In the fall of 2001, in the thick of his first campaign for mayor, Michael Bloomberg said:

As mayor, to encourage the use of mass transit, I pledge to lead by example. During my administration, I will use public transportation at least once every day... 

Mayor Bloomberg has remained true to his word, regularly commuting to City Hall by subway and earning the moniker “MetroCard Mayor”.  Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff is also an avid clean commuter, often commuting by bike via the Hudson River Greenway.

But what about the commuting habits of the tens of thousands of municipal employees under their charge?  According to a new study, city workers drive to work at twice the rate of the general population.  The reason: perks that permit city workers to park-- free of charge-- anywhere they please, even on city sidewalks.

The new Schaller Consulting study, "Top 10 Drive-to-Work Census Tracts in Manhattan," reveals that 33% of government workers commute to their jobs by car, while only 13% of workers in the finance, insurance and real estate industries and 11% of workers in professional and management services drive to work. 

Further, the study finds that if government workers were to commute by car at the same rate as the general population, there would be 14,000 fewer cars streaming into the Manhattan Central Business District (Manhattan south of 59^th street) each day. That’s 14,000 fewer cars polluting the air and taking up valuable sidewalk and curb-side space that could be better used to accommodate pedestrians, generate parking revenue and enable deliveries.

Clearly, our streets and sidewalks would be less congested if the mayor were to revoke the unfair parking privileges enjoyed by workers at the NYPD, Department of Transportation and other city agencies. 

If our city’s influential class of civil servants were to A to B like the rest of us, another benefit would result: city workers’ decisions about out city’s transportation policy would reflect a deep understanding of the hardships that our city’s supermajority of subway, bus, bike and pedestrian commuters face everyday.

For more information about the study, visit www.transalt.org