Mayor Bloomberg in NYC has announced that he will be cutting back by 20% on the number of parking placards, you know, those things you place in your window and you can park anywhere in NYC without a ticket. That seems reasonable until you find that there are currently between 70,000 and 150,000 of these suckers out there. Read about it in the Daily News,
This is a get out of jail free card. With this placard, you can park anywhere, bus stops, fire hydrants, red zones, anywhere, and not get a ticket. This is absurd. If the city employees had to fight for parking spaces like everyone else, something would quickly be done about the parking problem in the city.
150,000? This sounds like a perk that is handed out to just about anyone who asks. The mayor should clean up his own house before tinkering with how the rest of the folks park in Manhattan, the Bronx, or Brooklyn. I have a suggestion:
Make the placards work only where there are legitimate parking spaces – no parking is there for a reason, and it’s mostly due to public safety – Blocking a fire hydrant or a driveway or a bus stop isn’t just taking a space, its causing a problem.
Second — void all 150000 permits and start over. That’ would get rid of most of them. Have them all handed out by the same office. Don’t give multiples to councilmen or vice mayors to control.
That would solve most of Mayor Bloomie’s parking problems
Later
JVH
