Parking

In its latest parking report, the Department of City Planning claimed that residential off-street parking is not linked to increased driving, contradicting previous research. In response, the parking policy experts who produced that research are reprimanding the agency for jumping to conclusions based on insufficient evidence. The flub by DCP could have big consequences, because it undermines part of the rationale for eliminating parking mandates.

Since the theme of the week is snowy streets and what we can learn from them, I thought I would share this photo of snow-covered windshields I took this morning on Park Place in Prospect Heights. The last significant snowfall came down during the wee hours of Wednesday morning, so these cars clearly have not moved since Tuesday at the latest, and in all likelihood have been immobile since before the Monday snow storm. Alternate side parking has been suspended the whole week, after all.

A report from the Department of City Planning issued during the final days of the Bloomberg administration is a trove of data about parking, but a look behind the pretty maps reveals a department that remains focused on dictating the supply of parking spaces and reluctant to use its power to reduce traffic and improve housing affordability. Mayor de Blasio and his to-be-announced city planning commissioner will have to fix this backwards approach to turn parking reform into an effective tool for the administration's affordability agenda.

Happy New Year, transit riders! Congress has a special present: Some of you will be getting a tax increase this year.

A wave of new residential construction projects in places like Seattle, Boston, and Miami are showing that, yes, modern American cities can build housing without any car parking on site.

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio ran on a platform with ambitious goals to reduce traffic deaths, improve bus service, increase bicycling, and make the city more affordable. As New York City’s first mayoral transition in 12 years gets underway, Streetsblog is asking advocates and experts how Mayor-elect de Blasio should follow through and implement a progressive transportation policy agenda. Today's post comes from Rachel Weinberger, director of research and policy strategy at NelsonNygaard Consulting Associates.

Despite a policy book that included a top-notch street safety plank, Bill de Blasio never quite linked progressive transportation policy to social equity during the campaign. But the candidate's campaign promises to reduce inequality did focus on the high price of housing, including a pledge to require developers to set aside a certain percentage of their projects for below-market units. To make housing more affordable for everyone, the de Blasio administration will have to revamp the city's zoning code, and parking reform -- an affordable housing issue the Bloomberg administration barely touched -- should be part of that.

Developer TF Cornerstone has begun the process of getting rezonings and special permits from the City Planning Commission for its residential and retail project on 11th Avenue and 57th Street, which would replace a string of auto dealerships and a 1,000-space parking garage with a new project containing either 395 or 500 parking spaces, depending on the retail tenants.

Alan Durning is the executive director of Sightline. This post is #15 in the Sightline series, Parking? Lots!