Another Argument for Public Transit
Here’s another reason to take public transportation when you’re in New York City: there really is no parking … or at least not nearly enough for the number of drivers looking for a space.
The New York Times reports that a “long-awaited” city study found that, outside of those drivers lucky enough to have city-issued placards that give them special parking privileges, typical commuters face near-hopeless odds of finding a parking space in some areas. The city’s financial district, for example, offers only one-third the number of spaces needed for the non-placarded drivers passing through.
Overall, the Transportation Department study reported, the area south of Canal Street has only 1,976 metered or unregulated parking spaces available to the public. Spaces for drivers with placards, on the other hand, totaled some 11,000 spaces.
So what’s the ordinary driver to do? In many cases, they end up parking illegally, either double-parking or blocking loading zones, which then forces delivery vehicles to double-park. Others, apparently, decide forgery is the way to go: the city study found counterfeit placards made up about 9 percent of all placards counted on the streets.
Earlier this year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg enacted a plan to reduce the number of city-issued parking placards by 20 percent by September. He has also advocated a congestion pricing plan to reduce the amount of vehicle traffic entering the city, although the proposal is meeting with some opposition, as writer Amy Stodghill reported earlier this month.
Another way to view this study is that Manhattan represents the logical conclusion of the highly dense, ecologically sensitive urban setting. By making car driving increasingly less appealing because “free” parking spots are so hard to come by, it encourages commuters to use other means–such as public transit. Driving a car for personal transportation in NYC has higher cost associated with it, so less people drive, and the city becomes navigable on foot. If more cities imposed more of the true costs of autmobile driving directly on motorists, I think we’d have less of a car-dependent society in the U.S.
Well said, Jason. If you investigate the true costs of the auto in general, I think you will be shocked by how heavily subsidized it is. In Phildelphia, PA, the cost of enforcing parking rules is $180M dollars a year. What about the cost of all the carbon being dumped into the atmosphere? How can the carbon-auto industry be allowed to make profits while these costs are not addressed?