To signal their displeasure with law enforcement, Council members David Weprin, Simcha Felder, and Vincent Gentile ripped up parking tickets on the steps of City Hall. Photo: Daily Politics.

According to Council Member Peter Vallone, Jr. the bills are "an attempt to legislate common sense and discretion." But really, what we have here is old-fashioned pandering combined with a failure to comprehend the consequences of giving away curb space.

The council calls it a "grace period," but what does it really mean to ban parking agents from issuing a ticket until five minutes after the allotted time expires? Well, if you drive somewhere and pay for 40 minutes of metered parking, now you get 45 minutes. The bill gives on-street parkers more bang for their buck -- a subsidy for the minority of New Yorkers who get around by private car.

With less turnover of metered spaces, drivers will double-park more and cruise around longer as they search for open spots. Whether you're walking, biking, riding a bus, or driving, you'll have to contend with more traffic clogging up the streets.

The expansion of parking placards for clergy will have the same effect -- more free curb space for an entitled class of drivers, with less to go around for everyone else. The bill flies in the face of placard-reduction policies that the Bloomberg administration began enacting in 2008 with an eye toward cutting congestion.

City Room reports that Bloomberg, predicting "chaos and enormous increases in contested tickets," is ready to veto the grace period bill. A council override would not augur well for the next four years of New York City transportation policy.

Last year, the number of placards issued by the Department of Education -- some 63,000 -- was reduced to bring it in line with the number of on-street spots allotted to schools. The DOE cuts were part of a broader crackdown intended to bring order to a largely unregulated system rife with abuse, wherein placards issued regularly exceeded available spaces and parking agents often could not tell a legitimate permit from a fraudulent one.

While the United Federation of Teachers eventually came to an agreement with the city, CSA balked at the cuts, and won an arbitration ruling in August determining that the placards should be reissued under the terms of its contract. But as Gotham Schools reports, the ensuing two weeks brought no resolution, and yesterday CSA filed a lawsuit against the city, DOE, and Mayor Bloomberg.

"Nobody has gotten an answer from the City about why it won't honor the arbitration," a spokeswoman for CSA, Chiara Coletti, wrote in an email. Coletti said that the decision not to reinstate the 6,500 permits came from the mayor's office.

Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, did not address whether the city felt it was in compliance with the arbitrator's decision, but said the current system should continue.

"For most City agencies and their workers the system has worked well for over a year, yet the CSA has stubbornly tried to hold onto their perks and has refused to work with us to combat misuse and abuse. The current system for the Department of Education limits the number of placards to the number of parking spots at schools, a fair and reasonable policy that we think should continue. We have not yet received the legal papers for this case," Post wrote in an email.

In a press release announcing the suit, CSA President Ernest A. Logan said that, without the placards, administrators "who travel from school to school, particularly those working in the outer boroughs, could be forced to continue cruising around city streets for hours a day, polluting the environment, and sacrificing time that they need to serve our children."

And just how many administrators travel during the school day? Considering that CSA by its own account represents a total of about 6,400 school supervisors, it's obviously far fewer than the 6,500 placards -- or even the 5,000 reported by the Post -- the union is demanding. Not to mention the fact that the fewer permits issued, the less trouble floating administrators would have finding a spot. But who cares about facts and logic when you can just yell "My parking perk is good for the children!" and leave it at that. 

An RPP program, which would establish districts within the city where car owners must display permits to park legally in most on-street spaces, needs Albany's assent to become law. Assembly Member Joan Millman and State Senator Daniel Squadron have introduced bills in their respective chambers, with the details of the permit system left up to the city. Council Member David Yassky is carrying the banner for RPP at City Hall.

This is not the first time lawmakers have turned their attention to residential permit parking. Most recently, RPP got a serious look during last year's congestion pricing debate, when DOT devised a plan to assuage fears that car commuters would cram on-street parking spaces just outside the cordon zone.

That version of RPP included only nominal permit fees -- just enough to cover the cost of running the program. This time around, the bill's sponsors are touting permit fees as a new revenue source for the MTA. Separated from congestion pricing, however, an RPP system won't pack quite the same punch. Reports the News:

A Transportation Department spokesman said permits alone aren't enough to solve parking problems, and should be accompanied by a congestion pricing plan.

