Church Parking Flap: We See This As An Acceptable Cost

I believe these are people who share the church on the west side of the street; the people going to Zion Lutheran Church on the east side don’t do this stuff.

yeah, get a freakin’ life.

Mr Uribe’s logic is sound. I am a little concerned that two of you actually see this as a non-problem. Cars go on roads, bikes in bike lanes, subway cars on track and so forth. It’s a fundamental, straightforward component of transportation safety. And why are you lashing out at the post author?

Interestingly, if during any day of the week during business hours a resident on my street in the Heights temporarily pulls over to the side of the street to unload something out of their vehicle a la the churchgoers pictured here, I estimate that there is a 50% chance that they will receive a parking ticket. Just the other day, a guy with a mini-Uhaul pulled over for 10 minutes to unload a desk from the van into our building. Boom, an immediate ticket received – can’t remember if it was from a roaming and otherwise unoccupied street cop or the nutty traffic cop who cavorts around in the little NYPD golf cart.
The question is why, in the case of the Fed Ex/UPS guys, movers, and the Fresh Direct guys, do we apply the same law in a completely different way? I believe the church-goers actually take this question to a much higher level (no pun intended) as they literally park their cars for hours on end!
If the law is changed to accommodate the church-goers, then I will forever bite my tongue, but until then, I expect equal application of existing law.

I hope those of you advocating vandalizing the cars aren’t serious. How would you like it if someone broke your window because your meter ran out 5 minutes ago? Autostripping and Criminal Mischief aren’t things you want on your record.

Tickets aren’t the only answer. Why don’t you go to a meeting in the Church and complain to the people who are doing it? Why don’t you go to the fire station with pictures to ask if their trucks can get by?

A couple of months ago we had a woman call every day to complain about a parking condition in Coney Island. Finally a cop went out there with 2 books of summons and wrote 60 cars that were parked at an angle where there was no sign and no lines on the street. That wasn’t the parking condition she was complaining about and her own car got a summons. She had NY1 out there because no one had enforced the law on that block for 40 years, and when the reporter asked her why she called on her neighbors she ran in her house and locked the door.

The point is, by the criminal procedure law, all violations are discretionary and sometimes its not worth it to alienate an entire community of people because a few people are complaining. If every person who jaywalked or dropped a cigarette butt on the street or rode a bike that doesn’t have a bell on it (a criminal court summons) got a ticket everyone would hate the police so much that we couldn’t effectively do our jobs when something serious actually happened.

I let people go all them time, usually depending on their attitude and to a certain extent who they are. I’m not going to write an old person a dog poop summons, or a bike on the sidewalk to someone who’s with their kids. I don’t bother the UPS guys either because the company factors in the cost of tickets into the cost of doing business and therefore the point of the ticket (discouraging the violation in the future) is moot.

People want the police to use good judgment and discretion, but usually only when its in their favor.

Blah, blah, blah . . . these people are regularly and brazenly parking their cars for hours on end in an area that is clearly marked as a bike path. I regularly use this bike path and don’t appreciate the obstruction. I don’t see how these parking violations can be defended. I sure hope I don’t accidently slam my bike into the tail light of one of these cars.

Anyway, I find it a little amusing that bikers are complaining about others committing traffic violations. I’m sure not all of them do, but I routinely see bikers break every traffic rule in the book. They run lights and stop signs, they ride on the sidewalk, they go the wrong way on one way streets, they rarely signal, and god forbid you pull one over because in my experience a lot of them have a nasty, entitled attitude about it.

Just because a biker or a pedestrian was killed by a car does not mean the car was at fault- it just means that the car was bigger. Certainly sometimes the driver is at fault- drunk or speeding- but I remember a couple of years ago two young women who were drunk were running across 1st Ave by Stuy Town in the dark and were both killed by a cab. Imagine how bad the driver must have felt, yet it wasn’t his fault at all.

