After a rush of charter school proposals flooded in just before this year’s September 30 deadline, there are now 42 new applicants vying for the 16 spots left in New York State.

Thirty-four of them are looking to open schools in the five boroughs.

When the state approved the creation of charter schools in 1998, the law limited the number of such schools to 100. Charter school advocates yesterday called on the state to lift the cap.

“The demand by parents for better public schools calls for this cap to be removed,” the president of the New York Charter Schools Association, Bill Phillips, said. He said more than 10,000 students are on waiting lists across the state. The city’s schools chancellor, Joel Klein, a vocal proponent of charter schools, has long asked the state to lift the limit and has promoted raising private funds to create at least 50 charter schools across the city.

In New York City, about 12,000 students attend 47 charter schools; 15 opened this year.

“His enthusiasm has driven up the percentage of charter proposals in the city,” the director of development and policy for the New York Charter Schools Association, Peter Murphy, said. “Under previous chancellors, there was a much more even split between upstate and downstate.”

Mr. Klein last month unveiled a $250 million program to help fund construction costs for charter schools. The program is included in the Department of Education’s five-year capital plan.

Operated as independent public schools with their own boards of directors, charter schools are given five-year charters that can be revoked by the state if academic goals are not met.

They are not required to hire union teachers or follow citywide curriculum.

Critics of charter schools say the schools siphon away money and energy from the local public school system.

Among the new applicants is the United Federation of Teachers, which opened an elementary school this year in East New York, Brooklyn. It is now seeking to run a high school.

Seth Andrew, a teacher who attended public schools in Manhattan and the Bronx before going on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, applied to open the Democracy Prep Charter School in central Harlem.

With a $30,000 grant from the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, Mr. Andrew has been working for more than a year to put together his proposal. He was also given office space at the organization’s office, along with seven other applicants. Another 11 of the 34 city applicants also received grants.

Caps are fairly common across the country. Of the 39 states that allow charter schools, 26 have them. They range from six in Mississippi to 250 in Ohio, according to the Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter school organization.

In Arizona, which has no cap, almost 84,000 students are enrolled in 509 schools.

Garth Harries, the city education official in charge of new schools, said the “groundswell” of interest reflects a citywide interest in the energy around charter schools.