The curbs on the Upper West Side are about to get a lot smarter…from approximately 72nd to 86th street between Broadway and Central Park West.
The Department of Transportation is partnering with the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District, which represents local business and property owners, to study ways to better manage the neighborhood’s curbs. They’ve honed in on that section of the neighborhood for a “Smart Curbs” pilot.
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The goal of the initiative (first reported by Bloomberg) is to find ways to alleviate the problems of traffic and congestion on the city streets, counterintuitively perhaps, by focusing not the streets themselves, but the curbs that abut them.
It’s a problem that anyone who has tried to drive in the city with any degree of regularity is deeply familiar with. Between the Ubers, Doordashers, bike lanes, outdoor dining spaces and delivery trucks, to say nothing of all the other cars, things are getting CROWDED.
READ MORE: Congestion Pricing Scanners Debut on Broadway, as Lawsuit Looms
The Smart Curbs pilot aims to fix this by making better use of the city’s curb-space, which, right now, is largely devoted to 3 million parking spots, mostly unmetered. As any Upper West Sider with a car can attest, these spots are usually full, making finding parking a nightmare. But it’s not just parking. All those full spots make traffic a nightmare too. A full spot means that instead of pulling up to the curb, more vehicles, particularly delivery vehicles, which are on the rise as online delivery orders skyrocket, are forced to double park when they drop off their goods. And nothing snarls traffic like a blocked off lane.
It’s a big problem, and not the easiest fix. One thing’s for certain, just adding more space to the roads won’t necessarily do the trick. More mathematically inclined Upper West Siders may be familiar with Braess’s paradox, which found that adding more roads and lanes to a road network can actually slow down traffic, as more cars start using those roads, creating even more traffic. Seeing this paradox in action, and attempting to reverse its effects, is what caused the city to shut down certain roads in 2009, replacing them with the plazas in Times and Herald Squares (it worked by the way).
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So, is there a better way? If there is, this pilot plans to find it. Right now, Smart Curb is considering options including instituting parking fees via pay-by-plate meters, creating designated spaces for commercial vehicles, adding delivery microhubs, and adopting more “last-mile” package deliveries on scooters or bikes rather than trucks.
What do you think? Seriously, they want to know. The pilot wants to hear from community boards, residents and anyone from the neighborhood with ideas on how to better utilize our curbs. After the analysis and outreach this fall, NYC DOT expects to share recommendations in the spring of 2024, with implementation to follow in the summer.
The Smart Curbs program is just focusing on a few blocks for now, but if successful, it may join other major citywide efforts, such as the upcoming rollout of congestion pricing, to become an integral part of NYC’s larger program to reduce traffic and pollution. So if you have a good idea for smart curb use, don’t hesitate to speak up. You could end up defining the streets of the city for years to come.
The smartest thing you can do is create a New York City resident only parking rule for overnight parking. If your car is not registered in New York City, you should not be able to house it on our streets overnight. Simple.
I dont own a car but I like finding parking nearby for my family when they visit. Can residents get a certain number of overnight passes under your plan?
I agree with resident parking stickers but not just for overnight but all day, every day as they have in other major cities like Boston. If you drive up and down our streets looking for parking, you will see practically half the cars are from NJ, Conn, Pa and elsewhere. It’s beyond frustrating.
Public streets are paid for by all taxpayers. If you want dedicated public space for YOUR private property then YOU need to pay for it. Visitors have just as much rights as you do to parking.
Many municipalities, large and small, restrict parking to residents. If it was just NY plates, it would already be very generous.
Visitors do not pay NYC taxes. These are the same people that if you parked in front of their suburban home over night or for days on end would complain and try to have you towed. Someone who lives in NYC has the same RIGHT to own a car and be able to park in their neighborhood like everywhere else in America. We should not be the ones Paying for parking and visitors get free parking. And yes some of u need cars to care for family members in the outer boroughs. Not that anyone needs to explain why they on a vehicle.
Wait until congestion pricing, the UWS will become a parking lot for people driving into the city, parking and taking the subway downtown.
The war on cars will not be won.
What about people that have company visiting or staying over? They should pay for parking in a garage?
Temporary permit.
Yes. That’s what we are saying.
