Battery Park City parking changes

City Considers Parking Regulation Changes Downtown

Battery Park City parking changes
Street spaces are coming! Street spaces are coming! (Flickr/nyctaxiphoto)

Fed up with the serious lack of parking spaces anywhere below Canal Street? Pretty soon you might — just might — have a reason to dance a jig and thank your lucky stars. The Department of Transportation (DOT) is looking to change street parking regulations in Lower Manhattan, beginning with Tribeca.

At a recent meeting of Tribeca’s Community Board 1, DOT spokeswoman Suchi Sanagavarapu announced the plans, admitting that the regulations governing street parking in Tribeca were devised when the area was an industrial and commercial hub… and do not reflect the neighborhood’s current residential state.
“Our regulations have definitely not kept up, and we’ve been hearing about it from the community for years now,” Sanagavarapu confessed. “There seems to be a mismatch in terms of what the current land uses are versus what the current parking regulations are.”

These days, loading zones, strangely cut curbs and unused receiving docks dominate many of Tribeca’s residential blocks. Add to that fire hydrants, bus stops and those pesky construction zones, which seem to pop up just about everywhere, and finding a street sparking spot is just about as challenging as learning astrophysics.

Sanagavarapu says that the DOT plans to find areas in the neighborhood where they can add alternate-side or metered parking zones. And the best part? The DOT is aiming to do the very same thing for Battery Park City, the Financial District and the Seaport/Civic Center area.

So what will these parking regulation changes mean for Lower Manhattan? They should mean three things: 1) more parking spaces, which in turn means 2) less reason to double park, which, in turn, means 3) less traffic AND fewer parking tickets for residents and small business owners. Everyone wins!

About Tom

Tom is a writer and editor with a love of movies, books and all things Battery Park. He's also an avid runner with a soft spot for sunset runs on the Esplanade and sunset beers, well, pretty much anywhere.