Here is DoF Commissioner Martha Stark’s testimony explaining the Stipulated Fine Program. Essentially, DoF sells commercial vehicle operators the right to break the parking laws.

I was told over the phone by the program administrator that there is no reduced fine for safety violations such as blocking a hydrant, but since the list of fine reductions is not publicized, there’s no way to tell for sure. the program adminsitrator was unable (or unwilling) to tell me whether fines for parking the bike lane are reduced or eliminated under the plan.

In 2005, it was estimated that the program saved the City $1 million a year in adminsitrative costs, which hardly seems worth it. I suspect that the program actually brings in money by encouraging illegal parking which results in payment of lots of uncontested $25 fines (the amount paid on fines that are merely reduced not completely eliminated under the program). Still not worth it, when you consider the impact on observance of parking rules generally of allowing a large class of vehicles to violate the law with impunity.

The Program states that participants must agree to make efforts to avoid violating the law, but obvioulsy the effect of the program is to encourage exactly the opposite behavior. I sent DoF a FOIL request seeking information on this and other concerns raised by the program in 2006 and they still are avoiding making any response. I’ll have to ratchet up the pressure in light of this legislation.

Larry, good point, this DoF program is antithetical to demand-pricing of curbside space.

Why is Yassky supporting this? I almost wrote a check to support his bid for Comptroller, but not if he’s behind this garbage. I thought he was a big environmental guy…

These penalties are meant to be punative. The system should operate in exactly the opposite way. A one time offender could be given a warning or have the fine suspended and only reinstated if there is a subsequent violation. A multiple offender should have ESCALTING penalties, not a bulk discount.

Yassky, who happens to be my councilman, also supported Quinn’s pedicab ban. Maybe he has an evil twin brother because I cannot understand either of these votes when compared to the hybrid taxi bill and his strong support for CP.

I remember when the plan was put into effect it was presented as, if you agree to not contest certain fines, we will give you a reduced fine that reflects the number of these types of tickets that get thrown out. That way the City and the businesses are spared the administrative expenses of contested tickets but he same amount of money (on average) actual changes hands. If that is still all there is to it, it isn’t quite as evil as you make it sound. They effectively offer this to non-commercial parking tickets as well. After pleading guilty to certain violations, you get an offer of paying a reduced fee to give up your not guilty plea.

That said, the laws must be based in reality. Clearly delivery trucks need a place to park for short periods in order to make deliveries. Delivery vehicles beat individuals driving to get the stuff-though bicycle delivery should be encouraged. How about reserving curb side space on each block for which delivery companies pay by the minute with a swipe card.
Alternatively, a fee based permit for delivery vehicles allowing double parking for very limited periods (5 min max), provided the parked vehicles do not block traffic (specific regs)-with high fines for violating the rules.

Good, maybe now trucks will totally overrun Class II bike lanes, and bicyclists will lose the dangerous delusion that they’re safe places to ride, and will instead take up a car lane–and go as SLOW as they want!

Without radical street surgery, it’s the only way to reclaim rights and space.

Schizophrenia isn’t unique and particular to Yassky, whadaboud Bloomberg?

The pipedream solution to the truck parking issue is mass transit for cargo. Not every dinky little store needs to have their own fleet of half-empty box trucks making daily deliveries. You have distribution centers located outside the main business areas and move less-than-truckload shipments in reusable cargo containers (like the intermodal containers used on container ships but sized for local deliveries). Charge flat, affordable rates per container. Use long articulated trucks to make a single delivery for each block once or twice or three times each day. We move people and garbage this way, why not goods? Highly time-sensitive deliveries could be made by licensed couriers. Full truckload and temperature-senitive deliveries could be made during off-hours only. Everything else would be banned or tolled heavily to enter at all.

Ken,

Your members park their trucks in bike lanes hundreds, perhaps, tens of hundreds of times per day across New York City.

This irresponsible action by truck drivers endangers cyclists, forcing them to veer off and merge into motor vehicle traffic.

Have you ever done anyhing to inform your members of the danger of double-parking and unloading in bike lanes?

Have you ever done anything to push for curbside parking reform or to advocate for physically protected bike paths located between the parked cars and the sidewalk?

How exactly do you “support” livable streets advocates?

Ken, the TEA issuing the summonses generally don’t recognize the difference between double parking and double parking in the bike lane. If they did, you would see more violations for bike lane parking. The TEA are incentivized to write as any summonses as possible, but they only rarely issue summonses for bike lane parking. I know this from looking at the lists of summonses of chronic bike lane violators and other sources.

