City Council Passes “Home Rule Message” on Residential Parking Permits

at last! we get to pay for the privilege of parking on our own block.
We don’t pay nearly enough taxes or fees and it is high time that the government tell us who can and can’t park in certain neighborhoods. Brilliant.

Why do the electeds pursue this will-o-the-wisp, bound to die measure, while ignoring the daily curse of the placard problem? Every day on our streets, Monroe Place, Pierrepont, Remsen, you name it, “Federal Office” and NYPD and NYState Court placarded cars use our precious curb spaces for their commuting convenience.
No Parking rules are daily ignored. Delivery trucks are blocked. Tradesmen…plumbers,electricians and others …are prevented from accessing our houses or must bring a “truck sitter” along . Emergency vehicles are hindered. Traffic is slowed down.
These serious unnecessary and costly inconveniences, as well health and safety problems we experience every day pf the week. Instead of addressing this real problem, we get false promises based on shaky evidence that what we really need are permits for our own parking.
Apparently, the fix is in, the authorities rule, favors are taken care of and no one tackles this flagrant cancer on our curbs.

In the past 30 years I’ve lived in 3 different states both close and far from city centers and never had a car. We live at the intersection of pretty much every train and bus in Brooklyn, within walking distance of downtown Manhattan, and a phone call away from a taxi or access a ride. You don’t “need” a car just because you have a long commute or because you’re too paranoid to take your precious children on the subway.

In actuality, court officers receive no special parking privledges. If you look at their placards, you will see they are issued by their union, not DOT or NYPD. Despite having no legal power, the placards are honored by their brother officers.

Car-owners are very much the minority in our community but tend to dominate the dialogue when it comes to the political process. The 52nd AD, which includes Brooklyn Heights but also several considerably more car-centric areas, has only a 41% car ownership rate (per US Census data).

It would be nice if more people who are concerned with pedestrian safety and mass-transit got in involved in the process– otherwise the congestion and traffic issues that plague our neighborhood will only get worse.

People paying to park their cars in their own neighborhoods is really yet another hidden tax to be foisted on working people & the middle class!

A woman who lives in Brooklyn Heights got into big trouble by abusing a NYC Handicapped Parking Placard she was reported by a neighbor who knew she was using an expired permit that was issued to her son for a high school sports injury which is NOT what these permits are to be used for.

And Mayor Bloomberg yanked ALL of the NYC Police Surgeons Placards after he learned that a politican had given out way too many due to political partronage so many had been abused.

And so report abuse that you see call 311 and demand action follow through the placard abuser will be prosecuted — the Brooklyn Heights woman had to pay a large fine and was ordered to do a ton of community service hours working with a human service agency that serves disabled people.

SPEAK UP BROOKLYN HEIGHTS!

In Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights owning a car is seen as a moral failing by some. It is kind of quaint.

I don’t really have any sympathy for drivers who suddenly have to pay for what was once “free.” The public has subsidized drivers for years. In an area served very well by mass transit, despite the every day complaints, drivers shouldn’t get a free use of public transportation assets, especially when driving is such an inefficient use of those assets.

That’s not to begrudge anyone that chooses to own a car. It’s not a “moral failure,” and stuart, I can’t think of anyone who thinks it is, rather most people just see it as an expensive inconvenience. I can see several reasons why someone would want to keep a car (frequent travel out of town for the weekends, reverse commuting, any other special needs not adequately served by mass transit).

Really this is no big deal. I’d be shocked if parking permits were all that expensive, and if it makes alternate side parking much easier, the cost will be more than made up for in saved time and less parking tickets.

Western Brooklyn – parking is an expense car owners should have to bear and so is paying for the cost of the roads they drive on!

If you live in CT, you drive to a Park’N’Ride, pay to park your car, get on the train and get to work.

Our neighborhood should not be a free park’n’ride for people to do the same – under the guise of being on-street. Car owners should have to pay for the services they consume.

And free-market forces should keep it balanced – permits should be priced, not charged a nominal fee.

New rules are also required to register in-state vehicles. These drivers are cheating the system, not to mention committing fraud, and pushing their expense on others!

Ante up!

