A new study, Driven to Excess: What under-priced curbside parking costs the Upper West Side (PDF), reveals the enormous costs to congestion, the environment and to public safety caused by drivers cruising for elusive curbside parking. Incredibly, the study finds that hundreds of thousands of excess miles are driven by drivers who have already arrived at their destination and are simply looking for a space. The study reveals:

• Drivers on Columbus Avenue cruise a total of 366,000 miles per year--roughly a one-way trip to the moon--in search of metered parking in the neighborhood. This produces 325 tons of Carbon Dioxide.
• The cost in wasted fuel to drivers is $130,000 per year, and more than 50,000 hours spent circling in traffic for a space.

"In a day and age when New York City is looking to reduce congestion, we need to look to the curb," says Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. "There are literally tens of millions of unnecessary miles driven in New York City every year because we’ve made such a mess of metered parking."

To eliminate parking-related congestion and reduce double- parking, Transportation Alternatives is calling for higher metered parking rates during peak hours that will boost turnover and create more vacancies, increasing the number of vehicles that each space can accommodate daily. Along with running meters later in the evening and enabling more flexible credit card payment options, this "performance-based" parking initiative can drastically reduce needless traffic.

The full report will be made available on Friday morning.

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View this press release in PDF format