New York City mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer says he's leading Democrats to the Promised Land. At a rubber-chicken dinner at a local Brooklyn Democratic club last week, he announced, "This is the year we send the message coast to coast: It starts here in New York City. Then we go to Albany, and then we take back the White House for Democrats."

How is Freddy going to make it happen? Simple. He is going to give churchgoing New York City motorists free parking on Sunday. Ferrer essentially kicked off his mayoral campaign at an East Harlem church a couple of weeks ago, with an attack on Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2002 decision to eliminate free Sunday parking meters. "I believe that there shouldn't be a tax on worshipping," Ferrer told the crowd of mostly European tourists, baffled that they were being treated to a political speech rather than gospel music. "People shouldn't have to pay to pray. People shouldn't have to feed the meter to worship." The snappy soundbites combined with the fact that the church was called the Greater Highway Deliverance Temple ensured massive media coverage, and Ferrer's first major policy proposal of the 2005 election was thus launched.

It raises intriguing questions. If churchgoers shouldn't have to feed parking meters on Sunday, what about Jews on Saturday? Perhaps they should have to pay for parking as a form of punishment. Jews aren't supposed to drive on the Sabbath. Then you've got Muslims praying five times with a Sabbath on Friday to boot. If they got a deal on meters New Yorkers might start converting to Islam just for the parking benefits. New York City's alternate-side parking calendar already gives breaks for holidays as obscure as Idul-Adha, Orthodox Holy Thursday and Shemini Atzereth. Once you reinstate free Sunday meters in front of churches, what's going to stop the city's Zoroastrians and Hare Krishna from asking for their own special breaks? More important, since the majority of New Yorkers don't own a car at all, what kind of break do they get? If, say, yoga is your spiritual practice, why should you have to pay subway fare on your way to class?

Mayor Bloomberg, still much more the rational manager than pandering politician, quickly noted that parking meters actually serve a vital role. On busy commercial streets, meters help ensure a turnover of parking spots. They prevent people from monopolizing parking spaces for an entire weekend. Mom-and-pop businesses depend on this. In fact, since Sunday is now much more a day of commerce than a day of rest, meters make it much more likely that motorized churchgoers will be able to find a parking space at all.

Most important, parking fees deliver much-needed cash to city coffers. In 2004 the city collected $91 million from single-space meters, according to the Times. Of that, $7 million came from Sunday meters and another $5 million from Sunday parking tickets. These parking fees are a fair and well-deserved tax on the city's costly, privileged, motoring minority. Space is one of New York City's most valuable and limited resources. Just because someone chose to buy a Chevy Avalanche doesn't give that citizen the right to freely annex and occupy the city's street space for its storage. If anything, the city should award Mr. Avalanche's pathologically selfish consumer choice by making his motoring and parking as inconvenient and expensive as possible.

New York City economist and activist Charlie Komanoff is an advocate of developing a congestion-pricing tolling system for New York City. This type of urban tolling has been enormously successful in London. In addition to delivering environmental and quality-of-life benefits, congestion pricing, according to Komanoff's calculations, could raise as much as $700 million annually. He is disappointed in the opening salvo of the Ferrer campaign. "If Freddy Ferrer won't stand up for civic and constitutional principles, let alone a driver's self-interest in finding a parking space, what hope is there that he'll stand up for the public good on an issue like East River bridge tolls?"

If Freddy Ferrer really thinks the future of New York City is all about free Sunday parking, then he needs to take a closer look at last year's presidential election. John Kerry and the Democrats blew it in 2004, in part, because they chose to pander to Americans' most selfish, fearful, and small-minded instincts rather than putting forward a progressive vision and a collective call to action addressing the big challenges ahead.

The big challenges that face New York City in the coming mayoral term are pretty clear: The MTA is on the verge of unprecedented financial collapse, energy prices have begun a permanent upswing, housing prices are massively inflated (and, perhaps even scarier, the housing bubble may very well burst), the governor isn't funding the city's school system, and, of course, this is all happening against a backdrop of growing environmental-health crises and the threat of Jihadist lunacy. You'll note that free Sunday parking isn't on that list.

Putting a few quarters back in the pockets of churchgoing motorists might win Ferrer the job he seeks. But it definitely isn't going to help the city.

Photo by Lisa Whiteman

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