to implement is a rider report card. This is something he and I talked about when we were running the NYCT Bus System in the '80s. Howard then implemented it fully at SEPTA, and he found it to be very helpful. He actually was able to increase the grade in Philadelphia.

The fourth piece is system expansion, system improvement and planning. We have a huge agenda both in terms of the mega-projects and in terms of implementing the new technologies that will enable us to have better public information, better real-time control of our trains, and faster movement of our buses...

RW: Speaking of sustainability, how does the Mayor's sustainability plan affect you?

ES: I'm very supportive of the Mayor's plan. I worked very closely with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor Doctoroff when the Mayor released PlaNYC, especially the congestion pricing component because I feel strongly that the concept of congestion pricing is critical to the city and to the region. I'm pleased to have been named by the Governor to the Congestion Mitigation Commission. The MTA worked very hard, standing shoulder to shoulder with the City, on the Urban Partners application to seek federal support for the MTA's operating and capital budget.