NEW YORK—Several transportation, urban planning, and environmental groups met in front of City Hall on Sunday to call on the City to take a closer look at its policy of requiring developers to provide parking spaces whether residents need them or not—thus encouraging them to drive.
“New York City, the city of transit, the city of walk, is uniquely positioned to meet the challenges of the 21st century—population growth, global warming, and high gas prices,” said Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “But New York City’s status as a pedestrian and transit-oriented metropolis is severely threatened by zoning requirements that mandate lavish amounts of off-street vehicular parking.”
Transportation Alternatives, the Straphangers Campaign, Regional Plan Association and others offered suggestions to the City as part of a new report entitled Suburbanizing the City.
The report examines the correlation between the City’s parking requirements and automobile use by zoning region. It found that mandatory parking spaces induce demand for driving among residents who would otherwise use public transportation, because they would have to pay for their condo’s parking space whether or not they had a car to park there.
The report recommended four reforms for sustainable parking management.
First, it says the City should assess the amount of current and planned parking. The report found that the City doesn’t keep records of how much parking has been or will be created due to its mandates.
“The first step to solving this is for the City to understand how much parking there currently is, and understand what that impact of that parking is on traffic,” said White.
Second, the report encourages the City to reduce the amount of required parking. Measures would include separating parking fees from rent, which are bundled in many residential buildings that offer a garage. It also recommends that the City eliminate minimum parking requirements for apartment buildings.
Third, the report says that the City should examine the environmental impact of required parking on traffic. The more parking spaces are required, the report says, the more people will drive and the more emissions they will generate by looking for parking spaces.
Last, the authors of the report demand that the City stop subsidizing new parking and issuing special permits until a complete assessment of parking’s impact is done.
The report is available at http://www.transalt.org.
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