DOT floats closing Financial District streets and automating parking enforcement. Council placard bills haven't had a hearing

The city's Transportation Department is studying ways to clear the Financial District's chronically jammed curbs, including closing some streets to private through traffic and cracking down on parking placard abuse, Streetsblog reported Thursday.

Eric Beaton, DOT's deputy commissioner for transportation planning and management, spoke on a panel at Transportation Alternatives' Vision Zero Cities conference on Oct. 28. He described two approaches: technology that enforces parking rules without staff, and closing streets. "Sometimes it's like untying the Gordian knot and you just have to ban it," he said, according to Streetsblog. He said there has been "a lot of courtesy" toward government workers' cars, and called automated enforcement the "linchpin" of consistent street management. State law sharply limits camera enforcement of parking, so Albany would have a say, he noted.

Why it matters to residents: placards let city workers and others park free, and Lower Manhattan is home to many government offices. Streetsblog cited a comptroller's finding that the area has a 21% storefront vacancy rate, the city's highest, and noted that only 12% of households there own a car. DOT gave no timeline.

What our records add

The district's Council member asked about this on Tuesday. At the Council's Vision Zero hearing on Oct. 27, Council Member Julie Won read a question for Christopher Marte, whose District 1 includes the Financial District. She asked whether the administration is committing to pedestrianize Lower Manhattan. A DOT official said the department would "have more details to share" on its new pedestrian priority district program, and that the official expected movement on "just about every initiative" in the Vision Zero plan by next year (3:19:25). Earlier in the hearing, Lincoln Restler asked DOT to commit to adding a million square feet of pedestrian space a year. DOT said the plan for the first time sets up "a coordinated program around pedestrian districts and pedestrian priority zones," but did not commit to the figure (1:44:19).

Two placard bills, no hearings. Both are in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and were introduced Jan. 29:

• Int. 402, from Restler, would stop the city from issuing parking permits for private vehicles and revoke existing ones. It was introduced in conjunction with the Brooklyn borough president, and Marte, Farah N. Louis, Gale A. Brewer and Shahana K. Hanif are sponsors.
• Int. 144, from Hanif, would change the length of time special vehicle identification parking permits are valid. Marte, Louis, Won and Tiffany L. Cabán are sponsors.

Each has waited 274 days. The committee has 159 items pending, 122 of them for more than 180 days, the most of any Council committee in our records.

Placards and speeding. Earlier this week we reported that more than 100 placarded vehicles hit "super speeder" levels in a year, according to a Streetsblog analysis. The Council's speed-limiter bill, heard Tuesday, exempts some fleets.

What's next

DOT says its forthcoming Streets Plan will add detail to the Vision Zero plan (31:30). Automated parking enforcement would likely need action in Albany when the legislature returns in January. The placard bills would need a hearing before any vote.