Who wouldn’t want their parking ticket torn up on the spot?
The New York City Council wants to give drivers a 10-minute grace period at muni-meters, but the ticket-happy Bloomberg administration has said not a chance.
Riding to the rescue is the City Council, which has introduced a bill to force traffic agents to cancel tickets on the spot if the driver can show a muni-meter receipt time stamped within 10 minutes of the ticket.
The mayor, who has seen ticket revenue increase from $300 million to $800 million on his watch, sent the city’s top traffic cop, Ins. Michael Pilecki, to oppose the bill.
That led to harsh questions about tickets as “cash cow” revenue and quotas. Inspector Pilecki denied that there are quotas but admitted agents are rated based on their productivity.
The council speaker said the mayor’s objection to the bill doesn’t matter as she intends to pass the bill and override if the mayor vetoes.
There are 63,000 parking spaces in the city. The city hopes to have all of them regulated by muni-meters within 18 months.
Another bill would require the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications to publish a map online indicating street closures and temporary parking regulation changes – due to filming, street fairs construction or suspension of alternate side parking.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
7 Responses
Grace periods and complaints about parking tickets are the phoniest non-issue issue in city government and city life. The rules are clear and simple, and the costs are well-known and, for those who follow the rules, substantially below market-value. And if the current administration is collecting more money from the inconsiderate folks who think they can park when and where and for as long as they want, without paying the below-market charges of the muni-meters and parking meters, that means the administration needs less money from the rest of us.
Muni meters are not located at the car, and so in the time that you walk a half a block to get the ticket and bring it back to your car, you can return to find it ticketed. The city council is rightfully looking to correct that problem.
Nfgo-
What’s below-market about the charges? why should I have to pay even a penny to park on a city street? The reason why meters where made is to force people to move their cars after a period of time to make room for the next person.
Secondly, learn how to read. The article talks about a grace period to let people get out of Their cars and pay the meter without getting a ticket. This business of giving tickets while people pay the muni – meter is disgusting. x-
Commenter no. 3:
a. The market price of parking a car in New York City is reflected in the fees that are charged by a private garage. I know of a garage in Queens that costs $75 per month, and a garage in Manhattan that costs $75 for 4 hours.
b. Where in the text of this article does it say that the grace period is intended to give people the time to get the muni-meter ticket? I can infer that, if I want to, but I can’t read it, and you did not read it either, because the words are not there. I don’t want to infer what you say I should have read. I have never seen a ticket enforcement agent give a ticket to someone about to purchase a muni-meter ticket. I hear lots of people bragging about beating tickets by telling all sorts of untrue stories.
As for your question of why you should pay for parking on a city street – you answered it yourself – so that schnorrers (or anyone else) do not leave their cars on the streets all day. Streets cost money to build, maintain and police. Parking meters are one way that the city can obtain funds for those purposes, and that is why you should pay for parking on the street.
Nfgo-
A) there is no market price for street parking, it’s inherently free. Its gets paid for by taxes.
B) I stand corrected about the reading.
The façt that you have not seen it happen proves nothing.
C)….
Parking meter monies are not allowed to be collected for the purpose of maintaining the road. It can only be used for
Regulatory purposes only. Look t up.
No. 5: Thank you for your item (B). We should see more such chesed on this web site.
As to your item (A): Where is it written that street parking is “inherently free.” The streets had to be built with money, must be maintained and cleaned with money, and patrolled with money, and they should be shared by all of us, not just the ones who “get there first.” There is no such thing as a free lunch, and the same holds true for streets and parking spaces.
As for your item (C): You made the statements, and so it behooves you to provide the written sources for your statements.
Nfgo-
Its not free, we pay for it with our taxes, including gas, income
, and real estate tax.
I don’t have the time to give you links for the whole issue, so ill refer you to http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_meter