"Without such a plan, we don't believe this bill will actually solve neighborhood parking problems," said Transportation Department spokesman Seth Solomonow.

The sheer size of this vehicle, which I encountered while walking down Court Street in Brooklyn the other day, was what made me stop and take a picture. As you can see, the traffic enforcement officer's head basically just reaches the hood. (Makes you wonder what the driver's visibility is.)

Right, the traffic enforcement officer. I waited to watch her write a ticket for the vehicle, which had been left idling with no one behind the wheel, blocking a fire hydrant and parked a couple of feet out into the lane of travel (it's a sharrow lane to boot), while its owner apparently made a stop in the bodega.

But she just kept walking.

"Aren't you going to write him a ticket?" I asked.

"Can't ticket a placard," she replied with a shrug.

I could barely see up onto the dashboard, but there was some kind of placard there. Then I noticed the letters "VAS" on the plates, which apparently stand for "Volunteer Ambulance Service."

You'd think a Volunteer Ambulance Service member would realize that leaving an unattended vehicle idling is unsafe. You'd think someone trained to save lives might think twice about it. You'd think.

Thompson is also advocating a new surcharge on vehicle registrations in 12 counties served by the authority, which he estimates would raise an additional $1 billion a year for transit. As explained by Thompson's chief economist Frank Braconi on WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show" this morning, the surcharge, like the existing state fee, would be based on vehicle weight, and would result in an average fee of $200. Currently, motorists pay $30 in city registration fees every two years.

Naturally, Braconi was peppered with questions from indignant motorists, one of whom asked why he should "subsidize" transit. Braconi's reply:

"There are many hidden subsidies of auto drivers ... But the truth is that mass transit [riders] subsidize auto drivers in many ways. For example, the fact that we can park free on our streets for the most part ... But the fact is we are all one city, and we all benefit from mass transit. Parking and driving would be virtually impossible in this city, it would be so congested, without a functioning mass transit system, and vice versa. I think mass transit users benefit that there are automobiles to deliver goods, and taxis, et cetera, et cetera ... [Drivers and transit users should] realize there is some fair way to distribute the costs of making the city work properly."

Fielding a call about motorists dodging the fee through registration fraud, Braconi said that residential parking permits are included in Thompson's proposal.

Today is the first workday of the new year for city public school teachers, some 52,000 of whom have a little over a month to prepare for a commute without free parking privileges.

As reported earlier this week, the city and the United Federation of Teachers have reached an agreement that will rescind all but about 11,000 teacher parking placards, putting the number of placards on par with the number of on-street spaces allotted for school parking across the boroughs (an additional 15,000 off-street spaces are also designated for teacher use). Allocation of placards will be left to the discretion of individual school principals and UFT chapter leaders (who are also teachers), and must be completed by October 1.

Perhaps sensing unrest among the membership, UFT President Randi Weingarten, who is in Denver this week, released a missive yesterday ensuring teachers that teacher parking spaces had not been reduced, and that the deal with the city "presents an opportunity for an increase in the number of spots." This last is apparently a reference to an appeals process briefly outlined in a recent letter to Weingarten from Bloomberg Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler [PDF]. 

While in her letter to teachers, the full text of which appears after the jump, Weingarten characterizes the agreement as a win, school personnel aren't happy. Speaking to the Times, one Bronx middle school principal riffed on a previous Weingarten complaint, intimating that the best of New York's Brightest will gravitate to schools with available auto storage.

"What I think will end up happening is we’ve already got competition for teachers, and schools with parking lots will become even more desirable than they were before," he said.

Here's the Weingarten letter:

There are a lot of rumors floating around regarding parking placards. Do not believe everything you hear and read. The Education Department was the only city agency not to lose parking spots, and that is because the UFT fought hard for its members from the moment the mayor first announced his intention to cut spaces. We filed a grievance and took the case to the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB), and we were the only ones to negotiate a parking agreement. The deal that the union and the city reached yesterday ensures that all on-street and off-street parking spots for schools have been preserved and presents an opportunity for an increase in the number of spots.

