Friday, February 1, 2008

Will Roosevelt Island's Parking Garage be Overun by Manhattan Drivers? (A Congestion Pricing Side Effect?)


As a side effect of congestion pricing will parking garages just outside the congestion zone be jammed with new monthly tenants looking to avoid the added fee to enter Manhattan below 60th Street? Will garages inside the zone have to drop rates to entice drivers to enter the zone? Will garages outside the zone jack up their prices?

Currently the monthly parking garage fees to park at Motorgate, the only public parking facility on Roosevelt Island stand at $160 per month for nonresidents which curiously is below the $180 rate charged to residents.

When I asked Erica Wilder, RIOC's community liason, about the rate discrepancy she replied that "[RIOC was] currently in the process of setting up current and appropriate rates for the Motorgate Garage.". I doubt they are changing rates due to congestion pricing but it was strange that nonresidents were getting a better rate. I hope they fix that discrepancy and also create a rate class for nonresidents that can prove they work on the island as they should not be penalized.

Comparing the current rates to the average Manhattan garage rates of a few hundred dollars per month not including the added congestion fees it almost would be worth it to a die hard driver to deal with the added red bus / mass transit commute to get from Roosevelt Island to Manhattan. Although most would probably scoff at this second commute they would need to take on just to save money. But there are always few folks who will do anything to save what will undoubtedly be a substantial amount of dollars.

1 comment:

  1. yes, we found the price differential for non-residents very peculiar when we signed up.

    we would love to see another parking garage somewhere, maybe closer to southtown. i know the island was designed for little car traffic, but i think there is added traffic from people driving down to southtown to drop off their goods and then back up. and as frank farance has shown us, there isn't enough street parking!

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