Streetsblog New York City

correction: Marty is not permitted to park there. he is just as wrong as you are, Lew.

Some people get angry notes, some people get parking tickets, and most people are underneath that subway grating being endangered by their politicians' parked vehicles and pro-vehicle policies. What would delight us, Lew, is if you could see far enough beyond the hood of your Infiniti to leave it at home.

Why would we be delighted? We oppose these activities for a reason. Now if you had gotten your car towed, like Senator Dilan, I might have had a moment of schadenfreude. But mostly, I just expected better of you.

First, i want to say that I appreciate the tenor of most of these remarks. It reminds me of a Star Trek episode when Kirk destroys the Romulans...and the Romulan Commander suggests that had they met in a different way, he might be able to call him "friend".
In some bizarre way, though i have only really met Aaron, and briefly at tht, I feel that I know some of you and that we really could be friends...or at least make common cause on many things.

The area in question---where the subway grating is---is not sidewlak. And there are significant issues, legally, as to the permissible parking in that area in general. For another day.

and larry, as I ahve said to Angus and others, no single mode of transportation could possibly sustain without the others in this City at this time. If we lost any one of them: caars, buses, subways---the City would strangle in its inability to handle the flow.

you may drive you may not, it may be a choice for you. Last I recalled, Larry, you supported choice. But coercing everyone into one system would only overburden that system.

BUILD IT and they will come.

Council Member Fidler:

I beg to differ. We would survive quite nicely without private automobiles. I have always found it difficult to understand how someone purporting to represent a group can do so without sharing some of their very basic commonalities.

The problem with our current politicians is that they feel they are above the law. Lew knows he is breaking the law parking where he does but it is OK because the BP does it as well. Doesn't hold water in a court of law but how do you get him there?

The problem with these placards is the feeling it gives to their users to park wherever whenever with impunity (BTW let's follow Lew and see if he uses the placard when is he is not on official business).

By allowing 142,000 people to knowingly break the law adds to a sense of disorder and a feeling that laws are meant to be broken by all of us. Spitzer seems to have been caught up in it.

I can only hope public outrage over placard and parking abuse gets things changed; especially if CP doesn't pass. We know the politicians will never knowingly give up a parking perk, illegal or no.

There goes that warm and fuzzy feeling.

Some of these posts confuse commetns I made on substantive issues of transit with the parking issue.

Again, even if YOU can survive without cars, the transit system would be crushed. Just as cars could not survive as a viable trasnportation mode if buses or trains were eleiminated. you may differ. I still believ that as do most people in the transportation field.

As to parking placards, there are legitmate uses and purposes to them---well, some of them.I parked legally except for that one day when I chose to move over as opposed to park on the subway grating. A mistake. I have confessed. Won't do that again. but the fact that you don't LIKE parking placards doesn't make their legitimate use illegal.

The "let everyone choose their own mode of transportation line" sounds great, when you first hear it. But the problem is that all forms of transporatation (even walking) require infrastructure, and that infrastructure cannot be built nor maintained for free. Which puts us back in the position of needing to make transportation choices a matter of public policy.

Individual choices are affected by the government attitude, in everything from furniture manufacturing to agriculture, and certainly including transportation. The trick, therefore, is to set public policy in a way that yields the kind of cities -- the kind of choices -- that we want to see.

Council Member, I believe this "subway grate" is something of a red herring. If it's where I think it is (in the pedestrian plaza), then you're not supposed to park there either!

So you really shouldn't have been there OR on the adjacent spot to which you "moved over," I believe. (And of course that's placard or no placard, but again, that goes to matters of enforcement and privilege)

Also, I'm not saying you're doing it, but please be sure not to brush off the placard part of the discussion because of the lack of warm/fuzzy feelings. Some of the people who comment here may sound witty or angry or both, but I'd say the feelings of all of them on the subject are quite valid, because things like this--parking on public, pedestrian space--is a real issue with genuine consequences for real people. Maybe not the specific time and place you did it in question, but overall, if all your colleagues, and all their staffs, and so on and so on, keep doing it and setting an example to each other, it really does, demonstrably start to negatively impact people's lives around town, and they're entitled to get angry about it.

The grating is at the end of the permitted line of cars adjacent to the building.

Those cars are there illegally. Markowitz is not the law, and he can't singlehandedly appropriate a pedestrian walkway for the use of his staff and guests. Just because he told you to park there doesn't mean you should. If he told you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge ... ?

And I do not brush off any issues of abuse.

I don't know what kind of abuse you're referring to with that comment, but there was one post that was nasty and offensive, and you were completely right to feel insulted by it. I'm glad Aaron removed it.

As to the pleasant stroll, in fairness, I have had leg and foot and knee problems for the past number of years, resulting in tw ohospital stays this past year. That also affects my ability to stand on a jerking subway car. I don't expect any sympathy...just to point out that driving is sometimes the only viable choice for some people.

Well, sympathy is all I can offer in this case. There are people with the same foot and knee problems who are blind, right? Does that mean they have no viable choices?

Please, Lew. Cars can be useful for all kinds of things, but they're not glorified wheelchairs. There are plenty of disabled people who take subways and buses every day. There are plenty of ways you could get to Borough Hall and back without having to stand on a jerking subway train, or park on a subway grate. This is a false dichotomy.

NYC residents should be proud of the services we already provide (scheduled door to door transportation to treatment facilities and educational opportunities)

I agree. My friend who was unable to walk for six months after being hit with a motorcycle a block and a half from my apartment told me he was very satisfied with Access-A-Ride. No disagreement on the need for improvement, though.