Capn, I wouldn’t go so far. It depends. Providing some public, for pay, off-street parking, combined with removing free curbside parking would result in less car ownership and driving. That’s essentially what smaller cities in Western Europe do. This study essentially compares free curbside with free at home, off-street parking. If you priced either the curbside or the at home parking, it would completely change the equation.

I think this is definitely true, but there are a couple things that may not be taken into account in that study (or at least aren’t mentioned in the blog post). Are people in Jackson Heights more likely to work in Queens, especially areas of Queens that aren’t close to a subway line, rather than Manhattan? If you work somewhere with parking, you may be more likely to drive than if you work in Manhattan and have to find parking. And related to that, do people who already need or choose to drive to work tend to buy houses with a parking spot, since they know they’ll need it?

Whoops, my bad, I missed the comment about the commuting to Manhattan. I take it back.

You have to wonder about this. Those who own a car for weekends have to move it during the week if they park on the street; those who have their own space do not.

There may be some cultural issues here that aren’t being captured. I’d like to see more variables, or at least more neighborhoods.

I, and MANY MANY like me STRONGLY disagree with the notion that worsening the availability of SOURCE parking where people LIVE (vs. “Destination Parking” where people shop or go to work, for example) has a negative impact on traffic.

The ONLY thing that worsening parking where people live does is to frustrate and annoy car-owners and greatly decrease their quality of life.

I live in Park Slope and very seldomly use my car to go to Manhattan, because I know that parking there is so expensive & hard to get and that traffic congestion is unbearable.

But it drives me nuts that I can’t get a spot when I return home from using my car to go to the country over the weekend.

These policies are madly misguided and need to be STOPPED asap! LET THERE BE MORE OFF STREET PARKING! (Ex: Underground garages that can fit 50-100 cars)

Let there be one on each block!

I think transit crowding on the Queens lines vs. the Brooklyn could have some impact. But I also think the study is right that the guaranteed space at home probably trumps the “need to move it anyway” factor for an on-street parker in the choice to car commute or not.

I second what NM said, and to go further: why not go to the many places in the country where you don’t need a car to get around? This practice of dedicating scarce urban real estate to cars that are used at most once a week – for city people to drive to the country where they’re out of practice and don’t know the roads – is idiotic. It wastes valuable space, pollutes, clogs the highways on Friday and Sunday nights, kills people and their dogs all over the Tri-State area and beyond.

Going to the country does not require a car. Read a history of the Catskills or the White Mountains, and you’ll learn that before widespread car ownership there was a fantastic network of trains, boats and buses that efficiently brought people to their weekend and summer homes and resorts, and back to the city again. The resorts and country villages were human-scale, pedestrian-friendly and largely safe.

Now a lot of that is gone, but much of it remains. There’s still decent train and bus service to many places, and plenty of walkable villages and resorts. Read Heavenly Weekends for a wide selection of country and suburban getaways that are easily accessible by transit.

Why did so much of the train, bus and boat service disappear? Because subsidized parking and cheap oil allowed city people to own cars and drive them to the country. No, it’s unsustainable for every city resident to own their personal vehicle for driving to the country. We should never have subsidized it, and we should stop now.

And spare us the “right to be as mobile as he chooses” line. When transit was everywhere, it allowed people to be just as mobile as personal cars. Every government transportation policy infringes on someone’s right to be as mobile as he or she chooses – but you might just not notice it because the person can’t afford their own car, or has cerebral palsy. Let’s work towards maximizing mobility for all, not just for those who can afford to own a car, and don’t mind wasting oil, dumping CO2 in the atmosphere, or running over other people’s pets.

Michael,

Car owners decrease MY quality of life.

Adding to my last point: You will completely discredit yourself and write yourself off to the lunatic fringe if you try to argue that having a car is a bad thing that can be deleted.

Let us agree that the objective should be to try to improve things for everybody – Drivers and pedestrians alike!

Over time, the peaking of the world oil supply will lead to less driving. This is happening right now, notwithstanding the recent pullback in oil and gas prices. And Streetsblog, to its credit, is seeing farther into the future than the mainstream media. Eventually the majority of American households (like about half in NYC and the majority in Manhattan) will be car-free households. If you’re young or middle-aged, this will happen in your lifetime. If that prospect makes you angry, be warned that what you’re angry at is the geology of the earth. It is an impersonal force that cares nothing for any driver’s sense of entitlement. It is absolutely immune to personal abuse and attempts at intimidation.

Michael,

How exactly does eliminating source parking inconvenience non car owners?

Also, please explain how something can serve as an inconvenience on car ownership without actually affecting people’s choices whether or not to partake in car ownership? Note the availability of alternatives in this particular circumstance.

–Ian

“Why isn’t govt doing studies like this?”

Have you ever worked for the government?

The pols (who aren’t interested in facts at all) cut some deal for some interest, and the study happens afterward to show it was a good idea.

Just try to get permission to do a study in your own (very copious) free time, and publish it, otherwise.

Michael,

Nothing personal, but I will argue that having a car in New York is a bad thing. I’m going to move away from the environmental argument for a little bit. I’ve come to find that the source of most unpleasantness in this city, for me at least, is the result of automobile traffic. Dangerous, speeding cars thinking that shaving 2 minutes off of their drive is worth acting like a complete jerk. The noise and the smell of fumes. The parking lots! Parking lots in New York! We need housing and we would rather build space for cars. 4th avenue where I live in Brooklyn is extremely unpleasant because of the six lanes of cars and trucks blasting through like its the Turnpike. I hate the fact that when I tell someone new that I bike to work sometimes, they worry for my safety. Why should that be? This is one of maybe three or four cities where it is possible to live without a car. I want to keep it that way, and if we begin building off street parking everywhere, there will just be more cars on the road, making life in the city miserable.

