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In the area it covered, largely the area south of Canal Street, there were only 1,105 metered parking spaces and 871 unregulated spaces available to the drivers without placards, for a total of 1,976 spaces — far fewer than the number of cars pouring into Lower Manhattan every day. In the financial district and the South Street Seaport area, there were only 138 parking spots for the general public. Battery Park City had 201, and TriBeCa had 326.Reducing the number of placards issued by the City has been a goal of Mayor Bloomberg's second term. The Mayor wants to reduce the number of placards issued to civil servants by 20%. Currently, there are more than 140,000 vehicles with free-parking placards, not including counterfeit and expired emblems.By contrast, there were about 11,000 spaces in Lower Manhattan available for drivers with placards, including spots designated for authorized vehicles, loading zones, no-parking zones, and all the metered and unregulated spaces open to the public. Many placards allow free parking in metered spaces.
The study showed concretely just how bad the parking situation downtown is. For example, in Battery Park City during a weekday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., more than half of all cars are parked illegally. And the number of placards related to law enforcement agencies is double the number of parking spots reserved for law enforcement, causing a spillover effect where those vehicles crowd out thousands of other spaces for un-credentialed drivers. Mayor Bloomberg intends for the 20% placard reduction project to be completed by September of this year.
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Good. Parking should be terrible downtown.
Considering there is virtually no affordable housing below Canal Street exactly who are we supposed to feel bad for? If you live there you should be able to afford a garage space. And frankly, you really shouldn't own a car in New York anyway. And if you're driving in for work I would say take the subway.
They should cash in all of the city parking permits and start charging market rates for those spots ($40 per 1/3 day). We have to stop subsidizing vehicle travel into Manhattoe
Instead of all those illegal immigrants dressed up like rent a cops, what this city needs is more officers like Judge Dredd.
It's not like parking all the way uptown in Wash Hts/Inwood is much better.
Hey I love driving, but you couldn't pay me to park down there.
The poor parking is additional evidence that congestion pricing is not necessary. No one is going out for a leisurely drive south of 59th Street M-F during business hours. Congestion pricing is just going to be adding another inefficient bureaucracy, and no doubt much of the money it generates will do nothing but help feed that bureaucracy.
Raise the gas tax, tax on off-street parking and the price of metered parking and in the area if you want to punish drivers-- it can be done a lot more efficiently.
The idea of a monitored wall around manhattan with cameras and ezpass type system is really lousy. It won't cut down on congestion and will be hugely inefficient, even though it sounds good to people who lack the power to think beyond "i don't have a car, so no one should."
Anyone who thinks differently-- just look at the tolls for using the B&T system to enter Manhattan. All that money doesn't seem to keep our infrastructure in good shape or benefit the public at large, it just lines the pockets of the wasteful slugs who administer the system and raise prices every year or two. Congestion pricing will be no different.
For this study to have any value whatsoever, should it not include parking garages (public and private) as well? Who cares about street parking? What are the total number of spaces of all kinds of parking?
People who live in LI have no excuse to not take the LIRR. You've got a station within a 10-15 minute drive no matter where you live. And quite a few of them aren't ghetto, either.
NJ, unfortunately, is not so lucky. Newark? Harrison? Blech.