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Morning View - Castro Public Parklet

Several parking spots on Castro Street have been removed for a "public parklet."

Afternoon View - Convention Parking

NYC Gets The "Smartboot"

New York City is about to begin using the "smartboot," which can be removed by drivers themselves once they've paid their overdue tickets and received the removal code by phone.

Under the program, a city marshal will be deployed with teams of PayLock employees. The marshal will verify that a car has more than $350 in judgments, then authorize PayLock to boot it. The scofflaw can then call a toll-free number and pay his bill immediately by credit or debit card. PayLock will give him a code to self-release the boot. Or the driver can travel to a city payment center and pay his tickets and fees in cash, then get the release code. A motorist who owes $355 in parking tickets, for example, will have to pay an additional $180 for Paylock’s “boot fee,” $70 for a marshal’s “execution fee,” plus a “poundage fee” of 5% of the entire bill. In this case, that would be another $30. And, if the driver pays by credit card, he or she will be charged a small additional “convenience fee.” Drivers would be forced to shell out nearly $300 on top of the original $355 in tickets. That’s virtually the same amount as under the current towing system — even though the city will be towing far fewer cars.

After drivers remove the Smartboot, they'll also get charged $25 for every day that they don't return the device to the parking enforcement department.

Morning View - NYC Parking

I noticed that the parking garage in my building posted a new rate card over the weekend. No idea what qualifies as an "exotic car."

Bloomberg Battles Council On Stickers

The NYC Council wants to end the practice of slapping huge hard-to-remove stickers on cars that block the street cleaning machines. Bloomberg says he'll likely veto their decision, because car owners need to suffer for their lazy ways.

At a press conference yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared himself "adamantly" opposed to the City Council's recent vote to ban what members call "punitive" parking stickers, calling it "one of the less productive things that could be legislated." Last week, the City Council voted to bar the city's Department of Sanitation from slapping hard-to-unpeel stickers on the windows of cars that are violating alternate-side parking rules. Opponents of the practice say it takes an undue amount of elbow-grease, not to mention soapy water and a chiseling implement, to remove the stickers from their cars.

In some parts of Manhattan, there's an underground economy entirely based on paying people to move your car to avoid the stickers.

Parking Virtuoso Or Asshole?

(Via - Gothamist)

The $800,000 Parking Space

Apartments in a new Manhattan high-rise come with what are arguably the world's most expensive parking spots. Because the building has a dedicated car elevator that transports your vehicle up to an enclosed space outside your front door. An equivalent amount of floor space in that building would sell for about $800,000. Hit the link for more and for a video demo of the elevator. BTW, Martha Stewart enjoys a similar parking situation at the converted warehouse now serving as her corporate office.

The Extra Space Is For Jeebus

(Source)

Happy Park(ing) Day

Today is International Park(ing) Day, when anti-car activists in 140 countries transform urban parking spaces into mini-parks, lounges, playgrounds, and gardens. NYC apparently turns a blind eye to the event and Gothamist has some photos of last year's installations as well as a map for finding this year's "parks." It will not surprise you to learn that Park(ing) Day got its start in San Francisco.

UES Parking Rates

Last night Mayor Bloomberg said city residents should move their cars out of underground garages to "higher ground." To which everybody responded, "Yeah? Like where?" Anyway, this morning I noticed a long line of people waiting to get their cars out of the underground garage across the street and decided to snap a photo of their new rates.

Garage Door Magic

The owners of a Haight district apartment building found a clever way to maintain their building's Victorian facade when adding a garage.

Parking Wars

This winter's record 59 inches of snow has generated an issue seen more frequently in other cities than in New York - parking spot wars over dug out spaces. Some folks say that if they go through the back-breaking work of clearing a spot in front of their building, they are perfectly free to block that space with garbage cans until their return. Others say, bullshit, a space is a space and that there's no such things as "dibs" on a public street. Folks who move the "dibs" markers often return to find that the contents of that garbage can are now on the roof of their car. According to news reports, there have been quite a few fistfights in the last few days.

Installed By The Machine, Part 2

Flip This Space

Everybody knows parking is a nightmare in Manhattan. And yet that nightmare can provide a sublime sense of superiority to the vast majority of residents who don't own cars -myself included - although I'm occasionally inconvenienced due to friends having to circle my block for an hour searching for a space. An interesting recent NY Times story mentions that new residential buildings south of 60th Street are restricted to providing only one parking space for every five units. (The rules are slightly less restrictive above 60th street, where in some areas developers are required to provide more spaces due to higher car ownership.) I presume the intent is to discourage downtowners from adding to the gridlock, but I have to also wonder if the city's super-expensive parking garages didn't have a hand in that ruling.

According to the article, Manhattan parking spaces are selling for around $1100/sq. foot, just slightly lower than the average cost per square foot of an apartment. With the average parking space now costing $165,000, with some locations going for more than $225,000, some real estate speculators are buying just the parking space, with the mindset that being a parking space landlord is much easier than renting out an apartment. In the last year, 40 Manhattan parking garages have closed and only 23 have opened. At that rate, a parking space seems like a good investment.