The Hidden Costs of Free Parking for Teachers

School employees will soon be getting parking placards to allow them to allow them to park for free in certain spaces in New York. Charles Komanoff writes that this policy will put more cars on the street, making the city more congested, polluted, and dangerous. That congestion will cost the city money and the revenue associated with placards they may have sold.  

Mayor Bill de Blasio points out that there will be the same number of parking spaces, but, of course, that doesn't mean that more people won't be trying to park. "Apparently no one in City Hall tasked NYC DOT with quantifying the slowdowns that await other travelers when thousands of new weekday car trips begin wriggling like tadpoles to their promised free parking spots," Komanoff writes.