A recent Daily News expose' suggests a permanent means Mayor Giuliani could exercise to curb gridlock  severely limit the availability of free parking permits for city workers. The News found that New York City agencies dole out over 15,000 all-purpose free parking permits to city employees and politically-connected out-of-towners every year. Distributions include 9,776 placards to the Transportation Department, 5,348 to the Police Department, and 296 to Fire officials. In addition to these legal permits, some agencies reproduce permits so that more workers can car commute through the nation's worst traffic.

Last spring, a survey by a Lower Manhattan paper, the Tribeca Trib, found that 9 of 10 daytime vehicles on streets with high parking demand had city parking permits or special plates. Lower Manhattan boasts one of the greatest densities of subway stations in the world, but city policy has fostered generations of municipal car potatoes and extra traffic. Changing this bad habit could have a more lasting impact, at least downtown, than the city's ephemeral don't-block-the-box blitzes.