Although City Councilmember David Yassky’s office has not received a formal reply from the NYC DOT regarding requests to provide residential parking permits in Downtown Brooklyn, initial reactons indicate the agency are not going to support the plan.

A DOT spokesperson told the Brooklyn Paper that parking permits would not work due to the area’s "high density of cars." DOT has also said, perplexingly, that permits would encourage drivers to park on the street instead of in garages, and that, administratively, it would be too complicated. NYC DOT did not return calls from MTR on the matter.

Another potential roadblock is that parking restrictions require a home rule resolution and state approval. Apparently, it took Rochester a number of years to get state approval for a similar residential parking plan.

Parking permits are just one of an 18 point plan to alleviate traffic that Yassky developed in response to the proposed rezoning of downtown Brooklyn. Other ideas include stricter enforcement of city employee parking and increased ferry service to the area.

Brooklyn’s Community Board 2 has officially asked the city’s Economic Development Corporation to include residential parking permits as one of the mitigation measures for the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning plan. Rezoning is expected to lead to significant new development, which will strain the transportation network (MTR #419).

Sometimes it seems the NYC DOT is in a world of its own. While it insists residential parking permits in downtown Brooklyn won’t work, the following cities and counties are busy reaping the traffic reduction benefits of such programs (a partial list):

Bayonne (NJ)

Rochester

Boston

San Francisco

Berkeley

Santa Cruz

San Diego

Seattle

Milwaukee

Baltimore

Washington D.C.

Montgomery County, MD

Bloomington, IN

Chicago,

Philadelphia

Pittsburgh

Denver

Savannah

Charleston

London

Toronto

Many other municipalities, home and abroad, use permits to control traffic, especially near commuter transit links. While parking permits will not solve all of Brooklyn’s traffic woes, they will encourage those heading downtown for business to take mass transit. They will also stop commuters from using area as a subway park-n-ride. 

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