Hell hath no fury like a placard-entitled teacher scorned.
Teachers at PS 261 in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn have a novel way of shaming drivers who encroach into what they believe is their curbside space: they cover the offending vehicle with bright purple fliers.
"You should be ashamed of yourself for taking away spots from classroom teachers," the mimeographed page reads.
The teachers apparently have multiple versions of the flier. One spotted recently on the windshield and driver's side window of a car with a fake Correction Department placard included the words, "You have your own parking on Brooklyn Bridge Blvd." — an apparent reference to a nearby area set aside for the placard class from New York's Boldest.
In that particular case, another flier on the car thanked whomever wrote a ticket, adding, "This person takes away a spot of ours DAILY."
The use of the word "ours" is, of course, ironic, given that city taxpayers have been forced to set aside thousands of feet of curbside space because the de Blasio administration granted teachers roughly 50,000 passes for free parking — a perk was granted as part of contract negotiations.
As a result, tens of thousands of city teachers use their private vehicles to get to their jobs — filling the air around their young students with toxic exhaust, and exacerbating traffic, which leads to crashes.
And it's not just public school teachers who get the benefit of free parking while the larger public is burdened by additional pollution and congestion. On Tuesday, Streetsblog spotted a school parking zone that the DOT created in front of Poly Prep, a private school in Park Slope. Cars parked in the zone — including one with Pennsylvania plates — had city-issued placards.
Free parking continues to be the foundational scourge of city residents eager to be free of domination by the car-owning minority. Studies show that people are much more likely to own — and then use — cars if they know they will find a spot at their destination.
The issue will come up again tonight on the Upper West Side, where residents are hoping to pass a resolution asking the city to study ways of eliminating or reducing free parking on residential streets, which encourages people to own cars.
