Good morning. It’s Thursday. The Knicks won Game 4, 107-106, after the largest comeback in N.B.A. finals history. We’ll have details on the ticket that got Mayor Zohran Mamdani into Game 3. But first, a look at the hassle that is parking in New York.
Parking is a perennial headache for nearly everyone in New York City. Drivers can’t find parking spaces. Pedestrians often can’t see around parked cars. Those who double-park create delays when traffic backs up behind them or squeezes through, potentially creating new problems: Sometimes you can say goodbye to your side view mirror. Sometimes, if there’s a serious scratch or a dent, you can end up saying hello to a body shop. And the rules? They are so confusing that some drivers decide it’s easier to just let the fines pile up. I discussed all this with Emma G. Fitzsimmons, who covers public policy in New York City and, with Stefanos Chen and Eden Weingart, wrote about the city’s parking problems. And our colleague Andy Newman created a timeline of parking. It’s hard to believe, but parking on the street in New York was once illegal. Emma, what are you doing right now? I just moved my car for alternate-side parking and will head to the newsroom. We have to move the car once a week for street sweeping, and my husband and I take turns. He’s with our son on a field trip, and I’m moving it so we don’t get a $65 ticket. This ritual is probably the worst part of owning a car in New York City, along with the traffic on the George Washington Bridge on a Sunday evening. So you’re one of the drivers who spends, on average, 107 hours every year hunting for parking spaces in New York City. Why is there never a parking space when someone wants one? In dense residential neighborhoods like mine in northern Manhattan, there simply aren’t enough parking spots to go around. Our neighbors park on the block, and so do many other vehicles: visitors, commuters, grocery delivery trucks and mail trucks. Some neighborhoods are worse than others. I can usually find a spot, but it takes half an hour or more, depending on the time of day. The city’s Department of Transportation says that most of the parking spaces on the streets are free. Is that the best use of space in a city where space is always at a premium? It is a question that city officials are actively grappling with. The city has removed parking spots for things like Citi Bike stands, pedestrian plazas, trash containers and outdoor dining. Transportation officials have also tried to add parking meters in some busy neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, but they’ve been met with resistance from neighbors. Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he wants the city to be less reliant on cars. What has he done so far, and what can the city do to achieve that objective — and improve parking? Mamdani has focused on building more bike lanes and bus lanes, including a busway on 34th Street in Manhattan. He supported congestion pricing tolls, which have reduced traffic in Manhattan. And he created a new Office of Curb Management that is going to take steps to reduce chaos at the curb and to increase turnover for parking spots. That could include expanding parking meters. We examined that idea — and how it could raise badly needed revenue for the city — and three other ideas: residential parking permits, dynamic pricing for meters and increased enforcement of the existing parking rules. One of the startling facts in your story was that 97 percent of the three million spaces are free. That means that there are only 90,000 parking meters out there. Is it realistic to simply put in more meters? What would that accomplish? Many cities have meters in business districts so that there is more turnover for parking spaces. Parking reformers want to start by adding more meters in the busiest neighborhoods, with two goals: making it easier to find a spot when you need one, and raising revenue for the city. They believe that it is fair to charge for parking in some of the wealthiest ZIP codes in America. We looked at a major corridor in Brooklyn that has meters on some blocks and not others. Their current placement often feels arbitrary. Of the possibilities you looked at, is putting in more meters the one you think would work best? It’s certainly the easiest to do, and could be implemented gradually. Some neighborhoods with plenty of parking would not need meters. Many readers who commented on our article liked the idea of residential parking permits, where you’d need a permit to park so that local residents get most spots. But the experts told us that permits would not really solve the problem that there is more demand for parking than supply. Another idea is expanding car share programs. You could have a “Citi Bike for cars” service. You could take a car for a trip to the beach and return it, and then you would not need to own a car that you rarely use. WEATHER Temperatures will soar into the 90s today under partly sunny skies, with showers and thunderstorms possible in the afternoon. The chance of a shower will continue tonight, with a low near 73. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until June 19 (Juneteenth). QUOTE OF THE DAY “We have lost control and need to bring books back.” — Kailee Graham, whose oldest daughter is in kindergarten in a public school in Manhattan, as a majority of City Council members urged the mayor and the schools chancellor to pause the use of artificial intelligence in the city’s schools. The latest New York news
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Now that Game 4 of the N.B.A. finals is history, let’s look back to someone who was way up in the stands for Game 3, Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The mayor paid for the ticket, spending roughly $1,000 for a standing-room-only spot that put him just above the so-called nosebleed seats at Madison Square Garden. It helped that he was the mayor: His ticket was a house seat, from a pool of tickets set aside for V.I.P.s and the well connected. My colleagues Dana Rubinstein and Benjamin Oreskes writes that by paying for his ticket, the mayor appeared to avoid running afoul of city rules prohibiting gifts to elected officials. If Mamdani had tried to buy tickets directly from the box office — and had been lucky enough to snare one of the few face-value tickets released by the Knicks last week — the cost would have been more than double what he paid. Tickets on the secondary market were going for even more. Mamdani’s spokeswoman did not comment when asked if he had sought guidance from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board. But former Gov. David Paterson said he believed that it was permissible for Mamdani to attend the game so long as he had paid for the ticket and did not deprive normal fans of the opportunity to buy a seat. Paterson is something of an expert on such matters. After the 2009 World Series, he was fined $62,125 by the State Ethics Commission for asking for and accepting free tickets from the Yankees. “A lot of people who have that ‘in,’ they will brag about it,” Paterson said this week. “I think the incident for me changed my outlook on that kind of thing.” METROPOLITAN DIARY Conservatory Garden
Dear Diary: It was a beautiful April day, and I hoped to find tulips in full bloom at Conservatory Garden in Central Park. Only the yellow ones obliged, but in front of them and all the green stalks stood a tall young woman in a floor-length, lemon-colored dress. She was posing with a young man who had set up his smartphone on the ground to take a picture of them together. I asked if they wanted me to take the photo. I took several and was about to leave when the young man asked me to take one more. He took something from his bag and dropped to one knee. As he proposed and gave the young woman the ring, I snapped away with moistening eyes. — Kathleen Brady Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
