Last month, New York governor Kathy Hochul unveiled a gargantuan $227 billion budget that seems geared to address the Empire State’s most pressing concerns, from housing, to crime, to the subway. Many items on the budget will be subject to intense negotiations between Hochul and her fellow Democrats in the legislature, and one of the more eye-popping proposals from the legislature is one way to help fill the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s $3 billion budget hole: street parking permits.
Specifically the State Senate proposed giving the New York City Council the ability to create a parking permit system in the city’s residential neighborhoods. It’s been floated around for years by various transit advocates but it never caught on.
Under the Senate’s plan, the city could charge up to $30 a month for a permit, and the revenue would go to the MTA. Permits would be required in certain areas with the goal of easing the pain that many residents have in finding parking. $400 million is the figure estimated to be generated by permits, which are also being argued as a way to reduce the impact of commuters. There are around 3 million parking spaces scattered across the city–most of which are unmetered in the outer boroughs, according to the Department of Transportation.
Where this plan for many falls flat is its substance. It is no secret that the MTA needs what essentially amounts to a huge bailout from Albany. And if that aim is guiding policy, the financial burden falls on people who will have to pay to park in their own neighborhood—in spots that were previously free. Questions about enforcement and fairness to residents have critics from both sides of the aisle against this plan. But the most important critic has been the City Council’s budget committee chairman, Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn).
“There is a conversation to be had about residential parking permits for certain neighborhoods, but using it as a way to balance the MTA’s budget? No” , he told the New York Post. “This proposal would just be cost-shifting to another tax on transit deserts in the outer boroughs.”
Of all the proposals that will be subject to negotiation, parking permits seems most likely to be killed off, with great bipartisan agreement. But the MTA still needs the money, and Albany is still intent on getting it.
