By Jeremy Walsh
The bill would give the owners of new hybrid vehicles free parking at meters and municipal lots within city limits for one year after purchase. Introduced Feb. 27, the legislation currently awaits a City Council Transportation Committee hearing.”The idea of free parking can be a major incentive for a potential consumer to purchase a vehicle that is environmentally friendly,” Monserrate said at a news conference at Woodside's Paragon Honda on Northern Boulevard. “This legislative measure will aide in the systematic decrease of the amount of carbon dioxide this city emits into the atmosphere.”Monserrate got support from City Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), who co-sponsored the bill.”It is a creative way for the city help do our part in fighting global warming,” Gennaro said in a statement.”Dealers should be leading the charge to get clean, high mileage-per-gallon vehicles to consumers and on the roads,” said Brian Benstock, Paragon Honda's vice president and general manager.But Monserrate and Gennaro are catching flak from Transportation Alternatives, a traffic advocacy group based in the city.”This bill betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how free parking exacerbates traffic and pollution from all types of vehicles,” Executive Director Paul White said, warning that free parking would result in more traffic and pollution.The incentive would encourage hybrid owners to drive more, increasing traffic congestion, White said. It would also cost the city substantial parking revenues, he warned. Estimating $1.50 an hour for parking eight hours a day, five days a week, White said each exempted hybrid would cost the city $3,000 a year in lost fees.Monserrate said he has also introduced resolutions urging the state Legislature to provide a sales and compensating use tax exemption for the purchase and maintenance of hybrid vehicles.White said the federal government already offers tax credits of up to $3,000 for purchasing hybrids – and rising gas prices are a further incentive.”Offering drivers money to buy a hybrid is like offering Warren Buffet money to buy an underpriced stock,” he said.Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e-mail at jwalsh@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
