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

A tipster sends photographic evidence that the NYPD does, at times, show cyclists some courtesy. Last week, a post on Clinton Hill Blog drew attention to parked squad cars at the 88th Precinct jutting out into the bike lane on Brooklyn's Dekalb Avenue. Streetsblog and Gothamist picked up the photo, and now those cars are parallel parked, out of cyclists' right-of-way. Hopefully for good.

From Clinton Hill Blog via Gothamist:

Since I’ve been biking a lot lately, I’ve come to realize how wonderful bike lanes actually are.  I’m pleased to say that we now have a bike lane on both Myrtle AND DeKalb!  However, I have noticed that the DeKalb bike lane seems to be contributing to the bottle necking that happens around Classon Ave, causing a backup.

It’s not actually the bike lane that’s causing this.

The cause is the police parking. Cop cars cut off an entire lane just west of Classon on DeKalb, and now that practice has become even more dangerous.

This intersection has already become a traffic nightmare, and now cyclists have to divert out into traffic that’s already dangerous. Surely there must be a better way to arrange this. With a huge increase in neighborhood traffic (especially on Sundays with the Flea), this isn’t cool.

Speaking of bike lanes, WE NEED ONE ON LAFAYETTE AVENUE!!! ASAP!!!

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

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

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. 

From a Streetsblog tipster comes this shot of five of the city's 142,000 placard-bearing vehicles parked in the bike lane on Lafayette Street between Franklin and White.

What was especially damning is that in the real parking spaces, to the left of these double-parkers, there were about three vacant legitimate spots.

Brooklyn Diary

Where in the world can an elected official park these days without earning the wrath of his fellow Brooklynites?

A silver Infiniti belonging to Councilman Lew Fidler -- a vocal congestion pricing critic -- was spotted last Thursday parked on a pedestrian plaza near Borough Hall that has become something of a go-to spot for law-bending city employees.

But it wasn't the only time last week the unlucky Canarsie politician stumbled into a parking problem. Just a day earlier, Fidler was slipped an angry note on his windshield after parking directly above a nearby subway grate.

"I did it," said a flustered Fidler after our spies caught the pol. "I'm not going to apologize for it. I thought it would be better than parking on the subway grate."

Only three days remain until 20 percent of government parking placards must be surrendered, but as Gridlock Sam wrote here last month, that should be just the beginning of placard reform. Case in point: Uncivil Servants featured a story last week of an Upper East Side synagogue that manufactures its own bogus placards while the 19th Precinct turns a blind eye and infamous Community Board 8 lends a hand. Uncivil Servants reports that employees of the Park East Synagogue on East 68th Street have been getting away with the printing of homemade placards since the attacks of September 11, 2001:

The original baloney excuse for their parking was terrorism following 911 but the truth is they have used the tragedy of 911 as an excuse to get a free parking perk at the expense of the community. The signage by the way is either NO STANDING or NO PARKING 7AM - 7 PM. The location of this abuse is East 68th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues on both the South and North side of the street where typically you will find 8 to 10 of Park East employees' personal vehicles parked all day using bogus xeroxed placards.

Post columnist David Seifman picked up the story on Sunday, writing that the synagogue has agreed to gradually reduce -- but not eliminate -- its use of false permits, in a scheme brokered by Community Board 8:

"After a very lengthy and detailed discussion, [Park East] agreed to the recommendation that they reduce the number of placards to eight by the end of June 2008, then decrease by four by June 2009, and two the following year, until the number of placards in use is reduced to two by June 2010," said the e-mail from Assistant District Manager Latha Thompson.

City Councilman Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan) told The Post the community board was way out of bounds. "It's unacceptable for individuals to be generating their own parking placards," he said.

Seifman also reports that Park East director Joel Baum offered an alternative explanation for the placards. Baum says they are used by teachers at the synagogue who are following the example set by the city's public school teachers. More proof that once one group claims a special privilege, the circle of entitlement tends to widen.

Photo: Dick Tracy / Uncivil Servants

A commenter on Uncivilservants.org noticed that Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to reign in parking permit abuse is already being met with some good old-fashioned NYPD blowback:

Posted on Fri, Jan 25 2008 at 10:49 PM

Found on the Rant: "The new placards are slowly circulating to individual mos and all that has changed is the addition of small lettering stating "IF YOU SEE THIS CAR PARKED ILLEGALLY CALL 311". If this is the best the feeble mayor can do to piss the PBA off then he is ill prepared. This is nothing that 2 generic PBA Cards (the ones that say PBA where the shield number should be) can't solve. Just place one over each area on the placard that advertises your command and BADDA BING, 311 is nullified. If on the off chance that a summons is issued just visit the delegate of the issuing command and have him pull the summons. CASE CLOSED!

