"Life off the Hill": Owning a Car in New Haven

You don’t need a car to live in New Haven, but it can be helpful. Yale runs a shuttle service, but it has limited daytime service in East Rock (the Orange Line now runs through East Rock between 6pm and 7:30am most days of the year, however). Yale additionally provides Zip car service for a fee. There’s also the CT Transit buses, which are run by the state of Connecticut. Still, with the closing of the Shaw’s in New Haven, the closest supermarket is now in Hamden, which is not on the Yale shuttle route (there are smaller markets scattered through New Haven, and the price difference is usually negligible for most staples; my roommate’s grocery bill has gone up less than $10 a month since he started shopping at Nica’s).

However, a good portion of you are planning on bringing cars to New Haven. I certainly did; in Texas, no one walks any farther than it takes to get from the parking lot to the store, and I couldn’t imagine not having a car. It’s come in handy; I’ve been able to make trips to Ikea (and take friends to Ikea), buy more than a few day’s groceries at a time, and make it to class on time on days when I slept through my alarm. However, there are some things about car ownership in New Haven that are worth pointing out.

First, relatively few of the homes in East Rock have off-street parking (which would be something worth paying extra for, for the record). This means that if you don’t know how to parallel park, you should learn how to before moving. I didn’t take the time to do this (again, in Texas, you never have to parallel park, and my dad neglected to even talk about it when he was teaching me how to drive), and I definitely regretted that decision. So, for any southerners who are reading this, practice parallel parking now; it will probably save you several embarrassing moments where you’re crying in frustration in public because you’re smart enough to get into Yale but not smart enough to park your car.

That leads into the second point: since there’s a scarcity of off-street parking, New Haven requires a permit to park on most residential streets. The City of New Haven website has instructions on how to apply for one of these permits. They’re only $10, but there’s a catch: you have to register your car with the city to get one.

I know, that sounds simple, but it’s not. You see, most municipalities in Connecticut raise revenue through local property taxes. Now, where I come from, property taxes are levied on your house and land; in Connecticut, they’re also levied on your car or motorcycle. New Haven provides this information on its property tax policies. To make a long story short; to register your car with the city, you have to pay a property tax on 70% of the Blue Book value of your car. Currently, the tax rate in New Haven is $42.21/$1000 of value.

Unfortunately, this applies regardless of whether your car is registered in Connecticut or your home state. In fact, the entire time you’re in New Haven, you’re going to be taxed twice on your car; it sucks, I know, but I have to keep paying Texas registration fees and Connecticut property taxes, too. If it’s any consolation, I still come out slightly ahead when I compare what I pay with what my insurance would cost if my car was registered in Connecticut. Still, when I think of the property tax, I’m reminded of the consequences of taxation without representation discussed in my high school U.S. History class.

You can choose to not pay the property tax and park illegally on the streets. However, New Haven is very aggressive about parking tickets, and you run the risk of being booted or towed.

However, there is some good news; while all parking downtown is metered, you don’t have to pay to park after 7pm. It’s a small consolation, I know, but at least you’ll be able to afford downtown parking at night after paying your property tax.