“It is beginning to look a lot like Xmas....” a time that promises comfort and joy, but there is another literal sign of the season: the municipal sign of FREE PARKING. This sign brings no music, but it is just as annoyingly insistent. From Montclair to Morristown, free parking is offered as a gift. To encourage localism and support small-town merchants, a nod to hometown cheer. A nostalgic gesture in the form of a subsidy for a system that harms us all. Free parking privileges private vehicles over public health, the natural world, and a stable future.
The holidays are supposed to be a time of reflection and generosity, but this ritual of free parking cultivates the opposite, parking lots outside the holidays contribute to the heat islands effect and runoff, but during this time free parking contributes to a frantic and circling-the-drain individualism. It turns our town centers into ephemeral seas of asphalt, where the quest for a vacant spot overrides everything. The consequences are measured in increased C02 emissions and anxiety. It literally incentivizes careless driving. Studies show there is a seasonal surge in traffic collisions, as much as thirty-five percent, between Black Friday and New Year’s. This is not correlation, it is causation. It is the outcome of policy.
Pedestrian fatalities, already at a generational high, spike during the dark, celebratory weeks. Headlights glare on wet and icy pavement, the lethal combination of spirits and speeding, and the ever-larger profiles of the vehicles themselves. In New Jersey alone, pedestrian deaths have climbed forty percent in recent years, a statistic that reads not as an accident but as a verdict on our planning priorities.
Free parking represents a political choice, a diversion of public resources and imagination away from transit, away from safe walking and cycling infrastructure, and toward the continued dominance of the car.
We can do this differently! Imagine a town where transit is free from Thanksgiving to the New Year. The money gained from parking meters could fund shared transportation, and bikelanes. It is the gift of a parking benefit district. This would be a practical gift, especially considering the "transportation sector, and particularly passenger cars and light-duty trucks," are major drivers of the climate crisis in New Jersey. Why are we subsidizing cars?! New Jersey has one of the lowest car ownership rates. So, who or what does 'free' parking help?
It supports an ideology.
We can see the future; not only do we have Manhattan, but we also possess glimpses of an alternative on New Year’s Eve. Many cities offer free rides on New Year’s Eve. Why restrict that logic to a single night? Why not expand it into a season of genuine care?
The vision is not utopian. It is the next necessary pragmatic step: Accessible frequent transit, pedestrianized shopping districts, streets reclaimed for strolling and celebration rather than storage and double parking.
We send a horrible message with free parking. It is Weltanschauung, absorbed by every child strapped into a back seat. It teaches that convenience is paramount, that the private realm outweighs the public, and that the atmosphere itself is a suitable sacrifice for the pursuit of a curbside spot.
We need to begin embracing the true spirit of the holidays. Policy that encourages community, stewardship, and shared joy. This calls for a different kind of town planning and a different kind of policy. Let us plan for encounters, not isolation. We need to support shared, accessible, and sustainable modes of transportation. The best gift is a way out of the car.
