NYPD’s Superb New Double-Parking Flyer

Here’s a message we’re not used to seeing from NYPD: Double-parking is dangerous.

Reader Brendan Gray reports spotting this flyer in the window of a Dunkin’ Donuts on Eighth Avenue in Midtown a few days ago. NYPD tweeted it out yesterday afternoon.

It’s just a flyer, and yeah, you could probably spot a few double-parked squad cars on your lunch break today. But this is also a huge step up from, say, the “safety tips for pedestrian” flyer that 1 Police Plaza was distributing a few months ago. Things are changing at NYPD.

We’ll know NYPD has really turned the corner when police take on the scourge of double-parking by going to community boards and making the case for Park Smart metering.

  • The other night I saw a story on one network where the NYPD was out warning double-parked drivers in Brooklyn they are gonna start ticketing. Wouldn’t it be nice if they issued warnings before doing ticketing blitzes to cyclists?

  • qrt145

    I hope it’s not a hoax!

  • Sabina

    Saw a double-parked truck getting a ticket on 1st Ave this afternoon. I gawked.

  • Andres Dee

    Next step. Convince people to leave their cars at home.

  • Nathanael

    There’ve been a lot of discussions about why double-parking occurs so much in New York City.

    The consensus was that there were not nearly enough Loading Zones. Trucks need to load and unload, and with no loading zones… what do they do?

  • Kevin Love

    We’ll know NYPD has really turned the corner when police take serious disciplinary action against police officers who betray the trust placed in them by deliberately breaking the law. When making the choice to violate the law is a career-ending move for someone who is supposed to be enforcing the law.

  • Kevin Love

    What do they do? Go to the car-free downtown of any major European or Japanese city and you can see exactly what to do. My 12-year-old daughter can haul over 1,000 lbs with a cargo bicycle. This is not rocket science.

  • Jonathan

    A true 21st century human-powered logistics system would still require extensive distribution and logistics facilities. The West Side docks closed because they didn’t have the fifty acres of back-pad necessary to offload and store the containers from the ships; I presume the same acreage is necessary for any kind of transfer facility, which leads to the question of where best to locate an 18-block logistics facility in midtown Manhattan.

  • StepUpAndSaySomething

    There are tons of under under utilized parking facilities in New York/New Jersey. Delivery companies should be forced to rent out space there to transfer goods to more New York City friendly vehicles. Unloading a truck could take an hour, so you might have about 20 truck loads a day per space (which of course would take multiple parking spaces). It world be more efficient to have a system like this distributed through the city, not just at one location like you propose.

    But the easiest answer is to have street parking brought up to market rate. This was a good start, but needs full city implementation.

    http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/08/25/park-smart-pilot-has-cut-traffic-in-park-slope-dot-finds/

  • Daniel

    There are not enough loading zones, but you also see cars double parked next to empty parking spots all the time for the convenience of not parking. That problem won’t be tackled unless we get enforcement.

  • Jonathan

    Parking lot does not equal distribution facility; warehouses and forklifts are necessary to store and handle in-transit goods safely and securely. Also, how many of these locations are close enough to highways to minimize complaints about heavy trucks using local streets?

    You are absolutely correct about the benefit of multiple transfer facilities, but to return to my prerequisite for a 21st century human-powered distribution system, where in New York City can these 50-acre facilities be located?

  • sammy davis jr jr

    Speeding is more dangerous, and often double parked cars help slow speeding motorists. But double parked cars are a menace to everyone, drivers included.

  • Kevin Love

    This is ridiculous. Where is the 50-acre facility in any major Japanese or European car-free downtown? Usually heavy trucks are banned from an even wider area.

    Where is car-free Venice’s 50-acre facility?

    Such facilities are totally unnecessary, as shown by the large number of major cities that get along quite well without them.

  • Kevin, you are not reading my post carefully.

    In order to have a 21st-century HUMAN-POWERED distribution system, you need to have a distribution center near enough to the downtown to make human-powered bicycling efficient.

    Those European downtowns get their deliveries on smaller trucks which are loaded up at some 50-acre facility way out of town, probably by a highway exit. The deliveries are done only during certain hours.

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