New York's variable-price parking program proves a boon to a Brooklyn neighborhood

Higher parking prices at busy times are allowing businesses in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood to serve more customers, a review of the city's Park Smart program finds.

In April 2009 the New York City Department of Transportation introduced its Park Smart program — which raises the prices of on-street spaces when demand is highest — to its first neighborhood outside Manhattan. Peak-hour meter rates doubled, to $1.50 from 75 cents an hour, on two commercial corridors in Park Slope, a section of Brooklyn sometimes called "No-Park Slope" because finding a parking spot there used to be an exercise in frustration.

DOT has since measured the changes in parking occupancy and congestion, and declared the pilot program a success, Noah Kazis reports on StreetsBlog.org in an article available here.  "As intended, during the peak period, the average amount of time that drivers parked in the pilot area decreased significantly" — 17 percent on one avenue, 23 percent on another, Kazis writes. Higher turnover has meant more customers for the shops and restaurants lining each corridor.

By eliminating some of the endless cruising for open parking spaces, the program also apparently brought about small reductions in peak traffic volumes — by 5 percent on Fifth Avenue and 9 percent on Seventh Avenue, according to DOT. With the statistics telling a success story, "DOT has proposed making the pilot permanent and significantly expanding the zone in Park Slope," Kazis adds.