In the last couple of years, New York City Mayor Bloomberg has done an impressive job in creating a vision of New York as a model of a sustainable city, even as it develops. And yet, even as the Bloomberg administration rolls out new pedestrian, bicycle, and transit projects seemingly every week, it has harbored a counterproductive blind spot: parking construction.

One symptom of this blind spot has been routine City Planning Commission approval of parking garages requiring permit requests. Last week the Commission favorably reviewed a 400-space public and accessory parking garage in traffic-choked Hell’s Kitchen, a move which makes approval likely. CHEKPEDS and Manhattan Community Board 4 oppose the garage due to the extra traffic it will induce. (See also Streetsblog, “Hell’s Parking Lot.”)

A quick review of Commission reports dating from June 2006 shows that the Commission has reviewed eight other permit requests for parking garages (totaling 1,299 parking spaces) and approved every one of them. Of the eight, six are south of 60th Street in Manhattan, a zone that is subject to federal Clean Air Act limits on the amount of off-street parking allowed per building (see MTR # 565). In this area, special permits are required for all new public parking garages and any accessory garage that provides spaces for more than 20% of building occupants.

These permits comprise only a portion of the total parking being built in NYC, a quantity which is very difficult to track. (Similarly, no one knows how many parking spaces exist in NYC or even in Manhattan alone.) It’s clear that NYC’s development boom is causing a parking boom, however; in most neighborhoods outside of the Manhattan CBD, developers are required to provide parking in new residential and commercial developments. This extra capacity amounts to an incentive for people to choose to drive in the city, a phenomenon acknowledged in many of the Planning Commission reports.

While the Hell’s Kitchen lot was vigorously contested, other garage hearings have been marked by a dearth of opposing voices. At hearings for the eight permits TSTC reviewed, those speaking in favor of the garages outnumbered those opposed by 23 to 0. What does this mean? It means opponents of increased parking supply should get out to individual hearings and fight the parking glut at the root. The Planning Commission’s calendar of public meetings is online.