Today’s Headlines

  • Council Members Intro Bills for Residential Parking Permits (NYT, AMNY)
  • Dems Pick Up State Senate Seat in Westchester Special Election (NYT 1, 2; Politico)
  • Byford Fields Questions at UWS Town Hall (Rag)
  • More on Yesterday’s Rally for 24/7 Bus Lanes During L Shutdown: News, AMNY, Metro, CBS
  • Accessibility Is Lacking at MTA Commuter Rail Stations, Too (LoHud)
  • Vanterpool Talks With Errol Louis About Buses and Gridlock (NY1)
  • Cranks Still Howling Over Project That Will Swap UWS Garages for Affordable Housing (Rag)
  • News and Post Speak With Family of Cellou Diallo
  • Drivers Licenses Are Meaningless in New York State (Post)
  • SEE IT: Placard Culture Ugliness on Full Display (Politico)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • Larry Littlefield

    RE Residential parking. The complaint is that people from other places are driving to certain neighborhoods and parking during the day. But they couldn’t park there unless the residents had already taken their cars and gone elsewhere. It sounds as if the bills would limit the ability to driven from one neighborhood to another for the purpose of keeping spaces empty during the day.

    The right way to do this is to limit parking to residents who are licensed and insured in the area in the overnight hours. With a nominal feel for those who are doing so now, say $10 per month.

    No additional permits issued until one is surrendered in areas deemed to have a “parking shortage.”

    And open bidding for permits for new parkers in those areas as existing ones are not renewed (as opposed to the existing parkers being given a “medallion” that they could sell, as was done with taxis.) If demand is limited, as in Staten Island, the price would remain $10 per month.

    This would sent the message to new residents of the city that this is a place to live without a car. Limit the competition for spaces from new development, reducing opposition to that development, without excessive parking requirements. Provide a revenue stream to maintain the streets as all the actual tax dollars are sucked up by Generation Greed’s deferred costs (unless they raid it like the MTA revenues).

    And still allow people from beyond the subway to drive and park where I live during the day to pick up the train, along with all the contractors who are doing work on my block every day.

  • crazytrainmatt

    Re: Metro North accessibility:
    The US seems to favor overpasses and elevators to cross the tracks. In Europe, underpasses are the rule instead. Underpasses make it easier to use ramps paralleling the tracks, and a person is quite a bit shorter than a train, reducing the vertical clearance needed. They have essentially no recurring maintenance costs and faster for riders to boot. I’m not sure I could think of a single secondary European station on level ground that uses a bridge off the top of my head.

  • sbauman

    They have essentially no recurring maintenance costs

    They require a drainage system and the costs associated with maintaining it.

    A tunnel must also support the weight of the tracks and the trains on them. More is involved than simply excavating a hole and access ramps.

  • Tooscrapps

    A bidding system would be great, but I have doubts it would fly.

    I would like to see an cost scale where the $/ft of your car goes up exponentially. You want to drive a Suburban in the city, you are gonna pay 4x the cost of a Corolla.

  • Vooch

    Always hesitant to create a new bureaucracy with all the opportunities für waste, mismanagement, and Fraud.

    Parking Meters are a existing solution that works fine.Smart Meters with variable pricing is a improvement.

    Simply expand parking meters

  • Larry Littlefield

    Parking meters aren’t limited to residents. And thus do not respond to their problem.

  • Vooch

    Charge a market clearing rate for overnight car storage.

  • Vooch

    Bauman

    The underpass-bridge question is a symptom of a larger question

    There is something very inhuman about our infrastructure projects compared to similar European projects. Everything here is created on a colossal scale.

    For example, these 2 videos contrast 2 suburban commuter rail stations. The first shows a suburban commuter rail station outside of Munich. It was built in the early 1980s. Everything is simple and at a human scale. A similar station

    The second is a newly created MetroRail station in Corona SoCal. It was designed as part of a progressive TOD area. Even ignoring the monstrous parking garage, everything in this station is scaled at a inhuman size.

    It’s a consistent difference.

  • Larry Littlefield

    Upper Manhattan thus becomes the car storage location for richer people from the Upper West Side.

    You might like it. Good luck getting it adopted.

  • Larry Littlefield

    RE Drivers Licenses:

    Evidently, according to the article, at some point Black women who spit at cops stop being allowed to drive without a license on Long Island.

    NYC is less racist. Everyone drives without a license here, and pedestrians of all races and classes get run over by them.

  • Vooch

    Larry,

    Unlikely – Even Manhattan drivers find it burdensome to walk more than 600’ to store their car.

    Plus – the beauty of Smartmeters and variable pricing is the price can change if demand changes.

    My gut tells me the Market clearing price for Overnight street parking in UES & UWS is over $15 a night.

  • Vooch

    what I found remarkable the driver is 26 years old and has had her DL suspended 26 times.

    Trying to wrap my head around that.

    She is more dangerous than Marty Golden or Dorathy Brun combined

  • bolwerk

    He’s right though. Maintaining a drainage system, if one is even necessary, is probably cheaper than the cost of routine inspections for bridge safety, much less refurbishing or replacing a bridge every few decades.

  • ohnonononono

    Is part of it that overpasses are perceived as being “safer” than tunnels? A tunnel more easily becomes a scary place people avoid, while an overpass feels like you’re out in the open, soaring high above things in the light of day. We’re still so paranoid about urban crime in this country that our transit infrastructure decisions are often based on these kinds of ideas. See: all the closed up former subway entrances.

  • JarekFA

    If they price it high enough, I might just end up getting a car so I can store my bikes in it.

  • bolwerk

    The USA is cheap, yet afraid to be disruptive, and in being cheap only adds greater costs later. The bus vs. rail debate, that there even has to have one, is a fairly good example. IIRC, policy in Munich is to at least investigate railstitution of bus lines once a certain service threshold is met.

  • bolwerk

    If that’s the reason, it’s dumb as shit.

    Though EU countries don’t seem to obsess with safety in general the way the U.S. does, while still somehow managing to be safer. Walking across tracks at major train stations is fairly normal.

  • qrt145

    “Above 125th street, market clearing price might be $15/night”

    Seems unlikely, given that existing garages charge significantly less than that and are more convenient than parking on the street.

    $3/night, maybe. More than that and people start getting rid of their cars (which I agree would be great!)

  • bolwerk

    Probably not an excuse everywhere on MNRR and LIRR of course, but there could be water table issues in several places with both railroads. The Hudson Line is obviously right next to a tidal estuary, and other lines often are parallel to streams and rivers. Not to mention the LIRR I guess enters some tidal flood plains?

  • Vooch

    one way to find out

    start installing smart meters

    ?

  • Joe R.

    I have a better way. Put up the curbside spaces for bidding. Highest bidder gets the space. They can then do whatever they want with that space. They can rent it to people who want to park, put in a curbside cafe, put in storage containers and rent those, put in micro housing, etc. This would let the free market decide exactly how we use that curbside space. My guess is the bulk of it would end up being used for things other than car storage.

    People in dense cities need to get used to the idea that if they want to own a car, they’ll need an off-street place to store it. Tokyo actually requires proof that you have a place to store a car prior to giving you permission to own one.

  • HamTech87

    I worry that creating parking permits will make it even harder to replace parking with PBLs. I can already hear, ‘hey, I paid for a permit’ at the community board meetings.

    If we’re going to have permits, we should have a system that doesn’t give out more permits than there are spaces. Or come up with a formula to handle day and evening parkers.