Interesting side note: Dad got his newly minted placard before I did and he has been retired over 2 yrs. So much for the mayor's new rules. Cops taking care of cops; now thats the way it should be."

Mere mortals, meanwhile, are reminded that DOT continues its series of public workshops (tonight in Queens and tomorrow in Brooklyn) to address parking in neighborhoods that may be affected by congestion pricing. One non-car owner can make a big difference at these workshops. Please check the calendar for more information.

Photo of NYPD "Sidewalk Nibbler" via Uncivil Servants 

Mayor Bloomberg correctly recognizes that reining in city workers' parking privileges is a pre-requisite to congestion pricing. But his goal of 20 percent is too modest, and he should know it's easier to do than it looks. Believe me I know; I led the effort to reduce government parking under Mayor Koch in the 1980s, even under threat of arrest. Here's what Mayor Mike needs to do in 2008 under my ten-step plan:

1. Set up a triumvirate to review every permit application. Put DOT, NYPD and the Mayor's Office on the team, an NYC parking version of "checks and balances."
2. Publish the names and civil service titles of every placard recipient. A small number belonging to undercover officers would not be revealed, but their number would be published to ensure no significant changes without explanation.
3. Establish just two recognized machine scannable permit types: 'Law Enforcement' and 'Agency.' Include State and Federal Permits into the mix. Currently, I estimate around 75 different permits, some of which are phonies.
4. Ticket first, ask questions later. If a car has a permit and is in violation, tag it. Let the recipient pay or argue his or her case before the triumvirate.


5. No permits given for routine commutation (yes, I know NYPD and FDNY must be treated differently; I'll get to that). Ostensibly, the reason we give permits to civil servants is because they use their cars to go "into the field." Set a three hour limit on parking at offices. See step four for enforcement and adjudication.
6. Parking by police stations and firehouses is "out-of-control." First hand, I've observed roughly a third of the permits appearing to be "phonies" with some belonging to clerical positions. In my day, we mapped out police and fire department parking with the commanding officer and left it to him or her to get rid of the bogus ones. We also ticketed and towed cars outside the established zones regardless of a permit.
7. Create a force of about 100 officers who report to the DOT Commissioner and are backed to the hilt when they tag NYPD, FDNY officers' cars. In my day, parking enforcement was a DOT function, and this was easier to do though several of my officers were handcuffed and I was personally threatened with arrest by the feds (my first meeting with then U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani).
8. Slash "official plates" by a third. My guess is that much of this can be accomplished by banning cars of assistant, deputy assistant commissioner, and other commissioner titles. If the subway is good enough for Hizzoner, it should be good enough for them. Besides, most commissioners rarely go into the field and they can use a "pool car" when transit's a hardship.
9. Get rid of ALL teachers' parking. Perhaps the most galling image is that of teachers' parking in school playgrounds. The second most galling is teachers' parking adjacent to schools. The curbs next to schools are meant to provide emergency access and a space for pick-up and discharge. Teachers' parking was granted in the 1960s when Title I teachers traveled between schools. That program is long gone. Furthermore, parking next to schools is dangerous. A DOT study found that about 100 children per year are struck by cars after darting out between cars parking by schools during school hours.
10. "No Permit Zones" were set up in the 1980s to identify areas of abuse and inform the city worker that extra enforcement would be working the area. Ticket defenses were particularly tough in these areas. The city still has some "No Permit Zones" but enforcement is spotty (witness the bike lane on Adams St.). I say expand "No Permit Zones," publicize them and send the DOT Enforcement Squad to patrol (see steps four and seven).

These ten measures would vastly help pave the way for congestion pricing. But let's make sure government workers don't get permits for that too.

Samuel I. Schwartz was a civil servant from 1971 to 1990 under four different mayors.

Photo: Uncivil Servants

Following United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten's "deeply troubling" letter to Mayor Bloomberg earlier this month protesting the city's directive to reduce parking placard issues by 20 percent, this week UFT chapter leaders and delegates approved a resolution not only demanding an exemption from placard reform, but calling on the city to increase the number of placards and parking spots reserved for motoring teachers.

This in and of itself is not terribly surprising, except that in December UFT members passed another resolution condemning America's avaricious consumption of fossil fuels, dependence on foreign oil, lack of interest in alternative energy, and production of greenhouse gases.

Hmm... where have we seen this before?

Here are the two rezos in their entirety, first from December:

Resolution on Protecting the Environment -- Reducing Dependence on Fossil Fuels

Whereas, it is a well established scientific fact that greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming, resulting in great dangers to our environment; and...

