Streetsblog has long covered the widely held belief that a residential parking permit program would be beneficial to the city. There is very little consensus on that issue, but since we recently published yet another analysis that was critical of the permits, we have also offered other voices on the issue, including this piece by Frederick Soffa and, now, the one below.
One morning last spring, while cycling to work in Brooklyn, I was nearly sideswiped by a speeding car with Kansas license plates. A few days later, in nearly the same spot, the same driver almost hit me again as he weaved recklessly through traffic.
This time, though, I caught up to him at a red light and shared some thoughts about his driving. As he removed a lit joint from his mouth and angrily dismissed my concerns, I became a bit suspicious. It may have been his decided lack of Midwestern charm, but something told me he wasn’t really a Kansan, but a New Yorker driving an illegally registered car.
Residential neighborhoods throughout our city are littered with parked vehicles bearing out-of-state license plates or even no plates at all. Parked for months or years on the same blocks, they clearly belong not to visitors, but to locals registering them where insurance is cheaper. These phony registrations leave the vehicles essentially uninsured.
By allowing this practice to continue unchecked, we raise insurance costs for honest drivers and deprive our city and state of tens of millions of dollars in tax and registration revenue annually. Meanwhile, in recent years, cars bearing fake, paper license plates have been tied to drive-by shootings and to widespread toll evasion. [Streetsblog even did a series of song parodies about out-of-state plated cars.]
With our city government unwilling or unable to enforce state regulations, we desperately need the state’s help.
Gov. Hochul is currently in a tight spot after reintroducing congestion pricing with a new, lower toll, thereby reducing desperately needed aid to the MTA. We have yet to hear a plan from her or the state legislature how they plan to make up for this revenue shortfall, making the MTA’s future uncertain. Meanwhile, the reductions in traffic congestion — the world’s worst — surely won’t be as significant as they could have been.
However, there is a way out of this mess. If state leaders could work with our city government to combat illegal vehicle registrations by reforming street parking rules, they could simultaneously raise money for the MTA, while reducing traffic and generating new tax revenue.
Many cities in our state, such as Albany and Buffalo, have been given state authority to create resident-only parking zones. Our city, where parking is much scarcer, hasn’t been so lucky.
With permission from the state, New York City could enact a citywide, resident-only parking system. Non-residents needn’t be banned from parking here, just charged for it, with the money going to the MTA. This would make more parking available to residents while generating new tax revenue as more drivers registered their vehicles using their real addresses.
Meanwhile, cutting demand for parking spaces would allow the city to create more loading zones, keeping double-parked delivery vehicles from blocking traffic and endangering cyclists.
But city drivers shouldn’t be given something for nothing. Charging residents even a modest amount for these new parking privileges could raise lots more for the MTA, perhaps enough to truly transform the system into one worthy of a first-class city.
Such a plan needn’t treat the whole city as one. Parking should be more expensive — for both residents and visitors — in denser, wealthier areas, where street spots are scarce and subway service is good, and be cheaper for residents in far-flung or poorer neighborhoods.
Done correctly, such parking rules would address two shortcomings of the existing congestion pricing system: First, they would likely reduce traffic congestion, which is a citywide problem, well beyond lower Manhattan. Next, they would spread the burden of providing new funding for the MTA to a much wider group of drivers than just those who drive into the congestion zone. It’s hard to imagine the state coming up with a source of MTA revenue that would be fairer or more rational than what I’m proposing.
I don’t own a car and would prefer to see curbside space repurposed into something other than private-vehicle storage. Yet, I share the anger of the law-abiding drivers in my neighborhood over illegally registered vehicles claiming scarce street spots. It’s time that mass transit advocates and the livable streets community united with these motorists and pushed to make our city a better place for us all.
These days, public space in New York City is not well regulated and our government seems almost helpless in addressing quality-of-life issues. Implementing a plan that would cut traffic congestion, save our mass transit system, and stop rewarding fraud, might help restore people’s faith in the ability of our elected officials to address the everyday conditions that frustrate us.
We just need our governor to take the lead.
