New York’s DC USA, but with a ferry instead of Metro

The New York Times claims Brooklynites aren’t hating the Red Hook IKEA quite as much as they anticipated. The water taxi to Manhattan and shuttle buses to downtown Brooklyn, which run every day and are available to non-shoppers, make the neighborhood more accessible. Hopefully they will stay; IKEA has only promised to keep them running on weekends.

There’s also a new waterfront esplanade, though it’s marred by the giant parking lot IKEA created atop a historic graving dock. That parking lot has only been used twice, despite strong sales at IKEA; according to the store manager, the lot is only for “insurance.” Hopefully they will decide to sell this useless lot so it can have more stores, housing, or a park one day; this is why cities like NYC and DC need strategically-targeted maximums. (Oops, I talked about the OP parking proposal. Sorry!)

In other Brooklyn parking news, Councilmember Simcha Felder wants to replace all meters with multi-space meters. These would enable paying with credit cards. Felder also wants NYC DOT to set up pay-by-phone citywide. It’s an especially great idea because once NYC has multi-space meters and pay-by-phone everywhere, it’s technologically easy to implement performance parking in high-demand areas of the city.

NYC Councilmembers are less pleased about losing their reserved spaces outside their district offices. Mayor Bloomberg took away these special privilages for four Councilmembers after controversy. They still have placards allowing them to park illegally, however, so they don’t entirely have to stoop to following the same rules as ordinary citizens.