The Parking Reform That Could Transform Manhattan
Urban planner Donald Shoup makes the case for replacing free street spaces in New York City with a pay-to-park model: the parking benefit district.
Hunting for a free street space is a familiar ritual for car owners in New York City.
Photographer: Jeenah Moon/BloombergNew York City has a parking problem. As Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said in 2018, “Anyone who’s ever looked for a parking spot in Manhattan knows all too well, it is a brutal and time-consuming process.”
Free but scarce curb parking creates this problem. A staggering 97% of the curb spaces across the five boroughs are free. To find one of the precious free spaces, drivers cruise for parking, circling until they eventually find an open spot. This cruising congests traffic, pollutes the air, endangers cyclists and pedestrians, and increases carbon emissions. A six-month study in a 15-block area of the Upper West Side found that cruising for curb parking created 366,000 excess vehicle miles driven per year and produced 22 tons of CO2 emissions per block. New Yorkers have even died in fights over free curb spaces — a parking dispute caused the city’s first homicide of 2023, just hours into the new year.