Of course, cars will never be completely eliminated, but we need to seriously think about our dependence on them. I don’t think that every household in this city is entitled to their own parking space.

Rant over. Thanks.

Cars are a classic addiction phenomena. Addicts are always coming up with reasons why they should be able to, or even have to get high/drive. Make no mistake about it, you are fooling yourself if you do not think you are hurting yourself, the people around you, and the planet you live on, by driving.

For good or bad it several generations to get fully addicted, it will several more to get out of it. Planning decisions, like minimum parking requirements, will lengthen the reversal of the process. Hopefully there is something left of the US by the time we come our senses.

I’m not a car owner and I agree with Michael. I think the addition of off-street paid parking lots allows us to free up the parking lanes for bus lanes, bike lanes, wider sidewalks, all the dreams of non-drivers. If we took half the parking spots off of the street and used them for other purposes, then put market rate meters at the remaining spots and added a similar number of spots in lots, we’d have the same amount of parking and a whole lot more space for non-driving needs. Imagine how much traffic is simply people moving their cars for street cleaning! We non-drivers have to face that extra-aggressive traffic.

I don’t care if people smoke cigarettes as long as they don’t do it at the table next to mine at the restaurant, and I don’t care if people park their cars as long as I don’t have to look at the cars when I walk down the street. On street parking should be for deliveries and quick visits. Residents should be economically motivated to get their cars off the street.

Hide these ugly monsters away.

Why not just remove parking from one side of the street? I am picturing the children who have a 6 foot wide sidewalk to play with, up my block. Just stop allowing cars to park in OUR collective space? Why do we allow so much free car storage? I recognize many of the cars on my block, they are here, at least all week days, all day – for free. Let’s clear out the car free public car storage, and start dead ending some of these residential streets and turn them over to the people who live on them.

OFF STREET PARKING

The reason I suggest large OFF-street UNDERGROUND parking as a way to solve the issue is these reasons:

Only 1 (one) curb cut for many many cars – So Less Dangerous to pederstrian

Underground: So less unsightly, doesn’t materially impact housing costs and contains emissions (somewhat)

Efficient: Large underground garages which hold 100 or 200 cars can make life for EVERYONE, including non-car owners better as it will reduce the need to drive around to find a spot (less emissions), will reduce associated traffic (safer) and congestion and will improve neighborhood dynamics & home values (more desirable neighborhood)

None of this is to take away the fact that DRIVING to the city SHOULD be expensive – With this I agree…

USING you car during rush hour to commute to an already over-crowded city should be discouraged as should “destination” parking…. PARKING your vehicle near where you live (“source” parking) should NOT.

Everyone feel me here?

I think the addition of off-street paid parking lots allows us to free up the parking lanes for bus lanes, bike lanes, wider sidewalks, all the dreams of non-drivers.

Sounds nice, but there’s the matter that parked cars do provide a buffer to protect pedestrians. If you take that away you decrease safety. How do you propose to compensate for that?

If fighting TRAFFIC congestion in the city is our objective (and I think it is)

Oh, well that’s easy. It’s certainly an objective, but it’s not my only objective, and it’s not the only objective of the editors of this blog. I quote from the About page:

We are part of a growing coalition of individuals and organizations in cities around the world working to transform our cities by reducing dependence on private automobiles and improving conditions for cyclists, pedestrians and transit riders.

I, for one, am just as concerned about reducing traffic congestion during Friday and Sunday evenings as during rush hours. I’ve also discussed the negative impact that auto-dependent vacationing city-dwellers have on country areas, which you have not yet addressed.

Finally, although you’ve declared your disagreement with the conclusions of the study, you have yet to provide any basis for that disagreement other than stating that you don’t want to be inconvenienced.

Lunatic Fringe,

I’ve been thinking about that: “What if there is a cheap, low-polluting automobile that is mass produced in the next 10 years?”

My concern is with urban areas and land use. I think the only thing that could save the urban fabric in that case is still the amount of traffic that would be created if everyone felt compelled to drive.

The fact remains that regardless of the type of car that is invented, we will still never be able to build enough roads to accommodate the number of cars a region the size of NYC, Chicago, LA, SF, Dallas, Atlanta, etc would require to move everyone around.

Capn: Easy answer. Bollards are just as good at protecting pedestrians from cars and take up roughly 1/10 the space. They’re actually better than parked cars, because unlike vehicles they don’t obstruct drivers’ views.

Also see this entertaining video of what happens when truck and bollard go head-to-head:

Capn, actually I think that bollards lining a narrow street do serve as a substantial slow-down cue for cars, because hitting the bollards is an expensive proposition. See for example streets crossing Fulton St. in Las Vegas. The tricky thing is that in such a scheme there is no place for cars to stop to make deliveries etc. What is difficult is that in New York it doesn’t really help to provide delivery-only street parking as it will be abused.

(I can’t believe I just used Las Vegas an example of good city planning).

Yes, I’m aware of that, Zach. And if you plan the woonerven well it wouldn’t be so bad. But I don’t really like off-street parking either. The hollowed-out railroad suburbs of Long Island depress me. The parking pedestals of Stamford disturb me. Underground parking garages are a waste of good digging equipment, time and energy – and you can’t really get that back. All those kinds of parking still generate plenty of trips. I think it’d be better to find ways to encourage people to get rid of the cars rather than to stick them underground somewhere.

Awesome. That’s the best troll we’ve had since we stopped talking about congestion pricing!