This weekend, the NY Times ran a story on parking permits and the Mayor’s plan to reduce by 20% the number of permits given to city employees - police officers, firefighters, teachers and other city employees. As you can imagine, those drivers who work in jobs that traditionally have had parking permits as part of the employment package are not happy with this plan. These jobs are not the highest paying jobs, especially compared to salaries in the private sector, so the parking permit softens the blow a bit.
This, in part, encourages people to continue to have cars, and cars will continue to be a problem as NYC gets more and more populated. Where are all these cars going to go? Thank goodness new developments provide some off-street parking spaces (though at a price).
For a year, I worked as a parking appeals officer. I read appeals people wrote regarding parking tickets they were given. My boss used to say that parking was the great equalizer on campus - it didn’t matter if you were a student, staff, or faculty - you were each given a parking permit and had to abide by its rules.
A lot of people felt they were above the rules and would park wherever they wanted to. And when they got a ticket, it pissed them off sometimes. I was once left a message from an angry woman who said that God was going to strike me down because she had been issued a parking ticket.
One of the things that I had no tolerance for was abuse of placards, disabled placards in this case. Some of these people felt that they could just borrow grandma’s disabled placard, or park in front of a fire hydrant regardless, so this part of the Times article really struck a nerve:
When the city announced plans to crack down on the abuse of parking permits issued to city employees, Christopher Stephens felt a shiver of furious recognition.
He once oversaw parking permit violation cases as an administrative law judge in the city. One day, in Queens, a woman seeking to nullify her parking ticket confidently claimed breathtaking powers for her Fire Department placard.
Are you a Fire Department employee? Judge Stephens asked. No, she replied, but my father is a retired fire chief. “No way is that legitimate! No way!” Mr. Stephens, 39, now a lawyer for the city, said on Friday. “She is not a Fire Department employee, her father is no longer a Fire Department employee, the vehicle does not belong to the Fire Department, and the vehicle was not being used for Fire Department business.” He ruled against her.
I say, right on! It seriously irks me that people feel that they can flaunt the rules like this.
The placard cuts start March 1. It will be interesting to see if this affects the future parking situation in any way, and I’ll be curious to see how much backlash comes out of it.
Related:
Paring Down Parking Permits, and Raising a Fuss [NY Times]
Parking Permits in Queens? [previously on OuterB]
More parking workshops! The first round of workshops was last November, held by the City Department of Transportation (DOT). These public workshops will further address community concerns about the possible impact of congestion pricing on neighborhood parking, especially those that risk being “park and ride” nabes for out of town drivers. Here’s the 411 on the workshops:
The Slummification of Kissena Boulevard
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