Whereas, the use of fossil fuels such as oil and coal results in greenhouse gas emissions; and

Whereas, little is being done in the U.S. to reduce the use of fossil fuels and develop alternative energy sources; therefore be it

Resolved, that as an important first step to reduce the use of fossil fuels and lessen dependence on foreign oil we urge the adoption of a meaningful increase in fuel efficiency standards to 35 miles per gallon or higher for vehicles; and be if [sic] further

Resolved, that other steps be taken to reduce the use of fossil fuels and lessen dependence on foreign oil including the requirement that utilities generate at least 15% of their electricity from renewable energy sources; and be it further

Resolved, that the nation reward the development of alternative energy sources such as bio fuels and solar power, which would help free the U.S. from imported oil which amounts to 60% of the oil consumed in our country.

And here is this week's resolution:

Resolution Opposing Any Reduction in Parking Permit [sic]

WHEREAS, many New York City public schools are difficult to reach by public transportation, many teachers travel between schools, and most schools do not provide off street parking for staff so that educators need to rely on street parking; and

WHEREAS, educators receive parking permits from the Department of Education that enable them to park on a portion of their school block during school hours only; and

WHEREAS, these permits, unlike Department of Transportation Permits, do not allow holders to ignore meter or no parking zone or alternate side regulations; and

WHEREAS, on numerous occasions the UFT has raised the need for more parking for teachers and has been told by the city and DOE that this is an economic bargaining issue; and

WHEREAS, the City has recently announced a plan to reduce the number of parking permits for all city employees by 20 percent; and

WHEREAS, available parking is clearly an incentive to attract teachers to high-needs schools, and rescinding permits at a time when we're making strides to attract the best and brightest to teaching in the city makes no sense; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT urge Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein to exempt UFT members from any reduction in parking permits; and

RESOLVED, that we call on the Mayor and Chancellor to join with the UFT to look for ways to increase the number of both parking permits and parking spaces for educators.

Yesterday we wondered if the city might be convinced to reconcile its vision of a sustainable city with its anti-urban parking policies. We'll mark this one in the "no" column.

Late last week Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was busted by Uncivil Servants for parking on the sidewalk in front of Borough Hall during a meeting in which DOT unveiled its long awaited Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Blueprint -- check out Priority Initiative #9 below (or download the entire list)...

Regardless of DOT priorities, it turns out that parking on sidewalks is only illegal for drivers who aren't the Borough President or members of his staff, as the Daily News reports:

The Parks Department has struck a deal with Markowitz, allowing him and his staffers to park on the plaza along the east side of Borough Hall and even on the sidewalk on Joralemon St. next to a busy newsstand, Markowitz's office said Tuesday.

Markowitz's office argued it is perfectly legal for him to park on the busy sidewalk.

"We have an agreement with the Parks Department that is authorized by signage along that side of the building that allows permitted vehicles to use that space," said Markowitz spokesman Mark Zustovich.

The Parks Department said they could not comment on the exact location of Markowitz's car the night of the hearing, but confirmed they had recently granted Markowitz the right to park on the flagstone walkway to the east of the building - but not on the plaza behind Borough Hall where Markowitz's staffers used to park.

Markowitz last year tried to block a prohibition on cars in Prospect Park, until DOT did it anyway.

As Markowitz is flirting with a mayoral candidacy, livable streets advocates are getting a preview of how their agenda would fare under Mayor Marty. All together now: Fuhgeddaboudit!

Side note: Here's a reason to hope for a Hillary Clinton presidency -- Marty Markowitz, Ambassador to Trinidad.

Photos: Uncivil Servants

Streetsblog reader Richard Conroy sends along these photos and writes:

Yesterday there was an article about Randi Weingarten saying teachers don't abuse parking permits. I found that amusing since my daily commute takes me past P.S. 161 in Harlem where there are numerous vehicles parked on the sidewalk every school day. This school is on Convent Ave.

In her letter to the Mayor, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten claimed that "teachers are not abusers of parking permits, and to publicly suggest that they are is deeply troubling." The letter was a response to the Mayor's plan to reduce the number of city government parking permits and prevent unions from printing their own placards. 

At least they're not parking on the playground, I suppose.

United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten sent a letter to Mayor Bloomberg Friday expressing objections to his plan to reduce the number of city government parking permits and prevent unions and city agencies from printing their own. Weingarten's letter echoed Teamsters president Gary LaBarbera's recent assertion that "parking permits are a form of compensation for teachers"and other city employees (Is anyone paying taxes on that "compensation?" Is it accounted for in any city budget?)

