Parking Placards

Deputy Commissioner Bruce Schaller's team at the Department of Transportation has been taking ideas offered up by Traffic Mitigation Commission members and running them through NYMTC's regional traffic model. Schaller's job is to help the Commission determine how effective each of these ideas will be in cutting traffic and reducing total vehicle miles traveled in New York City. To keep its $354.5 million federal transportation grant, the City must reduce VMT 6.3 percent using road pricing.

It looks like 5th Precinct Commanding Officer Gin Yee, the Sheriff of Chinatown, is laying down the law once again. A Streetsblog tipster spotted these tow trucks as they were removing government placard abusers from their illegal parking spots in Chinatown. While it's refreshing to see the police "towing their own," the tipster notes that as soon as the trucks pulled away a new group of placard abusing government employees swooped in to claim the empty parking spaces.

Hundreds of Manhattanites braved an indoor congestion zone Thursday night, struggling to find a seat before the New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission hearing. The packed forum attracted hundreds of spectators, leaving balcony-only seating in the Hunter College auditorium.

One of the most repeated criticisms of congestion pricing is that the city isn't taking relatively simple measures within its control to ease traffic-related problems. The Times today offers its take on three of them.

On Wednesday, Jeffrey Zupan, Regional Plan Association's transportation analyst, issued a comprehensive rebuttal of the main traffic reducing measures proposed in Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free's anti-congestion pricing report, “Alternative Approaches to Traffic Congestion Mitigation in the Manhattan Central Business District."

From the New York Times, via an eagle-eyed Streetsblog tipster:

A knowledgeable tipster submitted this gem to UncivilServants, the web-based watchdog for government parking abuse in New York City. The yellow Porsche Carrera, above, was spotted parked in front of a fire hydrant on the east side of Seventh Avenue, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, between Sterling Place and St. John's Place at about 7:30 pm on Sunday, July 29. On the dashboard, a Dept. of City Planning placard ensures that the windshield of this little beauty is unlikely ever to have a parking ticket placed upon it. A Patrolmen's Benevolent Association card sits atop the parking placard for good measure.

Outdoor bike parking at 100 Gold Street