If you log on to Parknews.biz you will find an article from the Old Gray Lady (The New York Times) about high end parking garages in New York City. Although this is a fun read, it isn’t really news. We have seen “condo” parking facilities in New York and other major metropolises for decades. If the rich want to pay, there is someone out there who will supply the product at a price.
The key to the article has been buried. And I quote:
But efforts to discourage driving by making it tougher to park may not have had the desired effect. Indeed, cars are on the rise, or at least holding their own. In 2017, there were 225,179 non-taxi cars registered in Manhattan, on par with 2007, when there were 225,047, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which counts cars used for ride-share services like Uber in its totals.
The spikes in the other boroughs have been dramatic. In Brooklyn, there were 457,980 cars in 2017, up from 387,328 in 2007, according to the data, and in Queens there were 725,906, up from 671,816. Added congestion has meant increased demand for the dwindling number of parking spaces, advocates for garages say.
Parking is “holding its own.” “Spikes in the other boroughs have been dramatic.”
Wow – in a time when our betters are doing everything possible to denigrate the privately owned vehicle, citizens in one of the most ‘mobility’ friendly cities on the planet, if you take consider subways, buses, light rail, and TNCs mobility friendly, are either maintaining the POV numbers, or in the case of Brooklyn and Queens, buying cars like hotcakes.
What this tell me is that you can’t legislate vehicles away. You can institute congestion pricing, café rules on automakers, control the media with articles about impending doom caused by automobiles, reduce parking, and even attempt to tax cars out of existence, but freedom loving citizens will do what they will.
If you don’t provide the infrastructure to handle the cars, the free market will find a way. And of course, the poorest among us will be hurt the most. The rich will always have a parking space.
Its time for the parking industry to stop wringing its hands and step up and focus on the problem. If we don’t, someone else will.
Oh, and note — the parking ‘condos’ are striving for an excellent parking experience. Its time to clean up our act.
JVH
