Parking
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DCP Official: Parking Minimums Buy Support for Upzonings
We reported yesterday that Department of City Planning Sustainability Director Howard Slatkin recently announced that his agency "believe[s] there are opportunities to lower parking requirements" in a ring of neighborhoods around the Manhattan core. This would be an important step forward in overhauling decades-old policies that lead to more traffic and less affordable housing. Importantly, Slatkin also revealed a major reason why the department sees mandatory parking minimums as so important -- it's all about the politics of development.
May 11, 2011
DCP Likely to Propose Lower Parking Minimums for NYC’s “Inner Ring”
In its recent update of PlaNYC, New York's long-term sustainability plan, the city committed itself to the proposition that “requiring too much parking to be built in a dense city like New York can encourage driving, contribute to congestion, and unnecessarily raise the cost of new development.” That was a major breakthrough given the Department of City Planning's previous reluctance to admit that parking minimums induce traffic, but PlaNYC's lack of substantive commitments to parking reform left many wanting.
May 10, 2011
Andres Power Helps Lead a Streets Renaissance One Parklet at a Time
City planners often get very little public recognition for the work they do, and can sometimes take the heat on a project if it doesn't prove politically popular. In the case of San Francisco's revolutionary Pavement to Parks program, the early resistance to reclaiming public space from cars to create convivial spaces for people has gradually subsided and parklets are now in heavy demand. None of it would have been possible without the hard work and determination of Andres Power, an urban designer for the San Francisco Planning Department.
May 9, 2011
Mayor’s Budget Includes Parking Meter Rate Hike, Red Light Cam Expansion
Mayor Bloomberg's budget proposal, which was released today, still includes a plan to increase parking meter rates across the city, a plan which the City Council scuttled once in January. The transportation budget also includes an increase in revenue from an expansion of the city's red light camera program.
May 6, 2011
Developer: I’ve Walked Away From Projects Because of Parking Minimums
Housing is harder to build, more expensive, and often lower-quality as a result of the city's parking regulations, according to one New York City developer.
April 28, 2011
Moving Beyond the Automobile: Parking Reform
In the tenth and final video in Streetfilms' "Moving Beyond the Automobile" series, we are talking about parking reform. From doing away with mandatory parking minimums, to charging the right price for curbside parking, to converting on-street parking spots into parklets and bike corrals, cities are latching on to exciting new ideas to make more room for people and repurpose the valuable public space that lines our streets.
April 27, 2011
SFPark, Putting Shoup’s Ideas to the Test, Launches to Much Political Support
San Francisco launched the world's most ambitious and innovative parking project yesterday, a federally-funded trial that could revolutionize the way cities manage the public supply of parking. SFPark promises to make it easier for motorists to find spaces in busy commercial districts, while reducing congestion, speeding transit, increasing safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, and improving air quality.
April 22, 2011
Moving Beyond the Automobile: The Right Price for Parking
You might be shocked at how much traffic consists of drivers who have already arrived at their destination but find themselves cruising the streets, searching for an open parking spot. In some city neighborhoods, cruising makes up as much as 40 percent of all traffic. All this unnecessary traffic slows down buses, endangers cyclists and pedestrians, delays other motorists, and produces harmful emissions. The key to eliminating it is to get the price of parking right.
April 19, 2011
Henry St. Placard Abuser Fends Off NYPD By Mixing Church and State
At this point, it's hardly news that the length of the Henry Street bike lane was filled with parked cars yesterday (see here and here). Being a Sunday, it was par for the course, though still infuriating, that churchgoers were taking advantage of an informal agreement with the police to snatch that lane away from cyclists and give it to parkers during services. Can it get more outrageous than the status quo? Yes it can.
April 18, 2011