Willowtown Cop makes some great points about lawbreaking by bicyclists. I routinely see infractions every day. The irony here is that the city can’t actually apply the law harshly on the bikers because it would create a political backlash. So ironically bikers benefit from the same “look the other way” policy from cops that these churchgoers do. If cops applied traffic laws to bikers as harshly as they did to cars, you’d see 100’s of tickets being written daily for all the infractions Willowtown cop describes. Have you EVER seen a biker stop for a stop sign? Well, it’s the law, but no one does it, and no one gets fined. I almost have been hit several times by bicyclists who were riding the wrong way down the street and blowing the light I was crossing with. So please let’s not talk about uneven application of the laws here….you’ll lose that argument.

My 2 cents – what exactly is your argument – until all cyclists get tickets, we shouldn’t ticket cars? How about we make that rule for pedestrians? Until every pedestrian gets a ticket for crossing at the red, or in the middle of an intersection, no tickets for cars.

How about if the parishoners decided they needed to drive up the street the wrong way? Would that be cool for ‘just a few hours’ every Sunday?

Soulman, what does any of that have to do with people illegally parking their cars?

Uribe, stop talking about damaging cars. You’re making yourself and the argument supported by the facts look dumb. You are also giving ammunition to the pedaling prick stereotype. If that is the kind of biker you are, please don’t speak for the rest of us.

This whole discussion skirts the underlying values divide between those who see bicycles as a recreational activity and those who embrace it as a primary mode of transportation – one which improves public health, the environment, and quality of life.

Like the church, bicycling can strengthen communities. Our neighborhood is blessed with resources and a reputation for a high quality of life. We are located in a/the major global city. It looks bad when we can’t live up to the lowest standard of relatively tame progressive transportation policy. And if the policy is wrong for Henry St. on Sunday mornings — change it!

Until then, enforce it, please. So simple.

This is definitely not about cars vs. bicycles. It is about the laws being enforced differently in equal circumstances. I live by the promenade, and every weekend tons of people drive to the promenade and park illegally in nearby streets for a few minutes while they go check out the view, and they almost instantly get a ticket. This makes me very happy, but at the same time, I can’t park my car to load or unload stuff infront of my house on a Sunday without running a big risk of getting a ticket if I leave my car unattended for a second. Listen, cops are so ticket hungry I park on the street legally and every year I get a ticket the first day my inspection ticket expires. So, why is it that every week people park on Henry street illegally for hours without ever getting a single ticket? Why the privilege?

All of the other grounds for divorce in NY are not in the penal law statutes (cruel and inhuman treatment, abandonment, imprisonment, and conversion of a separation agreement) so I don’t see why adultery would be required to be. It’s also on the books in most states that have no-fault divorce.

It has NOTHING to do with religion. You only have to go a few blocks over to Cobble Hill and see how people double park on alternate side days and never get any tickets with nary a church or a temple around to know that. It has to do with political clout. The church has political clout, just like the community board that worked out the alternate side agreement does. Until people who don’t want people parking in the bike lane organize and have more political clout than the church does, nothing is going to change.

The only lawsuit I’m aware of that someone could file to compel the police to enforce a law is a Article 78 proceeding called a mandamus to compel, but that only covers the performance of an act required by law as to which no discretion is involved, and, as I stated before, the Criminal Procedure Law specifically gives the police discretion as to violation level offenses.

WC is the only person here who has a grip on the messy reality of life. Maybe because he is a police officer, and not an apartment-bound literary type. My point, Peter, was simply that you can’t stand there and scream about unequal treatment under the law when the group you are advocating for also benefits from this unequal enforcement. This is what is called hypocrisy.
I strongly advocate the idea of more bike lanes in the city, and I think there needs to be a balance between cars and bikes. My perspective is from someone who has a car, likes to bike, and walks about 90% of the time, I can see things from each POV. As a pedestrian my biggest hassles come from bikes and taxis, not private motorists. So when I hear cyclists piss and moan about cars, I say as a pedestrian why don’t you obey the traffic laws first, then we’ll talk about your “rights.” From a common sense level, I don’t see why you all don’t just ride down willow instead. It’s a lot prettier than Henry and has waaay less traffic, no matter what time it is.