Streetsblog New York City

For sure it’s stupid and will cause some traffic and confusion, but I doubt the meter grace period is going to make all that much of a difference in overall traffic or curb use. Here’s why. First, enforcement of overtime meter violations is already abysmal in much of the city. TA’s report on Columbus Ave plus spot surveying on Manhattan’s Upper West Side by Columbia grad students (unpublished) have found a third to a half of cars are at expired meters. I’ve seen the same thing when eyeballing meters in Astoria, Flushing, Ridgewood and Flatbush etc. (This is consistent with overtime violations in other big US cities.) Second, only a small portion of curb parking is metered. Motorists already spend huge amounts of time cruising for parking on free side streets. So, the grace period is a step in the wrong direction, but it’s going to add a drop of congestion in the ocean of cruising and delays caused by the current parking dysfunction.

The idea that people elected by a few thousand votes give a shit about the average New Yorker is equally nuts.

The biggest issue of all, imho, is that these pols are pandering, spineless cowards. NY faces immense traffic problems that require real work and immaginative solutions. Instead, the only thing these morons can work towards is to waste time on this populist giveaway. Its gross, really.
The lesson here is that Quinn is an obstacle to positive solutions and it is never too soon to rally against her mayoral ambitions.

The street sweeper has failed to clean my side of the block in Park Slope now for two consecutive weeks, and the street’s a mess. Because of the volume of leaves, they need to stop frequently to disgorge the accumulated debris.

It’s bad enough that this was precipitated by the reduction in alternate-side periods from three hours to ninety minutes. Now we’re going to shave another five minutes off the time available to sweep the streets.

Drivers, 1. Clean streets, 0.