If it weren’t so criminally expensive to put a car in a parking garage, many more cars would stay off the streets throughout the day and night. Closing off the already limited street parking spots to cars will not solve the issue, there are already far too many lengthy curbs that restrict parking for commercial vehicles only that hardly ever get used (such as on 71st street between West End and Broadway). Opening up these curbs on the side streets and creating more parking spots will limit the amount of traffic caused by cars fighting for them on narrow streets. Curbs going down avenues in front of storefronts can be reserved for commercial, food delivery, and temporary metered parking.
No one has a right to public space, whether restaurant sheds, expanded sidewalk sales for fruit and vegetables, or parking spaces. All users of those spaces should have to pay for them.
The vicious cycle of a city is: fewer pedestrians, fewer storefronts, more crime, fewer pedestrians.
The Last Mile recommendations sound great!
We do pay! it’s called some of the highest taxes in the country.
Residents should pay monthly street parking fees to leave their cars on the street within a zoned radius of the address on their license, and hourly to park outside of their zoned neighborhoods. It’s unfair that street parking has become a free real estate grab for people who refuse to move their cars during street sweeping, and if they do move their vehicles, they double park, blocking traffic, forcing the street sweeper to wait, one car at at a time while they move out of “their” parking space. It’s amazing to watch them pull up on the sidewalk, oblivious of pedestrians, and back into the street. The city passed a law in the 1890’s prohibiting horses from being left in the street overnight, so why do cars get a free pass? The city streets were not designed to serve as parking lots. They’re just as wide as they were 140 years ago. Why are car owners entitled to block lanes on both sides of the street?
Or we can go back to 1950, when overnight parking on Manhattan streets was illegal.
I think this is a good idea. This will encourage residents with cars who do not use them daily, to park in garages, saves on wear/tear and usually insurance.
I’m sure there were about a tenth of the number of cars in the city c.1950 than there are today. It’s a good idea in theory, but not in practice. Besides, there’s revenue in public parking.
No, the City can stop allowing Targets and Trader Joe’s spaces that should be below street parking in big new apartment buildings.
Also, if you want to allow on street overnight parking, then the City can sell permits, but only to City residents; that’s revenue.
Furthermore, as it works now, Manhattan residents who are parking on the street, are almost never paying for metered time, so there’s no revenue from them.
Excuse me we pay taxes.
Next time read the comments I was replying to.
Also, you can also pay for a street parking permit. But you’d bothered to read the whole string, you’d know that’s not what I advocate.
If you’d bother…
If you’d bother…
We would gladly park in garages if it didn’t cost $1000/ month
AMEN!
THAT’S TRUE… WHY ARE THEY MAKING PARKING IN A GARAGE LIKE MORTGAGE RATES?
You don’t have to park right where you live.
The UWS, in the 60s, has parking for less than $600 per month for cars.
You also neglected the insurance savings many would get from parking off street.
Best public transportation when people are getting pushed onto the tracks daily, or mugged robbed and who knows what else.. The buses the drivers have to have a partition which still doesn’t do the job from allowing passengers not to get to them. The trains are so loud you can hardly hear yourself think. This is bar far the best public transportation. We’re so far behind other places and they’re not being attacked on their transportation. Fares keep going up but nothing gets safer or better.
Well, I’m thinking many can walk. I’m not suggesting you park say in the Meat Packing District if you live in the West 60s.
Also, right, the City and State need to improve public transit for NY, NJ, and CT.
Best public transportation when people are getting pushed onto the tracks daily, or mugged robbed and who knows what else.. The buses; the drivers have to have a partition which still doesn’t do the job from allowing passengers not to get to them. The trains are so loud you can hardly hear yourself think. This is by far the best public transportation. We’re so far behind other places and they’re not being attacked on their transportation. Fares keep going up but nothing gets safer or better.
Less than $600 dollars a month? There are people who can’t afford to live in an apt and they’re working and they should be charging rates like that to park in a garage? They need to change the blocks that are two ways and very narrow, to one way. It makes no sense you can barely get one car down the street let alone two going in opposite directions. They need to take a hold of the double parkers and other traffic violations that are very harmful to so many… It’s so funny that the problems trying to be solved are not the ones most needed to be solved.
It is clear that these proposals ARE NOT INTENDED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS THAT MOST OF US ENCOUNTER. As I wrote above they are to provide even greater benefits to businesses and wealthy.
Q:
You don’t have to have a car if you can’t afford one.
I don’t follow this kind of logic. The parking garages are not going out of business because they are charging too much. It appears that they are charging exactly what the traffic will bear.