Teacher parking has always been a problem in New York City. There has never been enough. In the past, the Department of Education has sought to address this problem by increasing the number of permits without increasing the number of actual spots. This has created problems for neighborhoods and educators. Although I would rather the city not change the process right now, the agreement the UFT reached with the city continues the number of available spots and more closely aligns the number of placards with the number of spots. This brings the decision on who gets the placards to the school level where it belongs.

Under the agreement, the number of permits available to a school will be limited to the number of available spaces currently designated for parking by DOE personnel. The principal and chapter leader in each school will decide the distribution of these on-street and off-street placards, whether through assignment to individual people, pooling of placards for use each day (which could be on a first-come, first-serve basis), or some combination of those two methods. There is now an appeals process when the principal and chapter leader can’t agree as well as a way for the principal or chapter leader to appeal if they believe their school needs more parking spots. The city will also issue at least 1,000 additional parking placards for educators whose work requires them to travel between different schools.

Enforcement of the new system will begin Oct. 1. New placards will start to be issued at the beginning of the school year.

We recommend that chapter leaders advocate for a transparent and reasonable system of allocation that is fair to staff. If you have any questions or concerns about the agreement or your role in the allocation process, please contact your district rep.

Hours after yesterday's Daily News broke the story of four City Council members having designated street parking near their offices, Mayor Bloomberg quashed the perk. Wrote Liz Benjamin on The Daily Politics:

Bloomberg said he talked to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan after reading about the free spaces in this morning's DN and told her "we've got to have one policy that's reasonable."

Bloomberg said he and Sadik-Khan decided that reserved spaces are "inappropriate" and as a result, "we will just remove those four signs."

The members in question -- Helen Sears, Al Vann, Helen Foster and David Yassky -- will keep their parking placards. Yet one malcontent over at NYPD Rant somehow interpreted yesterday's developments as another victory for the all-powerful bicycle lobby, and for good measure equated the rollback of government parking privileges with Nazism.

When Transportation Alternatives came for the cops, the City Council sat back on their heels, it didn't affect them. Then they came for teachers, firemen, Sanmen and other city workers. It still didn't affect them, so the City Council ignored them.

Now Transportation Alternatives have come for them, the chickens have come home to roost. So fifty or so aging hippies, counter culture freaks, anarchists and bike junkies have more juice than the mayor, the City Council and the Police Dept!

I think we should outlaw bikes and the people who ride them. Maybe the City Council can work on that instead of cowering in fear.

Photo: DelMundo/New York Daily News

The Post is reporting today that a sweep against illegally parked placard-bearing vehicles has resulted in over 2,400 summonses, almost half of them issued to NYPD employees.

Over the last three months, special teams of Internal Affairs officers have scoured congested streets in lower Manhattan and around government hubs in outer boroughs, searching for vehicles whose drivers abuse their parking-placard perks and slapping tickets on 2,488 cars.

Topping the list of offenders were New York's Finest, hit with 1,053 summonses for leaving their cars in crosswalks, near hydrants or bus stops or in "no standing" zones, mostly around courthouses and station houses.

Federal agents and other US government personnel were the second-worst abusers, with 282 tickets - most carrying a $115 fine.

Courthouse officers and employees received 275 summonses.

Since April 1, the IAB has reportedly issued summonses to 3,530 illegally parked vehicles, and towed 512. According to the Post, IAB officers have not come across a single fake permit since the first week of the crackdown, when a retired officer was arrested for having one.

No word in the story concerning the police unions' complaint aimed at holding on to as many placards as possible.

Graphic: New York Post

The unions' complaint, filed May 30 with the Board of Collective Bargaining, seeks to have all the permits restored.

As a result of the new policy, cops' cars are now being towed and ticketed, the complaint states. According to the unions, the reduction of free-parking perks "creates an economic hardship" and violates state labor law.

So the unions are acknowledging here that cops expect to be able to park illegally without being ticketed, as long as they have a placard. Nice. And it seems that cutting back on $4/gal gas -- not to mention car maintenance, wear-and-tear, etc. -- in exchange for a cheaper transit commute would actually save money in many instances. Unless, of course, the complaint itself is somehow disingenuous.

The complaint ... acknowledges that the union contracts do not address parking placards.

One labor source last week indicated the complaint was designed merely to prevent the city from removing more police parking permits next year.

To sum up: police labor unions have filed an action that they know is baseless in hopes of holding on to a perk that allows as many of their members as possible to break the law with impunity.

