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Why Don’t You Take This Opportunity to Drive to Work?

A recent study showed that it is cheaper to park a car in New York's central business districts than it is in the other global financial capitals.

A recent study showed that it is cheaper to park a car in New York’s central business districts than it is in the other global financial capitals.

PlaceMonthly parking cost
London (West End)$898
City of London$896
Tokyo$702
Hong Kong$682
Midtown Manhattan$574
Downtown Manhattan$500

But apparently parking is a seasonal business, and it gets so cheap here in the summer that parking lot owners are encouraging rail riders to drive instead. A Streetsblog tipster reports that he was walking through Penn Station last week when he was handed the following flier.

parking_bulletin.jpg

Summer may be the best time to commute by car, but as our tipster notes, it’s also the best time for ozone production. At a time when state and local governments are encouraging people to use mass transit, their efforts are being undermined by parking garage operators targeting rail riders. Oh well. There’s nothing illegal about it. I guess all you can do is shrug, store this information away for the next time people are complaining about lack of parking, and conclude, as our tipster does, “I guess there’s no parking shortage in NYC.”

Photo of Aaron Donovan
Before he began blogging about land use and transportation, Aaron Donovan wrote The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund's annual fundraising appeal for three years and earned a master's degree in urban planning from Columbia. Since then, he has worked for nonprofit organizations devoted to New York City economic development. He lives and works in the Financial District, and sees New York's pre-automobile built form as an asset that makes New York unique in the United States, and as a strategic advantage that should be capitalized upon.

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