Four New York City Boroughs Report Drop in Car Registrations

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Lost, Brooklyn vicinity: 76,245 cars, trucks and buses.

NEW YORK CITY — Lost, Brooklyn vicinity: 76,245 cars, trucks and buses.


Incredible as it might seem to anyone who has inched along the Gowanus Expressway lately or cruised for a parking spot in Brooklyn Heights, the state Department of Motor Vehicles says the number of automobiles registered in Brooklyn fell by almost 16 percent from 2000 to 2003 -- or 76,245.


Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx had similar drops (but not Staten Island, which registered a small increase) so that, citywide, the number of vehicles registered dropped 8.5 percent to 1.9 million in 2003, the last year for which figures are available.


One obvious explanation is that owning a car is getting increasingly expensive, what with rising gas prices, insurance rates, parking fines, bridge and tunnel tolls and garage parking rates. "Everything is getting higher in the ownership of an auto," said Motor Vehicles Department spokesman Joe Picchi in Albany.


And, he noted, New Yorkers have, as an alternative, one of the largest and safest mass transit systems -- and some of the most skilled and entertaining taxi drivers.


At least that's how it added up for fashion industry product developer Aprill Osborne, 37, when she decided in 2003 to give up her 1995 Honda Prelude. A lifelong New Yorker, she said she hardly used the car because she was reluctant to give up a parking spot, something precious in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, where she lives. She did, of course, have to move it regularly for alternate-side street-sweeping, another nuisance. Then, there was insurance -- $1,200 a year. "I was like, this doesn't make sense," she said.


Ken Goldstein, senior economist at the Conference Board, a not-for-profit group that provides information for businesses, guesses that for many drivers, the decision to abandon the car results not just from the rising cost of owning one but also the soaring cost of housing, which is eating up larger chunks of household budgets. "I agree that [the cost of car ownership] is getting higher and higher," he said. "But I don't think it's getting higher at a faster pace than before."


It's not just privately owned cars that have declined in numbers; commercial vehicle registrations fell by 11 percent from 2000 to 2003, the state said.


Goldstein theorizes that rising real estate costs might be at play here, too, providing an incentive for businesses to garage -- and register -- their vehicles outside the city. Other possible factors, he said: a slump in business from the recession and the Sept. 11 attacks, and the growing use of the Internet instead of mail to move information. The state also says 8,000 fewer taxis were registered in the five boroughs in 2003 than in 2000, a decline of almost 17 percent. While the number of yellow medallion cabs has been increasing, transportation consultant Bruce Schaller of Brooklyn says higher insurance rates and the last recession reduced by thousands the number of other for-hire vehicles operating in the city over the past four years.


There also were declines in rental cars -- in fact, of nearly every type of vehicle except motorcycles and mopeds, which increased, though not nearly enough to replace all the missing cars, trucks and buses.


Another factor that might be part of the equation: registering the car somewhere other than the owner's primary residence such as at summer or weekend homes, at relatives' addresses outside the city, or at phony out-of-town addresses. Police and insurance industry executives say all are commonplace, though it's not clear if they're growing in frequency. "Setting up fake addresses in places where premiums are lower is alive and well," said Jim Quiggle of the national Coalition for Insurance Fraud. "How widespread it is, is not clear."


Sgt. John Moran, who serves on a Police Department fraudulent-accident investigations squad, agrees it's common. "If you ride in any neighborhood in the city, take a look at all the out-of-state plates," he said. "It's pretty obvious all these people aren't visiting."


Unregistered cars being operated illegally represents another unknown.


But it also seems that many New Yorkers are driving less. City transit ridership is up, by about 200,000 passengers a day since 2000, to a record 7 million.


When she needs a car, Osborne rents one from Zipcar, a Massachusetts-based company that offers self-service access to vehicles stored at garages in Manhattan and Brooklyn.


Said Osborne, "Do I a miss owning a car? Not at all."


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