In her letter, reprinted below in full, Weingarten makes three particularly remarkable claims:

1. "Teachers are not abusers of parking permits."
   A quick visit to UncivilServants.org (or your own neighborhood streets) shows Weingarten's blanket claim is, obviously, incorrect.
   
   
2. "Teachers do not clog areas such as lower Manhattan" with their personal vehicles.
   Not only are teachers' cars part of the Lower Manhattan traffic jam, in a city where 43 percent of elementary school kids are unhealthily obese, teachers and education officials have been known to clog school playgrounds with their personal vehicles. In one notorious case, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum intervened to stop city employees from using the Tompkins Square Middle School's playground as a parking lot in 2004.
   
   
3. Parking permits are necessary to "attract the best and the brightest to teaching" in New York City.
   Really? I'm no education policy expert and I'm sure that some teachers really do need to use cars for work, but do the world's best and brightest come to live and work in New York City for the convenient parking?
   

I think Weingarten and the unions may find that they are fighting a costly and losing battle here. The public has little sympathy for the maintenance of a city employee parking system that is so blatantly abused. Few issues draw the ire of such a broad range of New York City civic groups as city government parking placard abuse.

A recent Independent Budget Office report found that cops, firefighters and teachers drive to work at double the rate of any other group of New York City workers. Why?

As DOT Deputy Commissioner Bruce Schaller told Streetsblog in the very first post we ever published, "Free parking has a tremendous impact on the decision whether to drive or take transit." Moreover, among teachers working in Manhattan, "nearly all of these auto commuters have transit alternatives," Schaller said. His 2006 study found that ninety-five percent of the government employees driving into Manhattan from Brooklyn and Staten Island live in neighborhoods where the majority of their neighbors use transit.

No one is proposing eliminating teachers' permits. Rather, there just needs to be a more centralized and rational system for distributing parking permits based on real need. And there needs to be real enforcement. Hopefully Weingarten and the unions will realize that they are better off pushing for a parking "cash-out" law like California's than fighting to maintain their oft-abused parking privilege.

To:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler

Cc:
Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott
Labor Commissioner James Hanley
Chancellor Joel Klein

Gentlemen:

It was deeply troubling to learn -- through media coverage -- of your plan to reduce by 20 percent the number of parking permits issued to all city employees.

On the numerous occasions we have raised the need for more parking for teachers, we have been repeatedly told that this is a collective bargaining issue. If increasing parking availability is a bargaining issue, then clearly, reduction is as well. Now you have apparently chosen, by fiat, to move forward a plan that would penalize the hardworking men and women who teach our city's kids.

Teachers in New York City public schools receive permits that enable them to park on a portion of their school block, during school hours only. Taking away these permits at a time when we're making strides to attract the best and the brightest to teaching (the NYC education workforce is the highest-qualified it's been since the fiscal crisis of the 1970s) makes absolutely no sense. Many city schools are difficult to reach by public transportation, many teachers travel between schools and available parking is clearly one incentive to attract teachers to high-needs schools.

Teachers do not clog areas such as lower Manhattan. Teachers are not abusers of parking permits, and to publicly suggest that they are is deeply troubling. Holding abusers of parking privileges accountable for their actions should not be done at the expense of teachers whose jobs are hard enough already.

I urge you to reconsider your position and would like to meet with you on this as soon as possible.

Randi Weingarten

As reported last week on NYPD Rant, the City Hall crackdown on government employee parking placards has arrived. Acknowledging the dissonance between his congestion mitigation efforts and City employees' flagrant parking abuse, Mayor Bloomberg today announced a reduction in the number of city government parking permits and new, more centralized procedures for the issuance of placards. From the press release:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced that the City of New York, as part its efforts to reduce traffic congestion, decrease the City's carbon footprint, encourage the use of public transportation, and reduce the demand for curbside parking in connection with City business, is implementing a comprehensive program to reduce the number and misuse of government parking placards. First, every City agency will reduce its number of parking placards by at least 20 percent. Second, the issuance of parking placards will be centralized and only the Police Department and the Department of Transportation will have the authority to issue them. Third, the NYPD will create a new enforcement unit to ensure compliance and agencies will develop enforcement procedures to prevent the abuse of placards. A multi-agency working group will implement and coordinate the various measures being taken and take additional actions, including a review of existing agency parking-space allocations and on-street parking regulations.

