State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris appeared on “Mornings On 1” Wednesday to defend a new proposal that would require some car owners to pay for parking permits in their neighborhoods.
The plan was proposed Tuesday as part of the state Senate’s budget proposal and would allow resident to get preferential parking in their own neighborhoods over cars coming in from outside the city.
“I represent western Queens and there's a lot of neighborhoods, like my own, where people from elsewhere come, drop their cars off in the morning and hop the subway to get a quick ride into Manhattan,” Gianaris said. “And that’s frustration that local residents have felt for years because they are coming home from work, or shopping or wherever they might be and they're having to circle their own block for a half hour, 45 minutes just trying to find a spot on their own street.”
Gianaris said the proposal would give the City Council the option of how and where to implement the permit parking.
Residents would be charged $30 per permit, and the Senate has estimated the plan could generate about $400 million annually for the MTA.
“The funding for this would go towards helping the MTA dig out of the hole that it's been in since the ridership fell during the pandemic. And the governor, by contrast, asked the city to just write a $500 million check every year to the MTA to cover part of the hole. We're trying to give the city some options,” Gianaris told NY1.
It remains unclear if Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Assembly will agree to adopt the proposal. The state budget is due on April 1.