Cars need to be obsolete in NYC and other major global cities. If one does not live there with residency requirements for 5 years there should not be parking anywhere.
This is the year 2010. Beside the insidious terrorist, we have concerns about carbon dioxide emissions. Extensive transportation infrastructure can serve people very, very well.
I lived in Boston for nearly a year recently and did so handily without an automobile. There simply is no reason for 'in city' parking. "Out of City" parking decks can be built at many train stops and should be. Permanent 'Out of City' parking decks should be seriously considered, while placing any real estate currently a parking lot within the city on the market for sale or a return to public use with parks as a focus.
Delivery trucks can be monitored by local 'on the beat' police officers with tough regulations that 'keep them moving' throughout the day. Unloading a 48 foot 'semi' doesn't take a week. Storage trailers need to be moved out of the city due to the value of the postage stamp space they occupy.
There are some aspects of 'opportunity to incident' that can be avoided and it is foolish not to avoid them. There is no reason why REGULAR commercial traffic in cities can't be 'permitted' to prevent random occurrences such as this.