While this is a major step forward, the fact the NYPD is still in the placard printing business raises an eyebrow. The big question though is whether the police union (or PBA) is also going to be in the placard printing business. For a sense of what City Hall is up against in this initiative, again, we turn to our good friends over at NYPD Rant:

if the city yanks our plaques, then the war is on. the pba can have some printed for its members, active and retired, and i will bang out every car with official plates that is illegally parked or runs a light (the offenders can explain themselves in front of an administrative judge at AAB or parking violations bureau)....JUST WAIT AND SEE

Here's the rest of the City's press release:

"Parking placards are a necessary tool for conducting City business, but we have no tolerance for their abuse, which contributes to congestion," said Mayor Bloomberg. "We will give out placards only to those who need to use them to further the public interest. City workers have often led by example, and our efforts to reduce traffic congestion will be no different."

"In addition to the reduction in official placards, vehicles displaying look-alike or counterfeit placards will be issued summonses and their owners will be subject to further prosecution," said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

"A reduction in placards isn't just about opening up curbside parking spaces," said Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. "It also speaks to the City's efforts to be smarter about the allocation of our transportation resources, and to a transportation policy that aims for a greener, greater and less congested New York."

The multi-agency working group on placard use has asked each City agency to create an inventory of all parking placards for use as a benchmark for the 20 percent reduction. On March 1st the reduced number of permits will be issued by either the NYPD or DOT, and from that date forward only those two agencies will issue placards. The NYPD will issue placards for its use and for law enforcement agencies it currently issues permits to and the DOT will issue all other placards for every other City agency. The working group will develop a process for agencies to demonstrate a need for additional placards, which will be reviewed on an agency-by-agency basis. In connection with the reduction in placards issued, agencies will implement measures to prevent parking-placard misuse by agency personnel.

The working group will also conduct a review of existing parking-space allocations and on-street parking regulations throughout the City. The group will work with agencies to develop strategies to ensure compliance with parking and placard regulations, including time limits in no parking, truck loading, and metered zones, to increase the use of technology such as in-vehicle smart placards and create greater reliance on public transportation. The group will also develop reporting metrics to assess the effectiveness of agency compliance and enforcement. The group, chaired by Deputy Mayor for Operations Edward Skyler, consists of representatives from the NYPD, DOT, Finance Department and the Mayor's Office of Operations.

 
60 Minutes curmudgeon Andy Rooney is grumpy about a lot of things but using an expired press placard to park an S.U.V. in front of a fire hydrant doesn't seem to be one of them. It looks like Gawker scooped Uncivil Servants on this one:

Over the weekend, a correspondent came across a white BMW S.U.V. It was parked just off West End, around the corner from Zabar's, about four feet from a fire hydrant. Its user, 88-year-old Andy Rooney, was wearing a white short-sleeve shirt and tan pants with white sneakers. According to our spy, his belt was right under his armpits and his eyebrows needed trimming. Also? His press card, taped to the windshield, the presence of which presumably made him feel he could hydrant-park, was long-expired. (Shouldn't he have his press vehicle card on the car-isn't this his working press card, and doesn't it say "Not for parking purposes" on the back?) Good for you, grumpy old maybe-racist column man! In any event, you'll all be pleased to know his registration doesn't expire until 2009 and his emissions is good through '08. You may be alarmed to know he's on the road in a large car though.

People's 311 is a "crowdsourcing" response to the Street Conditions Observation Unit (SCOUT) program, a new team of inspectors dispatched by the Mayor's Office of Operations to drive every city street (in scooters) once per month and report problem conditions to 311. McLaren and Lambert think this is something citizens could help with. They eventually plan to map all photos for a more comprehensive picture of reported problems.

Check the Stay Free! Magazine Blog for details. And for more experiments in crowdsourcing, see Brian Lehrer's SUV count from earlier this month, and, of course, Streetsblog's favorite project, Uncivil Servants.

Remember, after the launch of the Uncivil Servants web site last spring, the retired NYPD officer who wrote, "Ungrateful Liberal Scum... we do not summons our own!" We were reminded of that infamous and highly entertaining NYPD rant after Sean Roche of Newton Streets and Sidewalks forwarded along this news story from London where city police are racking up nearly £900 a day in traffic tickets (that is $1,816 thanks to the plummeting U.S. dollar):

Police drivers in London are fined almost £900 every day for offences including parking illegally, speeding and ignoring bus lanes.

The Metropolitan Police paid £325,563 in vehicle fixed penalty notices in the last financial year. The figure, revealed in new budget documents, was an increase of a third on the previous year when police coughed up £245,377 in fines.

Penalties were imposed because of illegal parking, speeding, driving in bus lanes, red route offences and driving the wrong way up one way streets.

Tickets issued to the drivers of vehicles responding to emergencies or on operations are cancelled by Transport for London and local authorities. But there are no exemptions for police drivers caught breaking the law in other circumstances.

Photo: Ryan van Laar/Flickr