In light of these developments, maybe it's time for a new NYPD superlative: New York's _____________ .

Photo: Uncivil Servants

Early this year, Mayor Bloomberg's office announced across-the-board reductions in the number of government-issued parking placards that could be allotted to city employees. And while the city looks to be following through with the cuts -- to the chagrin of some among the entitled motoring class -- WNYC reports that Lower Manhattan is still flooded with illegally parked vehicles.

Despite new standardized placard designs and a highly publicized sweep against scofflaws in April, a recent tour of Chinatown by reporter Matthew Schuerman and Transportation Alternatives' Wiley Norvell found scores of cars sporting slapdash pseudo-permits, and very few of them bearing tickets. Norvell says that enforcement is still lax, but a spokesperson from the mayor's office told Schuerman that NYPD is doing a "very good job."

Did the Bloomberg "crackdown" on free parking for government employees expire with congestion pricing? 

It took a little longer than expected, but the City is significantly shrinking the pool of parking placards available to public employees. The total number of placards allocated to certain departments -- most notably NYPD -- has been reduced from roughly 80,000 to about 55,000, as reported by the Times, News, and Post this morning. The police will have 21,474 fewer placards to distribute, a 33 percent reduction.

Placards have also been redesigned to prevent fraud and abuse, said Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler. The News reports:

New standardized placards are designed to eliminate the dizzying patchwork of permits previously created by each agency that often stumped ticket writers.

"They were being respected by the people who were doing traffic enforcement because they looked legit," Skyler said. "If you have an old police one, you might as well have a Time magazine on the dashboard. It's not going to be effective."

Mayor Bloomberg announced the placard reduction plan back in January, initially targeting a March 1st implementation date. But when an inventory revealed 142,000 placards in use -- thousands more than anticipated -- delays ensued. The percentage reduction announced yesterday exceeds the 20 percent goal the Mayor set in January.

A separate pool of 63,000 placards issued by the Department of Education is in line for a similar reduction by September. Expect obstruction from Randi Weingarten, or her successor, should the current boss of New York's teacher's union succeed in her campaign to head the American Federation of Teachers.

Graphic: New York Times

We haven't really talked about it on Streetsblog, but when state lawmakers killed congestion pricing, they also nixed the city's proposed Residential Parking Permit program.

The Brooklyn Paper reports that some still want RPPs, with or without pricing:

To generate support for the now-dead $8 fee to drive into Manhattan, the city had offered to sell the parking permits, saying it would prevent people from parking their cars in residential neighborhoods just outside the congestion-pricing zone. Some residents of those communities refuse to let the permit plan go.

"Residential parking permits are not going to die here. They're too important," said Sue Wolfe, president of the Boerum Hill Association. "We now have all these people circling for parking. If you work in Manhattan or Downtown Brooklyn, you should be taking public transportation."

In order to institute RPPs, city officials would need to go back to Albany.

Photo: charles.hope/Flickr

Last Friday, as she announced her intention to seek the top spot at the American Federation of Teachers, Weingarten took another swipe at the mayor, and in the process further betrayed her ignorance when it comes to the relationship between private automobiles and public space.

City Room reports:

During a brief speech, Ms. Weingarten took a shot at Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, sarcastically announcing that now that congestion pricing had been defeated, the mayor was planning to require pedestrians to "put quarters in the the traffic lights to be able to cross the street."

Huh? Aside from being unfunny, this doesn't make any sense. Even the most casual observer understood that congestion pricing was intended as a deterrent to driving -- not walking, or riding a bike, or using any other means of transportation.

It would be pointless to try to figure out what Weingarten was going for here, other than a cheap laugh at the mayor's expense, but it was a revealing statement. While school kids across the city have their outdoor spaces intruded upon and poisoned by cars, and take classes on how not to get run down in the street, Weingarten sees fit to crack jokes about the failure of a plan that would have made things better.

Here's hoping Weingarten gets that AFT job, and that the next UFT head spends less energy fighting for free parking and more on getting teachers to work without their cars.

Photo: United Federation of Teachers

The Post reports that NYPD Internal Affairs launched a sweep last week against illegally parked placarded vehicles and fake parking permits, resulting in 178 tickets, nearly two dozen towed vehicles and the arrest of one retired officer. The operation targeted Lower Manhattan and "government and courthouse hubs" in other boroughs.

