The Mamdani administration wants to authorize campus police officers at a Brooklyn university hospital to issue parking tickets — reviving a short-lived proposal from the previous administration to bring in outside agents to supplement the flagging work of the NYPD.
The Department of Finance’s rule change aims to improve access and public safety at the SUNY Downstate Hospital campus in East Flatbush, where illegally parked cars block ambulances and clog up traffic in the area. The hospital’s campus police officers currently can’t issue parking tickets.
Under former Mayor Eric Adams, the Department of Finance proposed a rule change in November 2024 that would have extended parking enforcement authority to SUNY Downstate police officers, security personnel of the 34th Street Partnership and the public safety department of the Spring Creek Towers housing complex in southeastern Brooklyn.
Only the SUNY rule change applies this time around, but the motivation appears to be the same — to allow the NYPD to “focus on more serious issues,” as 34th Street Partnership spokesman Joe Carella put it in 2024.
Shortly after Streetsblog asked about the 2024 proposal, the Department of Finance tabled it, saying the agency had “mistakenly published and retracted” the rule change, which it was “continuing to review.”
But the problem never went away.
A 2024 study suggested that the NYPD's enforcement of safety-related parking rules is “inconsistent, and in some cases non-existent.” And at SUNY Downstate, the problem is one of life and death: Illegally parked cars impede the flow of traffic and block Access-a-Ride vans and buses from safely unloading patients, in addition to blocking ambulance entrances, according to the proposal’s statement of basis and purpose.
Advocates said that this kind of public-private partnership can work to make streets safer.
“More parking enforcement is better than less,” said Rachel Weinberger, research and strategy director at the Regional Plan Association.
Weinberger added that the parking system must incentivize car drivers to follow the law, as it is designed for the collective benefit of smoother traffic flow, faster ambulance response times and easier access.
Neither SUNY Downstate nor the Department of Finance responded to Streetsblog's questions, but the public can comment on the proposal until April 7.
Cities in the past have found themselves in hot water for extending parking enforcement authority beyond their traditional police force. Two beach cities in South Carolina were sued after they contracted the same private company to enforce parking laws, including issuing citations and tickets for violations. The two cities both shared revenue from parking citations with the private contractor.
The lawsuit came after the state’s attorney general’s office called the practice illegal, saying that writing a parking ticket is a police power that cities can’t legally outsource to a private company. (In the current New York proposal, the ticket writers would not merely be private contractors, but law enforcement personnel.)
The benefit to public safety is clear from a recent visit to the stretch of Clarkson Avenue between SUNY Downstate and Kings County Hospital, where Streetsblog saw numerous illegally parked cars, many of whose owners were repeat offenders for double-parking and other violations.
A gray Toyota Camry with the plate T119920C parked in the middle of the road has racked up nearly $1,000 in fines, including for blocking a bus lane, a fire hydrant and, repeatedly, other drivers, according to city ticket data posted on How’s My Driving NY. The same car was caught on camera speeding through a school zone earlier this year.
The area is dangerous for car drivers and pedestrians. From January 2022 until February 2026, the stretch of Clarkson Avenue between the two hospitals, from New York Avenue to Albany Avenue, had 108 reported crashes, injuring 87 people, including five cyclists, 20 pedestrians and 56 motor vehicle occupants.
On the same stretch of Clarskon Avenue, the NYPD has issued 90 summonses in response to 527 blocked driveway or illegal parking 311 complaints from 2020 to the present.
One medical worker in the area said she finds the illegal parking annoying because she pays $270 per month to park in the hospital lot. Michael, another medical worker, said that illegal parking is all over Brooklyn and that he doesn’t even notice it anymore.
“New York is cramped up,” said Jean, a different medical worker, about the illegally parked cars. “Too much cars, not enough space.”
