Alternate Side Parking Suspended Again (and again)

It’s that favorite time of year again. The time when the empire of Winter falls, and even the school chancellorship is resurrected. When ticket agents pass over cars on both sides of the street. Men and women’s fancies turn away from traffic and gas prices, and parking takes on a whole new meaning. It’s a ritual of Spring in New York, but it’s more than just the power of love of two people.
It is the harmonic convergence of Jewish and Christian holidays that suspends alternate side like there’s no moving your car tomorrow. How good is it? In a nutshell, you can park your car for Monday (4/18) and you don’t have to move it for 11 days or Fri (the 29th).

School Zone Parking?

As anyone familiar with the parallelspaces.com Parking Map knows, the symbol above shows parking is prohibited Mon – Fri from 7 am to 4pm. This next is the clock that shows school zone parking restrictions.


Now the question has been asked how are they different? [Answer: They’re not.] So why doesn’t the map distinguish between year round and school year parking restrictions?
School parking restrictions are tricky. An averagely frustrated driver, like myself, looking for a space on a hot July night might reasonably assume school is out of session the following day and therefore the “school days” parking restrictions are temporarily not in effect. But there is Summer School and as one ticket agent explained to me, any function (meeting, planning board, fundraiser, etc.) taking place in the school during otherwise normal school days keeps the parking restrictions in effect. So if you are confident in your knowledge of a school’s off-year schedule where you want to remain parked the following day and are willing to defend that knowledge against a ticket that a lazy or inept ticket agent snuck under your windshield wiper, you can park there.
In our parallelspaces.com parking map it was thought that the chances that the average driver would have this kind of information was slim, and in the desert haze that thirsts to be done with parking for the night, such information could too easily be imagined. So it was decided to err on the side of caution and school parking restrictions were not singled out by month or school year.
If you think this was too drastic, consider the following very scientifically controlled study:
Ticket agents have the senses of a shark and the minds of an attorney. No, they really are two separate things. If you are parked in a school zone when school is not in session, but you get a ticket, you have to fight the ticket. Many won’t. (Ticket 20% effective) You may not even know about the other uses an empty school building can be put to which, if you don’t cover them, will probably doom your defense (Ticket 50% effective). If you do, you will still have to prove that there was no other function taking place at the school on that day which could be very time consuming, even complicated to prove (Ticket 70% effective), or you could get a bad judge to hear your case (Ticket 80% effective). How many ticket agents would not write a ticket with an 80% chance of success?* [Answer: a very honest one.]

* Percentages of ticket effectiveness are rounded off and may be approximate.

Fight Tickets Online

The DOT announced this week that it is now possible to contest a parking ticket online. The plan is you can present your defense online and have it reviewed by the same Administrative Law Judges that hear cases in person. The site enables you to state your case and even upload pictures and other evidence for your defense assuming you have and understand that kind of technology. Of course, many are skeptical of a nameless, faceless web personality with the authority to discharge or claim your debt by showing less emotion than a slot machine, but the truth is this is probably a very good thing and a logical step in the continuing transmigration of our lives onto the internet.
With this new tool you can contest a ticket that either because of a fear of hostile PVB judges, even more hostile postal workers, or losing half a day’s work, you might other wise just pay. And if you’re wondering if this kind of internet gambling is legal in this state, why worry? Is it really gambling if you never had much of chance of beating the ticket anyway? Fact is unless your evidence is irrefutable, and even when it is, your chances are not that good.
We all know this and no matter how loud we raise our voices, no one is going to officially acknowledge it. At least with this online service you have another, faster way to put up a fight against a bad ticket and, moving on, better live with yourself. Maybe, along with enough others, you will bring attention to a shady ticket agent, or, if no one’s really even listening, join up with a few hundred thousand others and crash the system.
You can still fight tickets in person which is usually the most convincing defense, or in the mail. This is just another, more convenient way to cast your vote against the injustice and still show up at work on time.
The scary part of the times article (paper version) is the merging of this announcement with news that the Parking Fines Reduction Program is going to come to an end as if somehow this spanking new online hearing system (really only a postage stamp away from the existing mail system) would render a good old fashioned fine reduction unnecessary.
The online fine reduction which everyone has read about here has been a staple of this unlegislated, municipal taxation the city calls "parking fines" for about 5 years and is an important option for people who are seriously looking for a financial break or who just happen to read this blog. No one but city government wants this last dollop of forgiveness to go away, so please click on the Contact the Mayor link to the right and make your opinion count in favor of continuing fine reductions.

Bike Lanes Again.