The four-day crackdown - from Tuesday, April 1, through Friday - was prompted by constant complaints from motorists and pedestrians that cars abusing their placard privileges were double-parking or using spots where they were not permitted and clogging streets.

Forty-eight of the ticketed cars belonged to the NYPD, with cops abusing either their personal placards or precinct permits. Six cop cars were towed.

The FDNY was also hit in the blitz. Three of its cars with "official" placards were ticketed. Another four FDNY cars, bearing "union" placards, were ticketed, and one of those was towed.

Six tickets were written to cars belonging to the city's Department of Transportation, which, ironically, along with the NYPD, has been placed in charge of the mayor's overhaul of the city's sprawling placard problem.

Eighteen vehicles baring state placards were ticketed, with three towed.

The feds were also hammered - 21 of their cars were hit with summonses, with four towed.

According to a source quoted in the story, the city is "giving agencies a really hard time" about permit renewals, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg's directive to cut down on placard issues.

Photo: Uncivil Servants

• Re-instating the $4 intrazonal fee
• Exempting drivers who cross into Manhattan below 60th Street but only drive on the periphery
  

If these changes were to be applied, against the recommendations of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, it would result in higher administrative costs and more surveillance cameras. Although Brennan identified himself as a pricing supporter when the idea was first floated last summer, at this point his bill seems to undermine much of the approval process to date, including the contributions of the TCMC and the City Council's vote on Monday in favor of a home rule message.

Brennan alerted his colleagues in the Assembly to the new bill this morning. His office told me it is too early to say whether the bill enjoys more support among Assembly Democrats, who are currently discussing pricing behind closed doors, than the version that the City Council approved. As of this writing, the bill has no co-sponsors.

UPDATE: The new bill would also require congestion pricing to come up for renewal in three years and prevent the MTA from issuing bonds backed by pricing revenue.

Brennan's full press release:

Brennan Congestion Pricing Bill Authorizes Plan as an Experiment;
Exerts Full City Council Control over Residential Permit Parking;

Retains Elements of Original Proposal that Required Entrance into the Business District Before a Charge is Imposed

State Assemblymember Jim Brennan (D - Brooklyn) has introduced a congestion pricing bill. The new proposal takes a variety of ideas that have been advanced and blends them together to create a better plan, while dropping or changing several proposals advanced by the Traffic Mitigation Commission.

Key to this proposal involves authorizing congestion pricing as a three-year experiment, similar to the concept advanced by Mayor Bloomberg last summer. Authorizing the congestion pricing program as an experiment would assure that the MTA does not go into debt by selling bonds with congestion pricing revenue pledged toward the new debt, only to find that the program is unsuccessful in deterring traffic congestion. The congestion pricing revenue, estimated at $500 million per year, would still be directed to the MTA capital program.

The new bill retains two concepts advanced in the original Mayoral proposal from 2007. First, it would retain the $4 charge for auto trips originating within the zone. Short trips would be exempt. The proposal also only charges drivers crossing bridges and tunnels into Manhattan if they enter the zone. Under the Traffic Mitigation proposal just supported by the City Council, drivers who cross bridges and tunnels in to Manhattan but bypass the zone are still charged $8.

Another aspect of the Brennan bill would require full City Council approval of residential permit parking plans. This would assure that individual neighborhoods would not be able to create exclusive zones without the consent of all of the City government's elected representatives. New aspects of the Council-supported program, such as a Port Authority contribution, a low-income tax credit, and prevailing wage, are included in the proposal, as well as a new compliance requirement for the MTA for the State's MWBE program.

While he has concerns about traffic on the George Washington Bridge and capacity on the A and 1 subway lines (increased service on the 1 is one of the planned benefits of pricing revenues), Jackson said "we can not afford to lose" the $354 million in transit funds pledged by the federal government. The recently unveiled Residential Parking Permit program has eased his worries about park and ride problems developing in his district, he said.

"If I had to vote right now," said Jackson, "I would probably vote 'yes.'"

Jackson said there are conflicting reports on which way the council is leaning, though in his opinion "It doesn't look too good."

