Comments on: NYPD Can’t Answer Questions About Traffic Crime

By: J:Lai

J:Lai — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:14:06 +0000

ddartley, that would be awesome – we would see cops selling 1/2 price swipes to supplement their income!

I think that each precinct should have to pay mkt rate for any parking space it wants to allocate to police who work there, so if it’s really that important they would have to cut something else in their budget.

Parking on sidewalk should definitely be illegal.

By: ddartley

ddartley — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:37:24 +0000

Following part of Susan’s second comment: this is another reason that NYPD should drop the (largely unused) free metrocard benefit, and replace it with something better: MTA and NYPD should partner so that *every MTA entry point can be opened, without limit, by any police badge, which would contain an RFID (or “smart-tag”).* It should be truly “unlimited,” with no limitations at all, e.g. no “18 minute rule” like unlimited metrocards.

It would be a better perk for than free metrocards in a lot of ways. For starters, as I understand it, cops always have to have them on their person, so there’d be no fuss with metrocards that many cops normally don’t care about. That would make it even easier for car-commuting cops to choose transit instead of their car at the drop of a hat. That would probably make it more effective than free metrocards at getting an individual cop not to drive to work on any given day. And they could use it any time, on or off duty. So they could swipe (or tap) their whole family through for free travel to Coney Island or Central Park. Also after the initial setup, it would probably cost a lot less money than the operation of the free metrocard benefit. And on and on.

By: J-Uptown

J-Uptown — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:19:51 +0000

The police parking on sidewalks is a far worse than problem than has been described so far. In Washington Heights, they just park entirely on the sidewalk, perpendicular to the road, all four wheels on the sidewalk so that it ceases to be a sidewalk. It makes me furious every time I walk by. What absolutely kills me, is that the 19th precinct on the Upper East Side does not create this same type of problem. In fact, you don’t see any cars on the sidewalk. Any argument that police must park on sidewalks is bogus, the police know it, and they refuse to address it. Have a look:

Washington Heights (30th precinct):
http://tinyurl.com/cm4ogc

Upper East Side (19th precinct):
http://tinyurl.com/cekyet

By: Rhywun

Rhywun — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:56:32 +0000

Of course they’ve “never heard that we don’t give enough summonses”. They only listen to drivers, and the local media who cheer them on, complaining that they issue “too many”.

By: ddartley

ddartley — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:07:42 +0000

The angle parking is often even worse than the second questioner describes, and it happens at at least two other precincts (and therefore probably more).

One half of the parked car is up on the sidewalk, reducing by half the ped space; the other half sticks out onto the street.

Where I’ve seen it, there are even parking stripes painted that way–half on the sidewalk, half on the road.

And even better, attached to the bottom of the parking advisory signs (which are irrelevant on that stretch of road), are additions to the sign that say “POLICE VEHICLES ONLY,” and on their edge is a “Department of Transportation” imprint.

In Manhattan, see W. 55th Street between 8th and 9th Aves., closer to 8th, outside Midtown North.

By: Susan Donovan

Susan Donovan — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:42:17 +0000

The 2nd issue is city-wide. What is an effective way to convey how seeing cars parked on the sidewalk near stations has a negative impact on how the community sees the police? I’m certain that the police will say that “there is no place else to park” but there are places to park… it just means walking a block or two. And the the police have free metrocards, they should take advantage of them.

With police stations barricaded by pontoons of cars parked on sidewalks and on traffic islands approaching the station on foot often become like walking through a maze. It makes the police seem walled of and hostile to the neighborhood.

By: David_K

David_K — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:37:54 +0000

That “No reply” from Captain Tasso kills me. I live in that neighborhood, but I think “no reply” is departmentwide indifference of the NYPD to the people that they serve. Angled parking on avenues such as Classon or DeKalb puts people in very real danger. It is criminal, and there is no excuse for it.