Noah Kazis

New York City is moving forward with possible plans to privatize its on-street parking to some degree. An RFP released last week by the city's Economic Development Corporation asks investment banks to submit their best ideas for privatizing city assets. Parking tops the list of assets the city is interested in contracting with the private sector over. (Large pieces of transportation infrastructure are also on the list).

Limited-Scale Parking Meter Privatization Advances; City Would Keep Right to Set Rates (WSJ, Post) Stringer Praises Bus Rapid Transit But Urges DOT to Slow Down on 34th Street (Fox) In Dueling Brad Lander and Louise Hainline Op-Eds on PPW, Only One Depends on Scare Quotes Yassky and Goldsmith: Fares in New Street Hail System Will Equal Yellow Cab … Continued

Jim Walden is a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the kind of white shoe firm where lawyers represent major corporations at rates of nearly a thousand dollars per hour. His name has been popping up on Streetsblog recently because he represents a politically-connected group attempting to undo the redesign of Prospect Park West. According to press accounts, Walden is doing this work at no charge to the client. Walden would not comment to Streetsblog for this story.

Parking minimums continue to stymie the creation of affordable housing in New York City, according to an architect who frequently designs those projects. When a rezoning suddenly put parking minimums in effect for an affordable housing project in the Bronx, Richard Ferrara of DeLaCour & Ferrara Architects was forced to cut apartments out of the building.

Last night, the Museum of the City of New York hosted a panel discussion about the future of large-scale transportation projects in the region. Hosted by New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum, the panel -- the RPA's Jeff Zupan, MTA Capital Construction's Michael Horodniceanu, the General Contractors Association's Denise Richardson, and the Pratt Center's Joan Byron -- engaged in a wide-ranging conversation, which covered everything from the demise of the ARC tunnel to the high cost of transit projects and the question of whether New York's transit system is too focused on Manhattan and rail.

Over the last decades, the economic geography of New York City has begun to shift. While Midtown and Lower Manhattan remain job centers without peer, more and more of the city's jobs are located outside of the central business districts. As employment shifts into the other boroughs, however, the transit system hasn't shifted with it. That means longer waits and worse service for many New Yorkers, especially for low- and middle-income workers, according to a new report from the Center for an Urban Future.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

We reported last week that Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. are each making policy shifts to curb the proliferation of off-street parking even as New York City continues to enable the construction of more and more traffic-inducing, land-devouring parking.

Tracking the NYPD's enforcement of traffic laws, including tickets issued to cyclists, has long been part of Transportation Alternatives' job. A new tool on their website makes it easier than ever -- especially relevant while the city's bike ticketing blitz continues.

Mayor Bloomberg unveiled his budget plan yesterday, including hundreds of measures to close a deficit of billions of dollars [PDF]. While the most controversial element may be Bloomberg's plan to lay off thousands of teachers, included among the smaller-scale deficit-closing measures is one that is sure to set up a fight over transportation policy. The budget again includes a 25 cent increase in the hourly rate for on-street parking in most of the city, a proposal which the City Council negotiated out of this year's budget in January.