Parking

In this clip from NY1's "Road to City Hall," City Council member Simcha Felder defends his proposal to give drivers a five-minute "grace period" before they can be ticketed for overstaying the time limit at parking spots. Taking the law-and-order view is Transportation Alternatives director Paul White, who points out that codifying parking ticket excuses will simply sow confusion about what constitutes a violation.

Someone in the Bloomberg administration needs to sit the mayor down and explain to him the relationship between parking and driving.

As we reported last week, Maria Baez and a handful of other City Council members want to issue free parking permits to every public school teacher in New York City. As the system presently employs some 95,000 full-time teachers, in addition to 18,000 part-time teachers and paraprofessionals, Intro 894 would encourage hundreds of thousands of car trips per year just as the city is making efforts to reduce driving by government employees by reining in parking placard issues.

Transit-riding New Yorkers, take heart. In these tough times, your City Council members are at this moment pushing a slew of bills that will make your lives easier. All you have to do is trade your MetroCard for a set of car keys.

Sick of walking around cars parked on the sidewalk? Fed up with the excessive traffic cruising for parking spots in your neighborhood? Tough luck. A gaggle of City Council members has got nothing for you, but they do want to ease up on the car owners who contribute to these problems.

Looks like New York legislators aren't the only ones willing to pass up big money for transportation improvements if it means putting a fair price on private auto use.

Bronx electeds joined DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan yesterday to mark a completed round of ped-bike enhancements to the Grand Concourse and 161st Street. The package includes the newly ped-friendly Lou Gehrig Plaza (in front of the Bronx County Courthouse), and wider medians and bike lanes along one section of the Concourse. The project was launched in early 2006, while Iris Weinshall was in charge at DOT.

The Chicago City Council has approved by a vote of 40-5 a deal to privatize the city's 36,000 metered parking spots for the next 75 years, trading meter revenues for an upfront payment of $1.15 billion.