Editorial comment: Lost in spaces

Park Slope in Brooklyn was given a long break from alternate side parking rules not long ago, and, to everyone’s surprise, there were even fewer spots available for people to park.

The parking fairy has made an appearance and waved his magic wand over Riverdale and Kingsbridge, bringing spots and a chance to sleep in to all the good boy and girl drivers of the area.

In a single week, two banes of New York existence have been banished from our streets.

The never-ending hassle of alternate side of the street parking?

Poof! Gone!

Merchants of Kingsbridge, who have worried endlessly over a lack of parking for patrons?

Worry no more!

It’s almost unspeakable largesse, and it’s also going to be a fascinating experiment. Take alternate side, first.

The rules have changed through the years, but, essentially, they have called for people in residential areas to get in their cars, start them up and then double park them across the street to allow giant beat-as-theysweep- as-they-clean machines to get by and do a mediocre job of cleaning the street along the curb. The streets have long been cleaned twice a week on both sides of the street, meaning that an unlucky parker might have to move their car during the day for an hour and a half a day, four days a week.

A pain, beyond doubt.

People have been known to circle for hours — and hours — looking for a spot on the “good side,” a spot from which the vehicle won’t have to be moved for a full day or more. The great former New York Times columnist Calvin Trillin has even written a book on the subject. And the show Seinfeld introduced the concept to the rest of the country, when Kramer went into the business of moving other people’s cars for alternate side. Hilarity ensued.

So, for six to eight weeks, we don’t have to move our cars to get the streets cleaned. And, when that time is over, there will be thousands of new signs on poles showing kinder and gentler rules for street cleaning regulation. In most cases, the number of days that cars will need to be moved will be reduced from two days to one on each side of the street.

And we can thank endless pushing from Community Board 8 and local officials for this much-sought change.

Here’s the experiment, part, though. Park Slope in Brooklyn was given a long break from alternate side rules not long ago, and, to everyone’s surprise, there were even fewer spots available for people to park in than when alternate side was in effect. When all the spots are “good,” who would be so foolish as to pull out? It turns out that alternate side has an important role in stirring the parking pot, beyond driving residents nuts. Riverdale and Kingsbridge, too, could become a stagnant parking nightmare. We’ll know shortly.

The other experiment will get under way when the big parking lot on Broadway near West 231st Street reopens. It was closed so that the not-to-be-built-in-our-lifetimes Broadway Plaza development could take up that space.

It hasn’t, of course.

So, now Kingsbridge’s merchants are getting what they’ve clamored most loudly for: a place for patrons to park without fear of imminent ticketing, if they’re able to find a spot at all.

Will these patrons come back?

Many have probably found other places to eat and shop since the old parking lot has been closed. And, it’s no news that people with cars have long been abandoning places like Kingsbridge to do their shopping in the suburbs. Will a new lot really reverse that trend?

And is it parking alone that has hurt business along the Broadway corridor, or has competition from a wider world made things tougher as well?

Parking will soon be easier to find in Kingsbridge — every local official we’ve got says the lot should be open before the holidays. Now it’s time for the store owners and restaurant managers to ensure that the products they sell are ones people want to buy and that the food put on tables is as good as can be got anywhere.

It’s important to remember that just because there’s a spot available, it won’t fill up if it’s nowhere people want to go.

This is part of the November 5, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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