A state Senate plan to raise money for the MTA by charging New York City motorists to park on the streets in their neighborhoods met with mixed reaction Wednesday, and is just the latest in a long line of parking permit proposals. parking lot.
The Senate plan, part of its proposed state budget, would cap the monthly permit price at $30 and allocate 20% of spaces in permit zones to visitors. Only vehicles registered in New York would be eligible for permits.
Retired Forest Hills financier Ed Schemitsch, 66, said he was opposed to the plan; to him, it’s just “another thing people are being charged for.”
“If you want to eliminate the parking spots and do something different, that’s fine,” Schemitsch said. “But having people in certain neighborhoods pay for parking seems like a lot.”
“They already have meters everywhere.”
But another Forest Hills resident, Yolanda Fazio, 35, said it could be a good way to bar motorists from outside the neighborhood. “I think just the people in the neighborhood,” said Fazio, a homemaker. “I think too many people come from other places and we don’t know who they are.”
The idea of keeping outsiders out also appealed to Steve Weyman, 50, a postmaster from Kew Gardens. “That sounds good. That sounds better than other people parking there,” he said.
Weyman said parking in her neighborhood is so bad that she has to use a private parking lot. “It’s terrible, I pay for it,” she said.
The proposal emerged this week as one of several ways the state Senate is seeking to fund the MTA, which will face a $1.2 billion deficit next year with no additional revenue sources.
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The parking permit program was proposed in a proposed budget released by the Senate on Tuesday. The plan is a starting point for negotiations between lawmakers and Governor Hochul on the general shape of the state budget for 2023.
While the permit program is on the table, its inclusion in the Senate proposal does not guarantee that it will survive negotiations.
Residential parking permits are the norm in many American cities, including Boston, Washington DC, and San Francisco. In Boston, there is no charge for resident parking permits, which are broadcast in various residential neighborhoods of the city. Visitors may park for two hours in some areas during certain hours of the day.
A spokesman for Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), Senate deputy majority leader, said the program would raise an estimated $400 million a year for the MTA.
Parking permits have been proposed several times before.
An almost identical plan was endorsed in 2009 by the then senator. Daniel Squadron and former Assemblywoman Joan Millman, both Democrats. He had the backing of the City Council, but was opposed by the city’s Department of Transportation and failed to garner support in Albany.
Ydanis Rodríguez, current transportation commissioner for the city, parking allowed with support when he served on the City Council, he introduced a bill to do so in 2018. The bill died in 2021 without sufficient support from the City Council.
