NYCEDC

While some coastal areas in Staten Island cope with the devastation of Sandy, the city is moving ahead with a public meeting tonight about a parking-saturated mega-development for the north end of the island. According to one developer, the project will include "every possible bit of parking" that can be built there. At the same time, the developers will contribute nothing to improve surface transit to the site, even though it is located in the most transit-accessible part of Staten Island and the MTA is planning a new busway that will directly serve the area.

If Mayor Bloomberg regrets his administration's involvement in the Yankee Stadium parking disaster, he's not letting on.

How long now before the Yankee Stadium parking fiasco becomes an unpleasant memory?

Last month, the Bloomberg administration unexpectedly ruled out the option of removing the Sheridan Expressway and replacing it with housing and parks, telling South Bronx advocates that added truck traffic projected for local streets was a "fatal flaw" in the highway teardown. After a closer look at that truck traffic analysis, however, the coalition calling for the highway removal says the city overlooked some obvious options to keep trucks off neighborhood streets.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation's commitment to replacing any parking spaces the agency builds on top of is a one-way ratchet toward ever-increasing amounts of automobile infrastructure. For projects at Flushing Commons and the Lower East Side's SPURA site, slated to be built over surface parking lots, EDC has pushed for the new developments to include hundreds of parking spaces in addition to replacing the old parking.

The Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, or SPURA, is the largest undeveloped, city-owned area south of 96th Street. Located along the south side of Delancey Street at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge, SPURA currently consists of five empty lots, the leftovers of a 1967 slum clearance project. Though mid-century towers-in-a-park style housing was built elsewhere on the site, these lots have remained vacant since the tenements were torn down 45 years ago, displacing a population that was two-thirds black and Hispanic.

Staten Island's North Shore is one of the city's great sites of opportunity. The neighborhoods along the Kill Van Kull are twice as dense as the rest of Staten Island, but lack any transit option beyond the bus. There are historic town centers at St. George and Port Richmond, but car-centric planning deadens street life. The waterfront, much of which still hosts a vibrant maritime industry, is only accessible to the public at three locations in six miles.

St. George Staten Island could become the region's next great downtown. That's the plan over at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which is about to redevelop two waterfront sites immediately adjacent to the ferry terminal.

As the operator of the taxpayer-financed Yankee Stadium parking garages heads toward default, there's no longer any question that providing so much parking in such a transit-rich location was a mistake on the scale of Carl Pavano's contract. The decision to give up $2.5 million in city taxes and $5 million in state revenue has proven a poor investment indeed. The question, at this point, is what comes next.