Pulse: The Parking Crusade

Once again this year, some downtown parking providers pigged out on Flower Show traffic. As the streets around the Convention Center filled with fresh sheep to fleece, nearly a quarter of the nearby parking lots picked the flower people’s pockets with pumped-up rates.

City regulations put almost no restrictions on parking rate changes, which invites this kind of event-based gouging. For months I’ve been floating the notion that parking companies should be permitted to adjust their rates only 12 times a year, on the first of each month. Now, City Councilman Jim Kenney has introduced a bill that would make one-rate-per-month the law.

The parking companies should love the idea. I’m serious. After the Flower Show, Parkway Corp. president Rob Zuritsky complained in the Daily News that all the parking companies were being blamed for the actions of a few. Well, this new regulation should keep those bad apples in line.