The bike lanes are in the news again. This week two groups of residents filed suit against the Bloomberg administration over the Park Slope bike lane. Today the Times contrasts this legal action with Park Slope’s supposedly liberal leaning reputation and offers some professional psychology as to why the beloved Park Slope liberals are playing against character. After all, bike lanes are green, aren’t they? But not everybody rides a bike, not all of us has the strength and reflexes needed to ride a bike in NYC, and how many of us can ride a bike to work, or take one to pick up a case of dog food?
We keep hearing about the glorious bike lanes of Europe and how we could be that civilized, but, as many have said before me, and I have said here the automobile is a part of our national identity and we’re not giving that up for the sake of just any “Green.” Cars were a keystone in our country’s history and are still essential to our economy today. From the manufacture of cars and a hundred other related industries (It is estimated that 1 out 10 jobs are automobile related.) to the connections cars and roads made to the most obscure corners of this country, nothing since the pony express had so united and defined America. The mass production of cars launched an economic boon that lasted for a century. Roads were as important and powerful as rivers and they could go anywhere. Automobiles connected and enriched this country. Car became image. Just like cell phones are now.
Nothing the Times has reported is likely to be wrong, including last weeks’ article on DOT Commissioner Jada Khan’s “I know what’s good for you” approach to dealing with a city council and residents who are used to having a say in how it’s city will operate. The story just may go further than that. It’s not that we won’t change. It’s that we want more than a handful of elected (and not so elected) officials making decisions about our character. Where was the community discussion and debate about bicycle lanes? Why not open up the debate to the public and let’s hear what other green ideas are put on the table. For instance, someone might propose that instead of bike lanes, we install bus lanes (and not just on a few avenues with camera ticketing revenue possibilities). As someone who has raised a child in this city on a budget, I can say that nothing is more New York than a bunch of grown people talking baby talk to an infant on a bus, something I’ve never seen in a sunless, noisy, occasionally hostile subway tunnel. Bike lanes are slowing buses down and some city plazas are eliminating routes altogether.
Whether you like this idea or prefer your own, the simple psychology here might be that the backlash created by force feeding these changes into our neighborhoods over and above their impact on businesses or residents or transportation could sour the whole concept of a more green city before it get’s started.

Crash Tax?

Everybody knows the crash tax is the dinner treat, heavy furniture moving, or at least a few interesting travel stories that your friends have come to expect when you visit their expensive and dangerous city and are crashing at their place.
Crashing is an important cog in the machinery of evolution and the migrations of all the great civilizations. Without crashing, ideas or the seeds of ideas may never leave their tiny native villages. Strangers may never collide, argue or fall in love. I, and probably millions of others, never would have made it to New York if we didn’t have that friend’s, relative’s or classmate’s place to land safely. So why, we have to ask, has our Mayor come to propose a new tax on crashing?
Relax. It’s not some kind of 60s backlash thing at all. Turns out, the Mayor is proposing a new tax, to begin this July 1, on anyone who has a traffic accident (apparently also a “crash”) and requires emergency services. The tax will be levied by the Fire Department, the latest in a long line of municipal tax collectors. Now the heroics of those brave men will not only command our respect and admiration, but will also instill anger, fear and resentment as their bills past due, generally not covered by insurance, will arrive in the mail at rates from $365 if there is no fire or injury to $490 if there is a fire and injury to somewhere in between.
Some people are calling it “double taxation” because those services are already paid for by longstanding taxes. Others are just concerned that someone will hesitate to call emergency services when they are needed because of the expense. A few are worried that larger-than-life car chases will now have a tinge of regret. A few more can’t help but notice that our Mayor is going after NYC drivers again. And still others are worried that fearful bystanders who don’t really want to get involved could call 911 leaving you with the bill. But we are just relieved that couches and floors everywhere in this great city will still be tax free and friends’ doors will still be open without fear of taxpayer funded rescue or social taxation. For now.

A Streetparker's Oscar picks

You may want to hold off on that Oscar pool. parallespaces has the most likely winners, in the most important categories, right here. So, with no more delay:

For Best Acting Bernie Madoff edges out Mayor Bloomberg in this one although hizzoner’s artful gesturing with a few snow plows almost made his harsh restoring of Alt Side rules in the impossible Winter conditions believeable. But Bloomberg only reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars and some of it probably went to good use.

Best Supporting Actress Jada Khan handily defeats all comers for her Transportation department’s “I want to be left alone.” When asked by the NY Times where the next traffic pattern change and reduction of parking spaces was going to occur, they refused to answer. She is a public official and her public works/tax supported department managed to get the Times to accept her silence. Very convincing.