If the rates were lower, there would be more competition from poorer drivers, but the number of spaces would not increase.
Cars in New York are for rich people who can pay the going rate for parking garages. It is the poorer owners who suffer by having to compete (physically, not monetarily) for the now free street parking spots.
With ‘resident parking’ fees (with windshield stickers), the number of parking space would rise, the rich would continue to utilize garages, and no residents would be forced to pay for available spots in those same garages.
Supply and demand would affect those prices, and residents only would qualify for the cheaper ‘resident only’ spaces.
No?
This reads like it will simply allow Amazon and Fresh Direct to continue to block the truck route that is Columbus Ave for hours and hours.
Those 2 companies are the worst offenders, their trucks should be steeply fined for standing for more than 25 minutes in traffic lanes or at hydrants, or the illegal standing/parking spots.
Like $2000 per infraction, which are in the tens per day on the UWS in just the west 70s.
Not sure if it’s the program that’s so unclear, or the article discussing it. Or both. I didn’t have a clue what smart curbs even meant until seven paragraphs in. Edit!
I’m still not sure!! 🙂
Smart Curbs are a smart angle for businesses and those with plenty of money. For the rest of us it’s just more extraction from the many for the benefit of the few.
Maybe. But there is also “extraction” in the usurping of public (curb) space by the few (okay, lots of cars in Manhattan, but lowest car ownership in the country) from the many (people who walk, use buses, use subways, who don’t drive). So pay for the damn space. Ditto, by the way, for the restaurants who have squatted in public space, expanding their real estate at the expense of the public. And in many cases ruined the quality of life for those who live above them (not me; not sour grapes — just good common civic sense.)
And how do you feel about charging those using the public pools? And how do you feel about charging those who use the public tennis courts? And how do you feel about charging those who use the public pickleball courts? And how do you feel about charging those who use the public libraries? And how do you feel about charging those who use public parks?
The list of public spaces is ENOURMOUS. I bet you only want to take away those spaces that don’t benefit you.
No, absolutely not. All of those facilities are funded by a common consensus and are open to everyone to use as they are intended: swim in the pool; get books from the library; use the parks. the roadway is meant for cars to move. leaving cars sitting there is abusing the purpose. AND car ownership is far more limited — and exclusive — than those other public goods. ONLY people with cars can park. There is no such exclusivity for the other things. So, wrong. Check YOUR privilege, why don’t you. Including the “right” to occupy public space for a private car.
You people are so self righteous. If you wanted a car you could have one. So you don’t want one that is fine. But I have a right to one. With that comes the obligation to obey the laws. Look stout and see how many two wheel vehicles don’t and how many pedestrians don’t. Then we can talk.
I don’t have a car in the city so except for our family coming in for an occasional trip it really doesn’t matter to me. However, this seems like just another cash grab for the city. What’s next? Maybe we should charge people to walk on our crowded streets so we can cut down on foot traffic?
Part of Smart Curbs should be keeping bikes/mopeds/scooters/hover craft on the *lower* side of the curb. Imagine that.
BRING BACK PARKING SPOTS ON CPW – IF PEOPLE WANT TO RIDE BIKES ON CPW GO INTO THE PARK. RIDICULOUS ELIMINATING THOSE SPOTS!!!!
Why are car owners “better” than other tax paying citizens? Roads are for public use, not just those with cars.
Taken from another perspective, I pay to register and maintain my vehicle, and am subject to all traffic laws and regulations. Why should I give up the streets to means of transportation that are unregistered and free to do as they please? NOT ALL cyclists break traffic laws (the same laws auto drivers are subject to, btw). But until they register bikes and anything else that can knock me on my butt at 30mph, I’ll lay claim to my parking space, thanks.
Totally agree!
I agree and had said this a lot. Also the bikes do not follow the traffic laws at all. I watch from my living room window as the bikes speed up CPW (and sometimes down).
Permit parking for New York registered vehicles only!
There’s NY beyond NYC.
I’ve been a New York City resident for over 50 years. I also own a home out of state and my car is registered in the other state and I have license plates from the other state because I spend regular time there. I pay enormous property and income taxes in NYC. I know I am not alone. My son uses our car and spends time in New Jersey. He also is a NYC resident and apartment owner. Should we, and all the others like us, be deprived of a parking permit?
Totally fair.
