Parking Placards

The Post is reporting today that a sweep against illegally parked placard-bearing vehicles has resulted in over 2,400 summonses, almost half of them issued to NYPD employees.

Taking a cue from New York's Brightest, the five unions representing the city's Finest have filed a complaint aimed at undermining city parking reforms by retaining free privileges for police officers, detectives, lieutenants and captains. The Post reports that the complaint "contend[s] the city was required to negotiate the new plan before yanking more than 20,000 permits."

Chinatown, December 2007: As good as it gets?

It took a little longer than expected, but the City is significantly shrinking the pool of parking placards available to public employees. The total number of placards allocated to certain departments -- most notably NYPD -- has been reduced from roughly 80,000 to about 55,000, as reported by the Times, News, and Post this morning. The police will have 21,474 fewer placards to distribute, a 33 percent reduction.

Back in January United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten protested Mayor Bloomberg's mandate to reduce the number government parking placard handouts. In a letter to the mayor, Weingarten called the move "deeply troubling," and claimed that taking free parking away from teachers -- who, unlike tens of thousands of other government employees, "are not abusers of parking permits" -- would keep "the best and the brightest" from accepting jobs in city classrooms. (What this says about transit-using teachers, who must pay for TransitChek cards even as the best and brightest drive and park for free, is anyone's guess.)

They're summonsing their own, and then some.

If you have some time to spare early this afternoon and are in the vicinity of Columbus Park in Downtown Brooklyn, Transportation Alternatives will be holding a demonstration at 1:00. It seems some judges who have been using this public space as a parking lot may take legal action to retain access for their personal vehicles.

A Department of Transportation study released Friday shows just how out of control placard parking is in Manhattan.