Parking

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On-street parking reform for Atlantic Avenue, Court Street, and Smith Street in Brooklyn moved ahead last night with a 6-0-1 vote from Community Board 2's transportation committee in favor of a new DOT PARK Smart zone. The proposal [PDF], prompted by a request from the owner of Sahadi's, aims to curb traffic and increase on-street parking availability for retail shoppers by allowing meter rates to rise after the first 30 minutes.

Did you hear? It didn't get press coverage, but a week ago rates for on-street parking in Manhattan below 110th Street increased by 50 cents. The lack of attention this story has gotten is truly amazing, given the media's usual windshield perspective.

A plan from the Hudson River Park Trust to transform Pier 57 into a retail and food market will add 75 parking spaces and a two-lane driveway to the park between 17th and 14th Streets, creating new points of conflict where people biking on the Hudson River Greenway will have to contend with cars crossing the path.

It's no secret that NYC community boards are highly protective of on-street parking, since their members seem more likely to be car owners than the population at large, but it was news to us that board chairs and district managers have free parking perks.

They call their mission "The Cause." And they say it's critical to solving Michigan's woes. Fortunately, though, the solution they have in mind is a simple one, and their name should make it obvious: "Michigan Needs More Parking."

City Council Member Joel Rivera is taking some heat for a bill that would, in his words, "allow parents to double park when picking up their kids from school [and] not receive a parking ticket.” It's the latest answer to a question no one asked from a council whose raison d'être seems to be absolving city motorists of as many responsibilities as possible.

This morning, WNYC's Brian Lehrer discussed the Columbus Avenue bike lane with reporter Kate Hinds. The show covered a fair amount of ground in a short amount of time, but gave a lot of airtime to a key assumption which has given cover to street safety opponents -- that small retailers in New York City need to maintain as much on-street parking as possible -- and let it go unchallenged for much of the segment.

Angie reported this morning that Washington, DC, is moving to reduce mandatory parking requirements in much of the city, which should lower the cost of housing and curb traffic. Meanwhile, despite talk last year of wide-ranging parking reforms for New York's "inner ring" encircling the Manhattan core, the Department of City Planning has so far only managed to put forward a reduction of parking minimums in transit-saturated Downtown Brooklyn, the most screamingly obvious location.