On short-term transit improvements: 

The authority [MTA] shall provide for transit projects designed to mitigate projected immediate effects on ridership occasioned by the imposition of congestion pricing fees prior to the operation date.

On the transit lock box:

The authority shall establish a fund to be known as the "traffic congestion mitigation fund" which shall be kept separate from and not commingled with any other moneys of the authority...

[The fund reimburses the City and MTA for capital costs and administrative costs of pricing, and for the initial short-term transit improvements. The rest is for payment of bonds and capital projects.]

Such projects may include, but are not limited to, new buses and bus facilities, bus rapid transit routes, park-and-ride facilities, commuter rail improvements and subway expansion and rehabilitation. Congestion pricing revenues shall not be used for any other purpose. Priority in the distribution of funding shall be given to those areas in need of additional transit investments.

On the "livable streets lock box":

There is hereby established a special fund to be known as the "transit enhancement fund" [financed by parking fees in the congestion zone]...  The revenues of such fund... shall be used solely to provide additional transit, pedestrian, bicycle, and parking management improvements, including, but not limited to, expanded ferry service, bus signalization, bus rapid transit investments, bicycle facilities and pedestrian enhancements.

On residential parking permits:

The city shall complete the community planning process already underway with respect to a citywide parking policy and a residential parking program prior to the operation date. The city shall ensure that neighborhoods adjacent to the congestion pricing zone are provided an opportunity to opt into the residential parking permit program.

As expected, the bill goes on the describe RPP quite thoroughly. The details match what we heard from Mayor Bloomberg and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan at last week's unveiling of the RPP proposal. But there is one surprise:

Fees collected pursuant to regulations authorized by this section shall be credited to the transit enhancement fund of the City of New York.

This means that fees collected from RPP would go towards the "livable streets lock box," but before you get too excited, it's worth noting that residents would not have to pay a fee to get a permit (they just have to prove residency). So would any revenue actually come from this provision? We consulted a source experienced in interpreting legislation, who said this language leaves the door open for RPP to serve as a dedicated "transit enhancement" funding stream, should fees be collected at some future time.

By the way, have we mentioned what DC is doing with parking revenues these days?

If you have some time to spare early this afternoon and are in the vicinity of Columbus Park in Downtown Brooklyn, Transportation Alternatives will be holding a demonstration at 1:00. It seems some judges who have been using this public space as a parking lot may take legal action to retain access for their personal vehicles.

T.A. has the scoop:

In Brooklyn's Columbus Park, judges park both in a parking lot and on a pedestrian plaza in the park. This has been going on for years, despite the city (with taxpayer money) building the judges their own parking lot in 1999. To restore the pedestrian plaza back to park users, the city is removing a curb cut that the judges use and constructing another to link them directly to their parking lot. In response, the judges are actually threatening to sue the city. Given their long record of abuse, we think it's time to get the judges out of Columbus Park altogether and return it to use as a public space.

Every person counts, so please come join us!

Participants will meet at the corner of Joralemon Street and Boerum Place.

Photo: The Brooklyn Paper

It's now or never for congestion pricing, the MTA, and maybe even the city itself, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this morning.

Speaking before a sold-out crowd at the Battery Park City Ritz-Carlton, Bloomberg and U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters were the guests of honor at today's Crain's New York Business Breakfast Forum, where the mayor painted a bleak picture for a city transit system without congestion revenues and the $354 million in federal funds that hinge on the adoption of a pricing plan by March 31.

"Refusing those funds is basically saying that there will be next to no MTA capital projects in our immediate future," said Bloomberg. "It's just the truth of the matter. There is no money short of this."

Bloomberg said there are "only four significant issues" left to address in the current pricing plan. As to doubts that revenues will be dedicated to transit, the mayor implied there would be no alternative, other than "a steep increase in fares." The MTA has borrowed all that is "feasible," he said, noting that even with pricing funds, there is a $9 billion gap in the agency's capital plan.

Residential parking zones will guard against park-and-ride problems, Bloomberg said. Responding to criticism of a toll credit for New Jersey car commuters, the mayor cited estimates that indicate the new $8 toll is already reducing peak hour traffic. "So, in a very real sense, there's already a congestion pricing fee for New Jersey drivers," he said, pointing out that the State of New York receives a 50 percent share of Port Authority tolls.

