Streetsblog New York City

The piece of string holding the gates closed shows a nice consideration for the neighbors.

I just walked on a street in Midtown Manhattan with about 120 cars parked on the sidewalk. They were angle-parked with their back wheels on the street. In some places, the space left on the sidewalk was not wide enough for two people to pass by comfortably at the same time.

Can anyone guess what particular type of building I also encountered on this street?

I was wondering why they couldn’t just block off the street to motorized traffic if they need that much parking. It would certainly inconvenience plenty fewer people.

I have seen one such Precinct in Manhattan. I would bet there are more. All the parked private vehicles had two wheels on the sidewalk. What’s great is that all that private parking causes the parking of actual police vehicles to spill over into the rest of the vicinity. It’s especially convenient for them if they have a nice, new, *side-of-street* bike lane in which to park.

How about rather than punish cops for this (and cultivate an even greater cultural chasm between many cops and actual New York residents), help them: give them free unlimited Metro Cards. It’s not a new idea.

I used to bike past a house in Ft. Greene that does the same thing (also SUV, hmmm…). I once flagged down a traffic cop to point it out. I didn’t stick around to see if she wrote the ticket. I always wanted to call 311, but never got around to it.

There’s also a garage on Vanderbilt and Sterling in Prospect Heights where that happens. I called 311 but nothing happened. I did get a message from the local precinct asking for more info, but never called them back.

i really hate that shit

Where exactly do these cops live? New Jersey? Westchester? Conneticut? Long Island? Last time I checked there was rail lines to all of those places. The ease of parking provides a lack of incentive to seek alternate means of transportation into New York’s CDB which hurts pedestrians.