America’s Most Expensive Place to Park: Manhattan

Parking in Manhattan is still more expensive than it is anywhere else in the country. But if you’re just driving in for a day, you’re currently getting a better deal than you did last year.

Midtown monthly parking rates fell 2% to a median of $538, while downtown rates rose 6% to $529, according to a survey of parking rates released Thursday by real-estate brokerage Colliers International.

That means Midtown and downtown Manhattan have the highest monthly rates in the U.S. Boston — where salaries are higher — places third, at $425 a month.

Some small comfort for drivers: at least New York City isn’t the world’s most expensive place to park. According to the Colliers survery, eight other central business districts around the world are more expensive than NYC. The most pricey place to park a vehicle is the City of London, where monthly stowage costs $933.

For daily parkers, however, things are looking up. It’s now cheaper to park in downtown Manhattan for a day, at $31, than it is in Boston or Honolulu. Daily rates downtown fell 18% from last year, while daily rates in Midtown — still the most expensive U.S. market — fell 9% to $40.

The decline in daily rates could be due in part to cost-conscious consumers who have cut back on driving to the city, opting instead to take the train to see a Broadway show, for instance.

“Daily parking is more sensitive to the general economy,” said Colliers Chief Economist Ross Moore.

But there’s also a longer-term trend of people who come to Manhattan using more public transit. The Department of City Planning found that the number of people driving into Manhattan dropped by 57,000 from 2000 to 2007 — even as the number of jobs on the island increased by 212,000.