Uncivil Servants

A tipster sends photographic evidence that the NYPD does, at times, show cyclists some courtesy. Last week, a post on Clinton Hill Blog drew attention to parked squad cars at the 88th Precinct jutting out into the bike lane on Brooklyn's Dekalb Avenue. Streetsblog and Gothamist picked up the photo, and now those cars are parallel parked, out of cyclists' right-of-way. Hopefully for good.

From Clinton Hill Blog via Gothamist:

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.

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.

From a Streetsblog tipster comes this shot of five of the city's 142,000 placard-bearing vehicles parked in the bike lane on Lafayette Street between Franklin and White.

Streetsblog commenter and Brooklyn Councilmember Lew Fidler adds a tenth plank to his 9 CARAT STONE transportation plan: Sidewalk parking! In today's Daily News:

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: