The Chainlink

NYC's Bike Lane Problem

This was recently reported in The Guardian (based in London). Certain affluent people are objecting to the creation of bike lanes that reduce the number of car parking spots:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/mar/09/new-yor...

 

My own take on this is that all public street space is just that - public. Ideally there should be no overnight street parking and cities should work towards that ideal. In the interim, overnight street parking needs to be paid for according to each car's footprint, plus margins based on the local real estate land values. Right now car owners get free, or almost free street use privileges at the general population's expense. Of course, they'll dispute that, but they need to get the message which quite likely may take people decades to accept. Here in Chicago, quite a few could actually start by clearing the junk out of their garages and actually using them for their original purpose.

 

Back to New York: Mayor Bloomberg appears to be about to chicken out. Shame on him!

Views: 19

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Shawn C. on March 10, 2011 at 10:29am

"...Right now car owners get free, or almost free street use privileges at the general population's expense."

 

Annual license plate renewal, vehicle sales taxes, city stickers, federal/state/county/city fuel taxes...   

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on March 10, 2011 at 11:32am
I find it rather mind boggling how many people in my neighborhood have garages but do not use them.  In some cases, it's because they have a monster SUV that does not fit in the garage.  More often, it appears to be a massive clutter situation.  Even worse, some people have driveways but still park on the street.  WTF?
Permalink Reply by Dr. Doom on March 10, 2011 at 12:50pm
Prospect Park West is some of the most expensive real estate in the entire world, and nearly no one who lives on it has a private garage. Whatever you think of the merits of the bike lane there, it was always obvious that removing a lot of the parking used by people whose houses cost well into the seven figures was going to cause a commotion.

It really amazes me that this has become the hill so many New York cycling advocates want to die on (and an international cause celebre!) given that there is an enormous sidewalk that really should be a multiuse path right there next to the bike lane.

Ideally there should be no overnight street parking and cities should work towards that ideal.

You do know that nearly no one in New York has a garage, right?
Permalink Reply by Bike Bloke on March 10, 2011 at 6:16pm

Sure, those are the prices to actually drive, and I'd love to see if what motorists pay actually covers the expense of the road network they require, but that's another story..... 

Let's extrapolate the street parking privilege to an extreme example: suppose you buy a Gold Coast or Loop condo, would you really expect to park on the street for free? Of course not! Back to streets that might have better uses for the public than parking privileges for locals (they see it as a right, but do they actually own the street? Absolutely not, the city does, as a thoroughfare for all, not just local car parkers). People who habitually park on the streets just have to deal with changes for the better for the general population. It's not their street.

As I said, it'll take decades for car owners to get their heads around this, but understand it they must.

Shawn C. said:

"...Right now car owners get free, or almost free street use privileges at the general population's expense."

 

Annual license plate renewal, vehicle sales taxes, city stickers, federal/state/county/city fuel taxes...   

Permalink Reply by Dr. Doom on March 10, 2011 at 8:39pm

When you buy a multimillion dollar house in Park Slope, you're implicitly buying convenient street parking. (Again, keep in mind that nearly no one in New York has a private parking space.) The point isn't that taking them away is or isn't right, the point is that taking them away, especially when doing so is completely unnecessary to the goal of making it easier for cyclists to get around, and expecting that this will do anything other than turn extremely wealthy and extremely powerful people into your enemies is stupid. 

Cycling advocates tend to be profoundly stupid. High IQ morons, as Bellow would have said.

Permalink Reply by David on March 10, 2011 at 9:30pm

Keep in mind that the parking spaces on Prospect Park West weren't removed just for the bike lane, the ones that were removed permanently were removed for pedestrian safety also.  PP West may be expensive real estate, but it's also next to a park that lots of people use and pushing street parking back a bit to improve sight lines for people walking to the park helps everybody.

 

Temporarily removing spaces to build the bike lane probably could have and should have been avoided, but those spaces have returned already. 

 

And really, nobody in Prospect Park expects "convenient street parking."  That's just not something that you can find in Manhattan or Park Slope.  The folks buying multimillion dollar homes buy garage parking someplace, it's the renters and visitors who park on the streets there, and it's never, ever convenient. 

 


Dr. Doom said:

When you buy a multimillion dollar house in Park Slope, you're implicitly buying convenient street parking. (Again, keep in mind that nearly no one in New York has a private parking space.) The point isn't that taking them away is or isn't right, the point is that taking them away, especially when doing so is completely unnecessary to the goal of making it easier for cyclists to get around, and expecting that this will do anything other than turn extremely wealthy and extremely powerful people into your enemies is stupid. 

Cycling advocates tend to be profoundly stupid. High IQ morons, as Bellow would have said.

RSS

Groups

© 2008-2016   The Chainlink Community, L.L.C.   Powered by

Disclaimer  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service