By Gabriel Zucker
Community Board 2’s Traffic and Transportation Committee voted last week to participate in a Department of Transportation pilot program to raise rates on parking meters during periods when the department determines there is higher demand for spaces. The higher rate is intended to discourage people from leaving their cars in one place and “feeding the meter” all day, and to encourage the use of meters for quick errands, as they are intended.
The program, which the full community board will consider at its July 24 meeting, will begin in October in a small patch of the West Village. No rate has been chosen yet for the peak periods, although D.O.T. and C.B. 2 officials speculated that it might be in the range of $2.50 per hour, significantly higher than the current $1 rate. The higher rate would most likely apply between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
A resolution drafted by a C.B. 2 Transportation Subcommittee cited many benefits of the program, including “greater availability and turnover of parking spots in metered zones, a reduction of congestion and pollution caused by vehicles circling in search of an available parking space, a reduction in double-parking by vehicles unable to pull to the curb for deliveries and quick errands and better access to the curb for buses, whose stops are regular blocked by infringing vehicles.”
The pilot area is bounded by Charles and 10th Sts. to the north, Houston St. to the south, Seventh Ave. and Bleecker St. to the west and MacDougal St. and Waverly Place to the east. The program will last for six months, after which D.O.T. will take C.B. 2’s recommendation to continue or terminate the program.