If you need a car, there’s a cost. If you can’t afford it here, market forces indicate that you may need to move elsewhere, find a way to manage without a car or give up something else to have your car.

That’s how life works!

Hey, relax BH’er, you’re not breaking a huge scoop telling us that owning a car is expensive. It is expensive anywhere but particularly in the city.
Nonetheless, I love my car. Love it. I enjoy riding it, I enjoy the freedom it gives me. I enjoy listening to my ipod on its music system. I enjoy its voice command for music and phone, I enjoy its built-in GPS that tells me very firmly “turn right here”. and nothing anyone says or does will make me love it any less. So go suck a lemon.

I wasn’t suggesting that no one own a car. I was just pointing out that it’s a luxury, not a necessity. If you chose to live two hours away from where you work, or you need the car for your business, or otherwise think it’s worth the enormous headache and expense, you shouldn’t expect a free spot in any neighborhood in NYC. You should have to pay for a spot in a garage or an expensive permit. The city has a valuable commodity and they’re wasting it by giving it away free.

As far as the NYPD permits go, the “Official City Business” permits are the permits for unmarked cars assigned to commands, not to individuals. They are city owned cars on city business. They’re here for court – hundreds of cops and detectives are notified to come to court every day, and bring cars because the lab is in Queens, the Property Clerk’s Offices are all over the city, Gold St., Red Hook, Chinatown, etc. where you have to go twice to pick up and drop off the evidence for the case you’re there on. Anyone with a prisoner (also hundreds every day) has to take a car, unless you want to see a chain of prisoners the next time you get on the train with your family. Instead of blaming the cops who are required to drive the cars to a neighborhood where there is no parking anyway, why not blame the city for not building a garage for its own cars like it should? And isn’t it better that they take up illegal spots that you couldn’t park in anyway?

QR “perhaps instead of charging a high fee for the permits we could just allow local drivers to sign up for an annual lottery with a finite number of permits” That is one of the most idiotic ideas I have ever heard. What, one year I can park my car next year maybe not? Thank Ford you are not legislating this issue.

The streets are for cars, trucks and bicycles the sidewalks are for pedestrians. There is plenty of room for vehicles to move about the streets and park there as well, there is plenty of room for you to walk on the sidewalk. cars park curbside they are not draining city resources by doing so. Car owners are not being “subsidized” by the city. Actually, tolls collected at the MTA bridges and tunnels help subsidize mass transit. Cars get to park on residential streets for free or if they enact this into law, a nominal fee. Thats the way it is, If you don’t like it move.

Most of the funds for streets and highway maintenance come from the general fund (sales tax, income tax + misc other taxes). Licensing & registration fees are a rounding error in the total cost of local street maintenance. The Federal Gas tax takes in only $0.40 for every dollar spent from the so-called Federal Highway Trust Fund. Even if you eliminate the non-highway uses of the FHTF, drivers still get subsidized by all taxpayers out of non-vehicle revenue.

Be careful when arguing that your tax dollars entitle you to a parking spot, the same argument can (and should) be used to argue for much better funding for mass transit.

As far as draining city resources goes, congestion across the city “costs” the local economy $2 billion / year (that was a couple of years ago). That’s $2billion that could better go for jobs or services or raises or something other than taking up 160 square feet for days at a time.

@epc great points, totally agree – not sure what the RPP is actually being intended to do. It will certainly help with some issues and probably create a bunch more

@Western Brooklyn –
“Don’t drivers already pay for parking & the roads they drive on with car registration fees, license fees, tolls, gasoline taxes, other taxes, etc.???

Why not also tax the water we drink & air we breathe?”

For the cars registered in NY, those fees are supposed to help (although probably barely support the DMV cost base). The number of cars registered out of state is a bit odd but I’ll be most/all have lower registration fees, lower (if any) emission standards, cheaper insurance premiums, etc.

Which means all of those costs are shifted to the car owners who don’t have an out-of-state relative or address. The cars don’t get inspected, don’t meet our emissions standards and have fraudulent insurance policies (I’m sure the owners will sleep well until they have a claim)

and, I think the air and water are already being taxed, if not, we should look into it

@stuart very impressive comments, good luck finishing junior high, i hope puberty goes well for you, son