According to Bloomberg, his administration is working with lawmakers on a possible refund for low-income city commuters "that offsets what they'd pay in congestion pricing fees that are over and above the comparable cost of commuting by subway" -- a significant compromise reportedly insisted upon by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. He gave no further details.

Though he said the city needs to "make sure our governor is on board," Bloomberg bristled at the notion that recent turmoil in Albany could stall the plan, since the makeup of the legislature has not changed. "There's nothing new here," he said. "Either you're going to do it or you're not."

Asked if there was any possibility that the plan could be passed now but implemented during better economic times, as has been suggested by Comptroller William Thompson, Secretary Peters responded simply: "No." For her part, Peters said she is "optimistic" congestion pricing will pass. If not, she said, New Yorkers will have missed out on a "once in a generation" opportunity.

Playing to his business-friendly audience, Bloomberg elicited rueful chuckles when he pointed out that while New York has four earth-boring machines at work on subterranean transportation tunnels, Shanghai has 90.

"Cities that are our competitors in the global economy are making investments that will ensure their future," he said. "So must we."

A Department of Transportation study released Friday shows just how out of control placard parking is in Manhattan.

The 187-page report [PDF], accompanied by some 223 pages of maps, was undertaken to assess "how placards are used in Lower Manhattan," and to determine if placard users are taking up more space than is allotted for them. The results should come as no surprise.

Key findings include:

• Curb parking spaces in Lower Manhattan are highly utilized, with 93% of all legal on-street parking spaces in Lower Manhattan occupied during the peak hours (9AM-5PM).
  
• Vehicles with agency and law enforcement permits, when combined with marked official vehicles (e.g., police cruisers, DOT bucket trucks), are a large share of the vehicles parked on-street, comprising 43% of vehicle-hours from 9AM-5PM. Law Enforcement placards are the major component of these vehicles (23% of all vehicle-hours). (A vehicle-hour is one vehicle parking for one hour. Thus, a vehicle that parks for three hours uses three vehicle-hours.)
  
• Nearly 1 in 8 permitted vehicles were illegally parked at a bus stop, crosswalk, fire hydrant, driveway, or were double-parked.
  
• Placards displayed by 9% of all agency and law enforcement permitted vehicles were deemed to be inauthentic or illegitimate in some way.

• Vehicles with agency and law enforcement permits use more of the parking supply than is allocated to them, occupying 49% more spaces than are allocated to them during the hours of 9AM-5PM.
  
• Vehicles with permits take space away from other designated uses such as curb space for commercial vehicles - 22% of loading zone spaces were removed from the commercial supply due to permitted vehicles parking in those spaces.
  
• Similarly, 18% of metered spaces were removed from the general public's supply due to permitted vehicles parking in those spaces.
  
• Permitted vehicles park for longer periods, on average, than other vehicles, thus consuming disproportionately more space hours. Agency and law enforcement permits park on average for 4.0 hours compared with 2.7 hours for privately owned vehicles.
  
• 42% of agency business permits park outside of their dedicated parking supply for more than three hours, which is in violation of their permit.
  
• Over the course of a typical day (9AM-5PM) over 3,300 vehicles in Lower Manhattan display an LE permit, resulting in nearly 14,000 vehicle hours. This represents almost one-quarter of the total observed vehicle-hours in Lower Manhattan.
  
• The peak demand for agency and law enforcement permits is 5,805 and 13,494 vehicle- hours respectively, while their peak supply is only 7,052 and 5,937 space-hours, respectively. Therefore, while agency permits are technically parking within their allocated supply, vehicles with law enforcement permits use 127% more space hours than are designated for them from 9AM-5PM. This may indicate that the space allotment for law enforcement is not sufficient for its needs during those hours.
  

Data for the study was collected from September through November of 2006. 

Continuing its coverage of the placard abuse epidemic, the Times has a nice summary of the report, pointing out that the "biggest contributors to the parking crunch were vehicles with law enforcement placards" -- which "are also the most likely to park in an unsafe way."

Among the nearly 700 vehicles with placards that were spotted parked in crosswalks or at hydrants, double-parked or parked in other hazardous ways, more than half belonged to law enforcement.

And check out the guy who pays someone to drive his SUV around all day so he won't get a parking ticket.