Mayor Mamdani swept into Gracie Mansion on the promise of ending widespread corruption around policing and street safety. He can do both by laser-focusing his efforts on eliminating the prevalent abuse and forgery of parking placards. Mamdani has a rare chance to permanently halt this dangerous and criminal practice, and, in doing so, radically alter the balance of power in New York City.
For the past decade, under the handle @placardabuse, we’ve documented how a large contingent of car drivers misuse their parking privileges — or invent those privileges altogether — in order to break nearly every law that pertains to parking in the five boroughs. We have published more than 40,000 photos from a broad range of anonymous contributors. We did not expect this to continue for 10 years, since an honest and competent government could fix the problem in less than 10 months.
Our campaign began in 2016 after an NYPD assistant commissioner testified that the police receive an impossibly small number of complaints about placard abuse. But each of us had previously submitted scores of complaints about this issue; the NYPD’s testimony was simply a lie.
From then on, our contributors snapped photos, submitted 311 complaints, contacted local officials and community boards, and provided evidence to the NYPD’s Internal Affairs unit and the Department of Investigation. In 2020, the City Council passed five bills that tried to address the situation.
Yet the problem persists. A decade on the front lines has taught us that placard abuse is much more than a petty form of corruption. It is a deeply rooted system of fraud and favor-trading. It is an expression of raw power. And Mamdani must end it for good.
How things work
Placard abuse — or placard corruption, as we prefer to call it — describes the behavior of three distinct groups. The first consists of politicians and civil servants who receive official parking placards from city and state authorities. Their placards allow them to park their private vehicles in truck loading zones, no parking zones and spots marked with special signage. They also let drivers park in metered parking spots for free.
In theory, official placard holder may only use their permits in authorized areas and for specific reasons related to their employment. To preserve this veneer of legitimacy, most official placards feature the phrase “OFFICIAL BUSINESS” in bold letters. In reality, placarded drivers park wherever and whenever they desire, regardless of whether they’re performing their official job duties.
The second group consists of drivers who receive or personally manufacture unofficial parking placards. Because the city never created a unified system of issuing and validating placards, nearly anyone can illegally replicate a real placard or invent a new one. Some drivers dispense with placards altogether, and simply place a notebook, badge or “theft vest” on the dashboard.
Both groups illegally park wherever they please: curbs, parks, sidewalks, crosswalks, bus lanes, bike lanes, medians, walking paths, turning lanes and fire hydrants. And they usually get away with it, thanks to the third group: traffic enforcement agents who simply refuse to ticket any vehicle that bears a parking placard or some other talisman. These traffic enforcement agents are the lynchpin of the entire system. They often play the placard game, too.
Why it’s a major problem
Placard corruption poses obvious and immediate street safety concerns. Illegally parked cars reduce the visibility of pedestrians, force stroller-pushing parents into car traffic and impede firefighters responding to blazes. The large number of parking placards in circulation create quality-of-life issues as well. After former Mayor Bill de Blasio provided placards to every public educator in the city, many schools transformed outdoor play spaces into staff parking lots.
The practice shreds the city’s social fabric. It is shocking and dispiriting to realize that parking laws do not apply where governmental employees congregate: schools, precincts, firehouses, courthouses, libraries, jails, bus depots, administrative buildings, downtown Brooklyn, virtually all of Manhattan south of Canal Street — the list goes on and on. As a result, New Yorkers no longer expect the police to enforce the law.
Worse, placard corruption warps the political process. “He who controls parking placards — mayors, governors, the Port Authority, the MTA — gets to dole out coveted slices of New York City curb space, and reap the resulting gratitude,” Politico reported in 2017.
The outlet described how former Gov. Andrew Cuomo used placards to manipulate legislators. “They hold it over your head,” one state senator said of Cuomo’s office. “It expires annually, so you have to go back and ask for it every year. And if they’re unhappy with you, they can screw around with that.”
The “placard class” perpetuates the current system because placards provide financial value, social status and the opportunity to extract favors. Street parking ranks among the most valuable real estate portfolios in New York City. The placard system doles out billions worth of special privileges in an economy that operates in the shadows. It is an endless wellspring of corruption that floods our streets with disorder and tempts public employees toward lives of deception and corruption.
Why nobody has fixed it
Since we started @placardabuse, a procession of politicians and city agencies has tried to tackle the problem. In 2019, then-Council Speaker Corey Johnson passed a bipartisan legislative package designed to eliminate placard abuse, which Johnson described as “corruption, plain and simple.”
But the NYPD and the Department of Investigation teamed up to ensure the new laws changed nothing. When the DOI finally released a mandated report on placard corruption — years after its due date — the agency downplayed the criminal misconduct that it uncovered and refused to file any charges. In fact, DOI staffers continued to use their official placards to park illegally, right outside their headquarters on Maiden Lane. City Hall never developed a plan for managing placards, and the NYPD ignored a new law requiring the department to issue summonses for misusing or forging placards.
Dirty members of the placard class have tried to gaslight New Yorkers who report them. Cops close out 311 complaints with false statements — a crime that is actually more serious than the misconduct they want to cover up — and occasionally use callback information to harass residents who notify 311. In 2017, cops targeted @placardabuse by showing up at one of our houses and complaining about our complaints. The NYPD has repeatedly refused to discipline officers who retaliated against civilians who complained about placard corruption.
The deep involvement of the NYPD should activate Mamdani’s concern about placard corruption. But it is not entirely clear whether he appreciates the gravity of the problem. When a mayoral debate moderator asked how he would address placard abuse, Mamdani gave a vague answer: “The violation of traffic laws are violations no matter who is doing it, and … [that] accountability is something my city government is actually going to pursue.”
Mamdani needs to demonstrate the leadership and courage that are necessary to finally conquer placard corruption. He says he wants to root out municipal corruption, reform the police, and transform the streets of New York. Placards offer the opportunity to accomplish all three at once.
By enforcing the package of laws the City Council passed in 2020, Mamdani can shake out the worst elements of the city government, including segments of the police who cling to their positions not because they care about serving the public, but because they like driving and parking wherever they want to. He can restore peace and safety over wide swaths of Gotham.
If Mamdani fixes this particular issue, he will create a completely new city, whose streets are no longer beholden to a decadent and corrupt car-driving elite who have harmed the city for far too long. The mayor has a real chance, and he should take it now. We will be here to hold him accountable.
