Parking Placards
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NYPD Opposes Bill to Curb Placard Abuse as Total Soars to 118,000
At a City Council Transportation Committee hearing today, the New York Police Department announced its opposition to legislation that would curb parking placard abuse by requiring barcodes on official placards. NYPD claimed that it has placard abuse under control and that only Police Commissioner Ray Kelly should have the power to determine what tools are used to defend against it. Testimony from NYPD and DOT also revealed that there are currently 118,000 official placards in circulation, tens of thousands more than previously realized.
June 22, 2011
DOT’s Jamaica Plan: Unclog Queens Transit Hub With 1.4 Miles of Bus Lanes
We missed these when they were first released in late March, but DOT has come out with its preliminary recommendations for improving bus service in downtown Jamaica [PDF]. The plan calls for adding roughly a mile and a half of new bus lanes and beefing up an equal amount of existing lanes. It would also redesign two intersections and create new pedestrian space.
May 16, 2011
NYPD Still Won’t Ticket Their Own
With the release of Transportation Alternatives' new report on parking placard abuse and the introduction of City Council Member Daniel Garodnick's bill to add scannable bar codes to official placards, the push is on again to curb the flagrant exploitation of parking privileges. Despite the substantial reduction in official placards by the Bloomberg administration in 2008, vehicles sporting both official and fake placards continue to illegally obstruct sidewalks and clog streets wherever government employees work in large numbers.
May 4, 2011
New Study: The Parking Placard On That Car Is Probably Illegal
What happens when you put a police station, a courthouse, and borough hall in one place? Utter lawlessness.
April 27, 2011
Henry St. Placard Abuser Fends Off NYPD By Mixing Church and State
At this point, it's hardly news that the length of the Henry Street bike lane was filled with parked cars yesterday (see here and here). Being a Sunday, it was par for the course, though still infuriating, that churchgoers were taking advantage of an informal agreement with the police to snatch that lane away from cyclists and give it to parkers during services. Can it get more outrageous than the status quo? Yes it can.
April 18, 2011
Garodnick Proposes Bar Code Scanners to Curb Parking Placard Abuse
City Council Member Dan Garodnick has introduced a bill that could cut down on the abuse of fraudulent parking placards. The bill would require that city-issued placards be equipped with bar codes that traffic enforcement agents can scan to verify. If enacted, it should cut down on one form of placard abuse: the use of bogus laminated pieces of paper to park illegally with impunity.
February 3, 2011
Illegal Parking in Brooklyn Heights: Scenes From the Placard Orgy
A few weeks ago we ran an update on the Henry Street bike lane in Brooklyn Heights, where members of the First Presbyterian Church illegally park on Sundays and police look the other way. The era of NYPD-sanctioned bike lane blocking had supposedly come to an end this summer, right before primary day, when local Assembly member Joan Millman said she'd told the 84th Precinct to start enforcing the law. But afterward, the lane-blocking resumed, and Millman explained to Community Board 2 that she'd brokered a "compromise" that allowed churchgoers to keep on parking in the bike lane during services.
November 2, 2010
Want the Best Deal on Parking? Get Yourself a Police Surgeon Placard
For only $250, the ability to willfully disregard the parking laws of New York City can be yours. With barely a fuss, at least two different police organizations will sell you an illegitimate parking placard, with all its attendant perks. These placards aren't official and carry zero legal protections. Even so, if you display one on your dashboard you get a free pass to park almost wherever you want, when you want.
June 15, 2010
To Thwart Terror Trial Traffic Snarls, Curb Placard Abuse
The pending trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has thrown lower Manhattan into a tizzy, for good reasons. Foremost, of course, is the dread of revisiting the horrors of that day, mingled with fears of new attacks linked to the trial. But there are also concerns that the NYPD's aggressive countermeasures will impede movement, worsen traffic and suffocate the economy of the area, pockets of which never recovered fully from police-ordered street closures and other 9/11 aftershocks. These concerns could be assuaged by a tough, zero tolerance stance on parking placard abuse by government employees.
January 25, 2010
Eyes on the Street: Placard Abuse, From Sea to Shining Sea
We got a tip yesterday about an errant driver hogging a curbside spot in a residential area:
December 3, 2009