Best Actress goes to Anne Hathaway. I know she’s not up for an Oscar but, let’s face it, she’s hot and is rumored to have mad parking skills,

Best Supporting Actor goes to the second major Winter storm of this season. The first storm gave us weeks of suspended alternate side parking, but the second really carried the story to a blissful 6 weeks of virtually never having to move your car. Very poignant.

Best Directing goes to Mayor Bloomberg for directing the most orchestrated revenge drama against the car owners of this great city who a few years back, along with torrid media coverage, forced him to back down when he called them whiners. Since that fateful, day, he has attempted a disorganized (and failed) congestion pricing tax for drivers, forced through numerous bike lanes that reduce parking, congest traffic, and probably deal a decisive blow against our already traffic slowed bus system.

Best Film goes to those so believable Red Light snapshots that the city likes to boast are from state of the art cameras placed at the most dangerous intersections around the city. Those pictures are worth a thousand words and they can’t lie, right? Actually, they have been proven to lie in many cities across the country and have been outlawed in some states for that reason. The most effective technique is the shortening of Yellow lights. Unfortunately, a study of the duration of Yellow lights where these cameras are placed is not possible. When these “most dangerous” locations for these cameras was requested in a Freedom of Information request, the DOT refused citing the legal exception that they were part of an “ongoing investigation.”

Screenplay: Those bright orange winter storm assessments on your windscreen take this one, although the arch villain who closed bus stops but masterminded the writing of tickets for parking in those closed stops was some pretty good villainy and does get honorable mention.

Best Documentary goes to Inception for its fearless investigative journalism into the dream within a dream within a nightmare reality that perfectly captures the experience of parking in this city.

Wear and Tear.

Parking in this city is tough enough. And you can add to it the uneasy feeling you get when you approach your car and recognize something is not right. I’m not talking about the towed car or forgetting where you parked the damn thing. It’s the flat tire, the broken mirror, the scratch, the scrape, the smashed window, or smashed headlight that hits you as you get closer. Congratulations, you’ve thrown craps; the ref made a lousy call; you’ve been “assessed for street repairs.” You didn’t deserve it. It was that roll of the dice again. But you will pay.
Vandalism, break ins, theft, they’re all done by garden variety criminals. But what about the broken mirror? Your so called friends tell you you should have folded it in like this wasn’t the first time you forgot to in years, but you know that you parked legally and someone drove by, hit it, caused you a couple of hundred dollars of damage and didn’t stop to report it. Didn’t leave a note. Ran for it. Would you?
It happened to me the first week they jump started Alt Side Rules back on and I’ll bet there were more than the usual number of incidences of that kind of panic and bad judgment in that week as rows upon rows of cars had to dig in, spin out, rock back and forth between two other struggling cars, or 4-wheel out of the way of non existent plows and sweepers. Only this guy backed into the side rear of my car scraping the paint down to the metal and tearing off a piece of the rear lens (never a cheap item anymore). He also tore off part of the rubber compound on the bumper. It was no tap. The alarm had to go off.
Now we all know the law. You damage a car in any way and you have to report it. You’re in a hurry, leave a note. Leaving the scene of an accident is serious. Insurance could be lost, licenses revoked. But many people who have no intention of breaking the law have decided that the everyday bump and grind of parking is a normal consequence of life in the big city. Bumpers get scraped. That plastic mermaid license plate holder that crushed when you backed into it or the trailer hitch that you didn’t see when you pulled into the space and cracked your headlight are all part of the normal “wear and tear” of this parking life. And I don’t even want to count the number of yellow dings my cars have accumulated over the years.
But this guy had to go pretty far off course to double-park back into my car that was protected behind and in front by much wider vans, had to be extra stupid. But not dumb enough to leave a note. And no witnesses came forward either. They were deaf and dumb.
A true believer of the latest CSI techniques, I walked down the block and inspected the sides of all the cars on the block and right away I noticed several cars that had other cars’ paint on them. Fact is the first 4 cars I looked at did. On the whole block an average of 4 out of 5 cars did. They’d all been hit. Hell with it. This was just typical wear and tear after all. It was just that roll of the dice.
Then I found it. I found the culprit (See photo). It has my shade of paint on it, at the right part of his car, and at the right height to have done the damage. Sure I’d have to hire a forensic chemist to prove it and that would cost more than repairs, but maybe it’s worth it to bust him. Or should I just ask him, confront him maybe, accuse him! Wreak midnight revenge? What would you do?