Parking Placards

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.

Only three days remain until 20 percent of government parking placards must be surrendered, but as Gridlock Sam wrote here last month, that should be just the beginning of placard reform. Case in point: Uncivil Servants featured a story last week of an Upper East Side synagogue that manufactures its own bogus placards while the 19th Precinct turns a blind eye and infamous Community Board 8 lends a hand. Uncivil Servants reports that employees of the Park East Synagogue on East 68th Street have been getting away with the printing of homemade placards since the attacks of September 11, 2001:

The New York Post believes a rash of car break-ins in Washington Heights and the Bronx may be related to the recent Bloomberg administration parking placard crackdown.

A commenter on Uncivilservants.org noticed that Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to reign in parking permit abuse is already being met with some good old-fashioned NYPD blowback:

Streetsblog commenter BicyclesOnly attended last night's DOT neighborhood parking workshop at Temple Israel on E. 75th St. Here is his account (originally posted here):