You ask for ideas, but you do not give us an email address or website to submit them to, so Matthew, how does this work?
First course of action should be enforcing CURRENT traffic laws, including:
—-double parking, blocking lanes, bike & scooter laws and speeding
——-stand by the bike lane on Amsterdam in the 70s. There are more bikes in the car lanes and sidewalks than the bike lane
Lawlessness & lack of consequences is the root of the problem. Start enforcing the laws and then evaluate how to improve.
The city needs to bolster the number of bike/scooter cops, which enacting registration. It’s a major gap in the system — vehicles already subject to all the laws of cars, but no ability to enforce compliance.
I was told, recently, by a well-known former New York traffic official: there is NO, ZERO — single department responsible for traffic policy, rules, enforcement, planning or management in the entire city government. NONE! Police do the enforcing and it is certainly not top priority for them. . Hence bikes and cycles run amok; private appropriation of public curb space (Amazon; Fresh Direct…and more;) pedestrian deaths; …the list is long. Agitate and prod your council member about this. They can put this function in the budget. In the meantime, watch out for two-wheel and four-wheel menaces.
End free parking/require parking permits. Someone said “another money grab by the city”. No, sorry. Parking in this city has many public costs. That space belongs to all of us, and if you want exclusive use of it for hours on end, you should pay for it. (If I felt the need for some outdoor space during the summer, and set up a nice little lounging area at the curb or on the sidewalk for the summer months, with lounge chairs, tables, plants, etc for my use only. Would that be a right? Or a wrong? Just sayin’)
Just remember that anything Smart means added electromagnetic frequencies to our environment. These frequencies are harmful to human health. True for Smart anything – vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, home utilities, devices we carry with us. We already live in a sea of electromagnetic frequencies.
If they really want to hear from us – I’d like to see a link for making suggestions to the city!
Just remember that anything Smart means added electromagnetic frequencies to our environment. These frequencies are harmful to human health. True for Smart anything – vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, home utilities, devices we carry with us. We already live in a sea of electromagnetic frequencies.
*****No i haven’t already said that on this site. Please do not censor truth that people need to know. If u do u r contributing to the rise in •unexplained• illnesses.
On the day of the 2003 blackout, the air literally changed, as there was no “buzz” for the first time since..probably 1977. That said, it’s a tsunami of bandwidth, and I don’t suppose curtailing a traffic app is going to quash it. And is the city that advanced anyway?
This risks enabling more commercial parking, and taking parking away from the citizens of the city.
The idea of food delivery has unintended consequences. We should not do it as much, it is unsustainable.
1) Invest some of the money in city-subsidized garage parking for NYC residents.
2) Think hard about that “last mile” plan. Scooters, bikes, ebikes on the sidewalks are already at hazardous levels.
Excellent advice.
There’s only one thing free in NYC: parking. This is madness, but paying for parking is not going to solve the traffic problem anyway (Braess’s paradox).
Learn from Amsterdam: reduce the number of cars by facilitating per-hour rentals (Zipcar), building more exclusive bike lanes, building bike parking garages, etc.
No, there are lots of free public spaces in NYC, so watch them each disappear, once the precident is established for parking.
And let even more people get hit by two wheel vehicles. That makes a lot of sense.!!!
These comments capture perfectly the conflicting public goods that these spaces have to fill and the public harm of motorized private transportation. All stemming from the original sin of the automobile. And in an area that has the absolute best public transportation in the country.
Can someone convert the Bed Bath & Beyond and the Best Buy into parking garages? Maybe the Duane Reade on Bway @ 69th too?
Can’t think of anything less urban, less civil, than devoting whole blocks of street front space to….tada! the automobile. This isn’t Dallas or Houston or L.A. Great cities are made by urbanscapes that generate and propel human activitie. Imagine block after block of giant parking garages. Cars do a lot more damage than just their emissions.
rsp:
The Bed Bath Beyond space is basically all underground.
The Duane Reade space is too small.
Those spaces still have a dominant presence on the street. And by the way why would parking be any less expensive there?
Everything the city does makes it harder and harder for the west side residents. You took away so many spaces and allocated them for no standing and/or outdoor dining. It’s impossible to find a space when coming home from work or for guests coming to visit. When driving around some streets have be or 2 lanes where there were 4 just a few years ago. Bikes up the congestion. Terrible plan.
Boycott all stores belonging to the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District that is pushing for this.