Other northeastern cities move ahead to lower mandated parking in developments; will New York replace PlaNYC 1950?

In December 2007, I described how Mayor Mike Bloomberg's much-praised PlaNYC 2030 contains a glaring omission, a failure to address the antiquated anti-urban policy that mandates parking attached to new residential developments outside Manhattan, even when such developments, like Atlantic Yards, are justified precisely because they're located near transit hubs. I called the current situation PlaNYC 1950.

In Building a Greener Future: A Progress Report on New York City’s Sustainability Initiatives, released in May 2008, The New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund recommended, among other things, a comprehensive study of the parking requirements in the Zoning Resolution. Last July, the Department of City Planning was said to be rethinking parking minimums in new developments in western Brooklyn and elsewhere.

Others move ahead

But nothing's happened yet, while others move ahead. Streetsblog reports, in New York Falls Behind Big Northeast Cities on Parking Policy :

The city of Philadelphia recently released a draft of its new comprehensive plan, Philadelphia2035]. The plan’s release makes New York the last city in the four largest Northeastern metro areas that hasn’t so much as stated a commitment to cutting back on off-street parking.

Philadelphia2035 calls for controlling congestion by adding parking maximums into the zoning code and pricing on-street parking high enough so that 15 percent of spaces are always free. Here in New York, we still pretend that adding off-street parking reduces traffic congestion.