UWS Transportation Committee Refines Ask For Parking Study

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The Upper West Side community board's transportation committee passed a new resolution requesting a city study of the optimal use of curb space in the neighborhood Tuesday, weeks after a similar resolution was shot down by the full board.

The noticeable difference: Tuesday night's resolution makes no mention of "free parking."

Instead, the transportation committee's new resolution simply calls on the city Department of Transportation to study use of curbside space on the Upper West Side and to determine whether possible alternative uses such as residential parking permits and an increase of metered parking "could provide greater benefit to the community."

CB 7 Transportation Committee chair Howard Yaruss said that the committee desires a study because problems such as congestion, double parking and drivers cruising for parking currently plague the Upper West Side. The resolution also references a possible uptick in congestion and drivers searching for parking in the area following the implementation of congestion pricing in Midtown.

"What we have before us is a resolution asking the city for input on how to improve the situation. That's it," Yaruss said.

"Free parking is not on the agenda tonight, it may never be on the agenda," Yaruss added, saying that a resolution adopted by the committee in May advising the city to discontinue free parking for private vehicles is "gone."

Community Board 7 Chair Mark Diller said Tuesday night that the transportation committee's new resolution will not be voted on by the full community board until a series of smaller community meetings are held to form a "consensus" on the issue. Dates for those meetings were not announced during Tuesday's meeting.

A vocal group of Upper West Siders have accused Yaruss and CB7's transportation committee of an anti-car bias ever since the panel contemplated eliminating free curbside parking in the Spring. Yaruss has denied holding a bias against cars and maintained that the board's current actions are simply a request for a study, not an ask to reduce parking in the neighborhood in any way.

Read Patch's coverage of this month's CB7 full board meeting here.