John Kaehny
Recent Posts
Hire a Construction Worker, Fire a Bus Driver?
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Green-collar jobs are on the line in Barack Obama’s adopted hometown. Photo of CTA bus driver: goatopolis/Flickr It’s stimulus package logic: Lay off a bus driver now and hire a construction worker in a couple of months or a year. Congress and purported urbanist Barack Obama are fiddling with a 1950s-era stimulus package while America’s […]
Chicago Outsources Parking Reform to Morgan Stanley
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The Chicago City Council has approved by a vote of 40-5 a deal to privatize the city’s 36,000 metered parking spots for the next 75 years, trading meter revenues for an upfront payment of $1.15 billion. Under the agreement with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure, meter rates will rise substantially and some meters will operate overnight and […]
Nobelist Krugman Joins Call for Federal Transportation Spending
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For decades, groups like Build for America have made a strong case that transportation spending has to increase. They have rightly warned that the U.S. transportation network is falling apart, with bridges failing and transit systems lagging behind international competitors. But wars, tax cuts and social priorities have stymied increased investment. Now, as the country […]
Study: City Residential Parking Requirements Lead to More Driving
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The New York City Department of City Planning is encouraging people to drive to work. Maybe not officially, but the agency’s minimum residential parking requirements are a big inducement to car commute. That’s the implicit finding of a new study by University of Pennsylvania planning professor Rachel Weinberger (and others, including yours truly, John Kaehny), […]
The Parking Cure Part 2: Do the Right Tests
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We continue with our look at recommendations proposed in "Suburbanizing the City," a report issued by a cross-section of public interest groups on the detrimental effects of off-street parking policies on city traffic. Last week we visited the city’s parking doctor and got the wrong medicine. In this episode of city parking malpractice, the parking […]
The Parking Cure, Step 1: Diagnose the Problem
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This curb-cutting driveway leads to a parking lot for a new residential development on 16th Street in Brooklyn. What would you do if you went to the doctor, and before speaking to you, taking your vital signs, or learning about your condition, she prescribed a powerful drug and kicked you out the door? New York […]
Chicago-Style Parking Plan Could Raise $5 Billion Plus for NYC
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According to a senior municipal bond analyst at a leading Wall Street firm, New York City could raise between five and six billion dollars immediately if it privatized its parking meters as Chicago is doing. Whether privatization is the right way to unlock New York City's parking riches is debatable. What's not in question is that curbside parking in New York and most U.S. cities is grossly underpriced and could potentially be a crucial source of revenue for much needed transportation improvements.
San Francisco Launches Ambitious Parking Reform Program
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San Francisco is lunging out of the parking dark ages. Backed by the mayor and city council, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is launching "SFpark," a comprehensive, curbside parking reform project encompassing ten city neighborhoods. Starting in September, the $23 million SFpark program will use an array of new policies and technologies to raise […]
Neighborhoods and Parking Reform: Show Them The Money
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Now that the Legislature has said "no" to pricing streets, attention has turned to pricing curbside parking. It’s no secret that meter rates are ridiculously low. This is because the DOT has been told by generations of mayors to keep the price down in an effort to appease motorists. The cost of this ill-considered gesture […]
DC to Devote Parking Fees to Livable Streets
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In a first for a big east coast city, Washington, DC, is putting the ideas of celebrated parking reformer Don Shoup to work. Spurred by concerns over game day traffic surges caused by the opening of a new baseball stadium, the city council recently created two performance parking pilot project zones. The most important […]
“Lock Box” Provides $39M for Livable Streets, Ferries, BRT
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Last week Streetsblog reported on the Traffic Commission’s proposal to create a "Livable Streets Lock Box" fund from parking revenue and taxi surcharges generated in the congestion pricing zone. If created, the fund could become a substantial new source of money for bicycle, pedestrian and public space projects in New York City. The fund would […]
P.I.D. Stands for Smarter Parking and Cleaner Sidewalks
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"Parking Improvement Districts" could help free up parking space and pay for streetscape improvements and maintenance on commercial strips like Kingsbridge Road in the Bronx. Sunday’s Daily News suggests an easy way for City Hall to win the support of local merchants for setting parking meter prices high enough to keep some curb spots open, […]