Democratic state lawmakers have a new idea to fund New York City’s ailing public-transit system: residential parking permits.
The state Senate’s Democratic majority released its budget proposal Tuesday. It dismantled much of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s own plan to boost the struggling Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which relied on revenues from proposed casinos, contributions from New York City and a payroll tax increase to provide a jolt to the cash-strapped system’s revenue.
Instead, the Senate plan proposed a number of different revenue streams — including a residential parking system in New York City, with all permit fees flagged for the MTA.
“We agree with the governor’s goal (of saving the MTA), but then were struggling to come up with other ways to provide funding for the MTA,” said Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, D-Queens. “And one of the ideas that's been around for a very long time that many neighborhoods in the city have expressed an interest in exploring was this idea of residential parking.”
Under the Senate’s plan, the New York City Council would be granted broad authority to implement a permit-parking program for residents of specific boroughs or neighborhoods. There would be few restrictions, with the Council given wide latitude to pick which areas of the city would participate and what hours of the day the rules would be in effect.
That means residents of particular neighborhoods where outsiders often park — say, much of Manhattan or perhaps Long Island City — would in theory have more access to parking so long as they get a permit.
But it would also come with a cost: The city would be permitted to charge up to $30 a month for a parking permit. As it stands, most of the city’s roughly 3 million parking spaces are free.
Gianaris said Senate staff estimates the permit program has the potential to generate up to $400 million a year. That would nearly offset Hochul’s proposal to have the city contribute $500 million a year for paratransit and K-12 school transportation, which the Senate rejected in its plan.
But the reaction to the proposal was decidedly mixed.
“This is not even remotely feasible in 95% of neighborhoods in NYC,” Assemblymember Kenny Burgos, a Bronx Democrat, posted on Twitter.
Residential parking permits can be found in major cities throughout the country, but they’ve generally failed to gain traction in New York City — despite having been discussed since at least 2008, when then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg unsuccessfully pushed such a program.
Gianaris said neighborhoods in his district — which includes parts of Long Island City and Sunnyside — are often overrun with parked cars driven by people who stash their vehicle there just to take a train into Manhattan.
“It’s not unusual to hear horror stories of people driving around their own block of their home for 30, 45 minutes at the end of the night trying to find a place to leave their car,” he said.
Gianaris emphasized that the Senate’s plan doesn’t require the city to implement residential parking, but would rather empower it to do so if it chooses.
But that also means most of the politically difficult choices would be left to the Council, including choosing which neighborhoods to require permits and which would remain free.
City Councilmember Justin Brannan, a south Brooklyn Democrat, said the Council didn’t ask for residential parking.
“We all want and need a fully-funded MTA,” Brannan said. “The five boroughs already provide over 70% of the MTA’s operating budget through taxes, so I'd say New York City is paying its fair share and this just feels like cost-shifting.”
Renee Baruch, an Upper West Side resident and retired attorney, started an organization known as NYC Resident Parking last year to push for a permit program. In a text message, she said her organization endorses “any bill that would enable parking (even at a cost) to those who bear NYC registration on their cars.”
Along with residential parking, the Senate’s budget plan would advance other means for boosting the MTA, which has struggled with lagging ridership since the onset of the COVID pandemic.
For one, it would repeal a controversial 1982 state law that exempts Madison Square Garden, the famed arena, from paying property taxes. The exemption, which MSG has vigorously defended for years, is worth an estimated $43 million a year, money that would be redirected to the MTA under the Senate proposal.
The Senate’s plan would also impose an additional $.50-per-trip surcharge on Uber, Lyft and other ride-sharing apps to help fund the MTA and public-transit systems across the state, depending on where the ride originates. And it would increase the corporate franchise tax rather than Hochul’s plan to increase the MTA payroll mobility tax, which is imposed on businesses within the MTA service region.
At the same time, it would reject the MTA’s planned fare hikes for 2023 and 2025, as well as create a pilot program where two buses in each borough would be free to riders — both things that would cost the MTA money. (The state Assembly’s budget proposal rejected the fare hikes and included a free bus pilot, as well.)
Now, Hochul and lawmakers have to pass an on-time budget before the April 1 start of the state’s fiscal year. The Senate and Assembly are scheduled to pass their separate budget proposals on Thursday, a largely ceremonial vote.
Gianaris said the Senate’s proposals are designed to lay out a number of ways to fund the MTA as legislative leaders sit down to negotiate a final spending plan.
“It's just a host of options that we have to select from before the budget is done at the end of the month to get the MTA where it needs to get,” Gianaris said. “We're just trying to create alternatives so that we can select the best choices.”
