Despite more than a year of talk from Mayor de Blasio about cracking down on placard abuse, NYPD does not even pretend to care about personnel who steal public space.
The streets around just about every precinct house in the city are overrun by officers' personal vehicles, usually parked perpendicular to the curb, combat-style, with their back ends occupying the sidewalk. Precincts' disregard for their neighbors is so deep-seated that the city designs streets to accommodate it, to the detriment of everyone else.
For his Rebranding Driving series, Clarence Eckerson Jr. filmed the dysfunctional mess that is 43rd Avenue between Junction Boulevard and 94th Street, outside the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst. See how NYPD has devoured every available square foot for car storage, going so far as to paint lines on the street for double-parked vehicles:
Seen lots when it comes to free NYPD parking/placard abuse. But situation outside 110th Precinct just blew my mind. Egregious double parking (complete with “official” marks), parking on sidewalks, IN neighbors parking spots & in crosswalks! Watch. #streetcheats @StreetsblogNYC pic.twitter.com/VATivtO9rO
— ?????????? ??????? (@RebrandDriving) June 21, 2018
Clarence noted that the video doesn't show parking overflow on nearby side streets. "There can be no parking reform when stations look like this," he tweeted.
Which is just how NYPD wants it.
