It doesn’t matter. We don’t plan based on facts, and we certainly don’t plan based on a desired outcome (ie more comfortable, safer streets, better public health and environmental sustainability). We plan based on the whims of aging community board members who drive everywhere and imagine that everyone else does too.

Gotham has the cycling network it deserves but not the one it needs.

There’s a minor foundation problem: “Is car parking really that important for merchants?” – when the answer is that ~17% of your customers arrive by car, the answer is yes (to say nothing of the spending habits by mode).

Imagine if the question were “Is bicycling really an important commuting mode?”

The question isn’t whether car parking is important or not. It is. The question is HOW important. Right now, many merchants treat parking as if it’s the MOST important thing, opposing minor reductions in parking, even when they’d provide major benefits to the 83% of customers that arrive by other modes.

This essay indirectly raises a very important issue. Many neighborhood shopping districts in NYC are an awful experience, whether you come on foot, on a bike or by car. Hunt for parking. Double parking impeding traffic flow (especially of buses). Shoppers maneuvering their cars from store to store, as if they were shopping carts. Crosswalk bullying. Incessant honking. I’ve long thought that this was a necessary evil, to accommodate visitors from the suburbs. That the best we could hope for is to encourage a percentage of these motorists to park once. Now I realize that it’s a small minority ruining it for everyone & they’re barely necessary.

Good luck convincing of anyone of anything if you start from that assumption!

I never said the data didn’t exist; only that the data presented on this particular post wouldn’t be enough to convince anyone. I’ve seen some of the studies and the evidence seemed a bit weak in my opinion, but I’ll take a look at the links you posted to see if there’s anything more compelling that I haven’t seen before. Keep in mind that I’m strongly in favor of pedestrian plazas, bike corrals, etc. but not because I think they increase business. I’m in favor because I think they improve quality of life and safety.

Also to keep in mind: In this case the 15% of customers that are arriving by car do not all need parking because this includes taxis, liveries which are not parking. Only the much smaller percentage (unknown from this survey) would actually need parking.

They’re really not necessary at all. The cost to everyone of accommodating this minority who drives far exceeds the revenue they generate. It’s a win-win situation to just stop accommodating them altogether. We need measures such as no curbside parking, no car access at all to the more congested parts of the city, perhaps even requiring city residents to have an off-street parking space if they wish to own a car. For too long we’ve let the gloom-and-doom prognostications of business owners dictate how we allocate street space. Now we’re finding that they’re wrong about how their businesses will wither and die if we make it harder for people who drive. Armed with these facts, we should start reallocating street space in direct proportion to the number of users who come by each mode. 17% of street space allocated to cars in most of NYC sounds about right to me. Queens Boulevard would go from a combined 12 lanes for parking/traffic down to 1 lane in each direction for cars, the rest for other modes.

Amen! And when the FDNY tried to put in a fee for cleaning up all the car crashes they have to respond to, it got shouted down by motorists and branded as a “crash tax” by the tabloids (especially the Post). So the rest of us will all keep paying for it then.