City Council Member Brad Lander released a pitch-perfect response to complaints about bike-share and curbside parking today. Other NYC pols should take note.
Every time bike-share expands to new neighborhoods, some people get upset -- mainly because the local supply of free curbside car parking shrinks by a fraction of a percent. Last week Assembly Member Dan O'Donnell, who represents the Upper West Side, demonstrated how not to respond -- he validated those complaints by process-truthing and promising to "restore critical parking spaces," as if parking for bikes that are used multiple times a day is a less productive use of curb space than storing private cars.
In Brooklyn, Community Board 6 has invited people to complain about stations they don't like, with the expectation that DOT will move at least some of them, despite the fact that station sitings were guided by a lengthy public process.
Lander's district overlaps with that of CB 6. A statement posted today on his web site is a remarkable example of how elected officials should communicate the value of these types of changes. Here's an excerpt:
There are approximately 25,000-30,000 parking spots in CB6. Citi Bike has taken away 150-200 of them -- about ½ of 1 percent. I know that is small comfort if several of them are right near your house. But it is also important to remember that 57% of the households in our community don’t own cars. And for every parking spot lost to Citi Bike, there are approximately 5-8 bike-share trips per day (far more times than a typical side-street parking spot would be used).
It is, indeed, often very difficult to find parking in our neighborhoods – and this can lead to maddening trips circling the block looking for parking spaces. This is bad for traffic, bad for the environment, and bad for our mental health!
Over time, though, the only real answer to the shortage of parking is fewer car trips. The way to achieve this is to enable those people who can to use transportation alternatives: investments in mass transit, new technologies (e.g. car-share, and eventually driverless cars), and bike-share. If those investments help just a small fraction of people decide they don’t need a car, then we will quickly get back all of the spaces lost to Citi Bike.
You can read the full statement here.