Also, there are delivery workers who deliberately seek out bike lanes as a place to park because they can expect them to be clear, even when they could equally well double park in front of the addresses to which they are making deliveries. These Fedex guys park in the Central Park West bike lane across the street from their delivery destination every morning, six days a week. I have spoken to them about it but they won’t move. They like the extra room available in the bike lane as a place to sort their packages prior to delivery. And, I suppose, if they were to park in front of the residences to which they deliver, the residents and doormen might complain. I can tell you from personal experience, and based on these ~200 posts of illegal parking by FedEx–some of which document attempts to involve the company in addressing the illegal parking by drivers–Fedex does not care about illegal and dangerous parking by its drivers. Individual drivers routinely rack up thousands >in fines, and nothing changes. UPS and are no different. I end up paying for this illegal parking twice–once as a bicyclist, then a second time as a consumer because of the heightened shipping costs these companies pass through to me based on the (reduced) fines needlessly incurred because their drivers so often don’t even attempt to find legal parking.

The DoT’s description of the Stipulated Fine Program states that it “requires participating companies to make good-faith efforts to comply with New York City Traffic Rules.” In December 2006 I sent DoF a FOIL request for “all records referring to or evidencing the termination of any participant in the [Stipulated Fine] Program from the Program, based on a participant’s failure “to make good-faith efforts to comply with New York City Traffic Rules.” The DoF finally responded after 17 months, notifying me last week that “there are no records responsive to your request.” That means DoF has never terminated a participant from the Stipulated Fine Program for failing to attempt to follow the law. It is not surprising that bicyclists–who daily bear the brunt of this system of officially sanctioned illegal and dangerous parking–are not convinced by statements of good intentions when the reality is so demonstrably different.

Ken, institutionalizing the Stipulated Fine Program is the last thing we want to do. If you were correct that it discouraged participants from safety violations in the bike lane, then we would see these commercial courier delivery vehicles double-parked parked opposite rather than in the bike lane. Bike lanes are few and far between, there are almost always open spaces for double-parking directly opposite a bike lane, especially in residential neighborhoods. But the actual effect of the program is to lead these guys to just park wherever the hell they please without regard for the consequences. They simply don’t care. The best you can say is that the program has not had an effect because these guys have never given a damn where they park.

As for the “big guys” versus operators of smaller fleets, why don’t you give me some examples of smaller fleet operators and we’ll see if they have ended up on MyBikeLane. My guess is they have, even though that site only shows the tip of the iceberg in terms of bike lane parking in NYC. It is the big guys one would expect to have the most professional and effective training programs, not the smaller operators. If Fedex can’t get it together enought to train its drivers not to incur thousands in tickets, how will Joe’s Trucking Inc.?

For the record, and as I have commented here previously on many occasions, I believe the solution is a dramatic expansion of dedicated curbside parking spaces for commercial deliveries, including on residential streets. The remaining parking spaces (at least in densely developed areas) should be largely or completely converted to non-commercial long-term metered parking carefully priced to market so that everyone pays for the “free” parking space they get.

Ken, you seem to think the SFP is a “win-win” program because commercial vehicle operators pay less for parking illegally while the city saves on administrative costs. In my view it is “win-lose-lose”: The operators win because they pay less. The city loses because is saves a measley $1 million in estimated adminsitrative costs which is almost certainly far less than the amount in revenue from fines it is losing. (As the “foremost authority” Ken, do you have any recent statistics on the amount fine revenue that has been forgiven under the program?) Most importantly, the people–bicyclists, motorists, bus patrons, residents–lose big time, due to the congestion and danger caused by illegally parked trucks.

It is irrefutable that a reduction in the fine creates an incentive to break the law. The fact that the more dangerous parking violations result in smaller reductions than other violations is hardly a reason to support a codification of the the program. There are reductions under the program for parking in the bike lane, blocking a fire hydrant, taking a “handicap only” space, and parking on the sidewalk and crosswalk. As any NYC resident knows, when people see trucks breaking these laws, they feel more comfortable committing the same violations with cars. The program generates lawlessness and creates danger.

And the reason we need the program is because trucks need relief from parking fines? Costs which they pass on to customers 100%? Only with full enforcement of the parking laws against trucks will trucking companies have an incentive to avoid incurring fines in the first place. With relief from the fines–even partial relief–improved compliance with parking rules will have less effect on the bottom line, and therefore the incentive to comply will be less.