The ability to park a private vehicle on a city residential street for free, indefinitely (subject to moving from time to time for street cleaning) seems to be a God-given right for all New Yorkers. This right will not be given up without rioting in the streets, a battle that few politicians are eager to take on.

But the fact is, free parking has got to go. Why should private vehicles be given free space on public land? The taxpayers fund the upkeep of streets but receive nothing in “rent” for the use of those streets by private cars. New York should emulate other cities that charge for residential street parking. 

The problem is exacerbated by congestion pricing (CP). New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy was not wrong when he complained that CP would increase the number of cars circling for parking spaces in areas just outside the zone, poisoning the air and increasing traffic congestion in those areas. I see it in my neighborhood when I am working my dogs early in the morning. Cars, often with out-of-state plates, cruise the neighborhood for a space for the day so that drivers can finish their commute by subway. 

The solution is resident-permitted parking. Take London: In every area of the city with residential homes (which is most of London), there are “controlled parking zones” (CPZ) where residents apply for a permit to park on local residential streets. You generally need to be a resident of the borough and live within a CPZ to be eligible for a permit. Applicants are required to provide proof of residency and vehicle ownership/registration when applying. 

Londoners seem to be thoroughly accepting of this form of extreme violation of their civil rights. Is it simply British stoicism, or is there more to it? I interviewed several victims of this imposition. In full disclosure, my daughter is one of them. She lives in Finchley, North London, and pays 180 pounds (about $225) a year for her permit. If there are 250 weekday parking days each year, that comes out to less than a dollar a day. She is perfectly happy to pay for the privilege of parking on a city street. Other friends in London agree that the inconvenience of limited parking in neighborhoods where you don’t have a permit is far outweighed by the convenience of having one in the place where you live. You can also get temporary permits for visitors. It means that there is no point in commuters cruising for spaces, since they are not allowed to park on those residential streets without a permit. Air quality goes up, and local traffic congestion goes down.

Think about the value of that free parking. Residential real estate in Brooklyn, where I live, runs around $3.50–$5.00 per square foot per month. Let’s say that a parking space is only 25% of that—say $1/SF. A typical parking space is 18’ x 6’, or 108 SF. So $108 per month if that space were rented along with the apartment. That makes a parking permit at about $18 per month a really good deal.

There are a couple of other benefits. First, the fees that the city gathers from the permits are put to use in improving public transit (just as we hope will be the case with CP). The NYC Department of Transportation manages over 3 million on-street parking spaces. Many of those are already metered spaces, so let’s say 1.5 million are free spaces on residential streets. 1.5 million x $225 (the London permit cost) would equal $337,500,000 per year in revenue to the city. 

Second, because there is limited free parking in these residential neighborhoods, the drivers who circle the block on a workday morning looking for free parking would be encouraged to use public transit, thus reducing congestion, air pollution, and so on.

So paying for parking seems like a win-win for all. Why don’t we do it? I suspect the answer is that even if it sounds like a good idea—even if the economics of it make great sense—most New Yorker drivers are devoted to their free parking and resent that it could be taken away under any circumstance. Just look at the backlash over the pandemic-era rise in open (car-free) streets and restaurant streateries that deprived drivers of a place to park. An inalienable right is not lightly given up. Also, the benefit to residents, as expressed by my London friends, is not necessarily apparent, or at least not if you have never experienced it. We’ve all been through the frustration of cruising blocks, hoping for an opening before the restaurant gives our table reservation to someone else. But few have experienced the delight of clutching their permit and finding a spot under the placard that says “Resident Parking by Permit ONLY.”

I propose that we test the idea in New York with one or two temporary pilot projects and see how it goes. The Department of Transportation could ask community boards to suggest a few blocks in different neighborhoods to serve as the guinea pigs, and they could set up the permit system and signage for a short trial period—two months, say. If residents hate it, then OK, the experiment will be over. But I doubt it. I expect that once it is implemented, we will wonder why it wasn’t done sooner.

Feature image via Sunday Times.