Alternate Side Parking Suspension Continued One Week

The rule is (in my opinion) bad policy for public safety reasons and I have tried to change it. However, the law is clear. Section 4-08(a)(7)(iii) of the Traffic Rules and Regulations, “Street cleaning rules suspended,” states (emphasis added):

(A) Street cleaning parking rules are suspended on the days listed in subparagraph (i) of this paragraph and on the following holidays: Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Ascension Thursday, Feast of the Assumption, Feast of All Saints, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, first two days of Succoth, Shemini Atzereth, Simchas Torah, Shavuot, Purim, Orthodox Holy Thursday, Orthodox Good Friday, first two and last two days of Passover, Idul-Fitr, Idul-Adha, legal Asian Lunar New Year, on all state and national holidays, on the following additional legal holidays: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, Lincoln’s Birthday, President’s Day, Columbus Day-observed, Election Day, and Veteran’s Day, and on such other days as announced by the Commissioner or his/her designee.

(B) For the purposes of this subparagraph (iii), street cleaning parking rules shall mean those rules (a) on posted signs, consisting of the letter “P” with a broom through it or (b) except as otherwise provided in item (D) of this subparagraph, on posted signs containing “No Parking” rules restricting parking on one day per week or on alternate days.

(C) “No Parking” street cleaning rules, located in parking meter zones, are suspended on the days on which street cleaning rules are suspended and on such other days as announced by the Commissioner or his/her designee. Suspension of street cleaning rules does not affect the requirement of activating the meter during the hours that such meter is in effect.

(D) Posted signs restricting parking for a period of six or more consecutive hours on one day per week or on alternate days are not street cleaning parking rules. However, such restrictions are suspended on the days that street cleaning rules are suspended.

Enforcement continues to be random. Yesterday, I saw the entire row of cars on north side of Remsen (between Hicks and Montague Terrace) ticketed, and the same for the west side of Montage Terrace. A couple blocks away, on Willow and on Hicks between Pierrepont and Clark, both sides of each street were fully parked up with no tickets in sight.

Reggie, your statement is not true (“the rules are also suspended on the streets with parking permitted six days on one side, one day on the other”).

The law is not tied to “streets.” It’s tied to signs containing the parking rule. If a street has the same type of signage on both sides, the no-parking zone on both sides is suspended when there’s a street-cleaning suspension.

However, the signs on the streets we’re talking about here are different. One side has signs saying “No Parking 8am-6pm Wednesdays” (or Tuesdays on some streets) and the other side has signs saying “Parking Permitted 8am-6pm Wednesdays ONLY” (or Tuesdays).

This is what the law says about these kind of signs:

“Posted signs restricting parking for a period of six or more consecutive hours on one day per week or on alternate days are not street cleaning parking rules. However, such restrictions are suspended on the days that street cleaning rules are suspended.”

The sign that says “No Parking 8am-6pm Wednesdays” is a sign restricting parking for a period of 6 or more consecutive hours on one day per week, and therefore you’re allowed to park on that side on a Wednesday if street-cleaning rules are suspended.

The sign that says “Parking Permitted 8am-6pm Wednesdays ONLY” is ***NOT*** a sign sign restricting parking for a period of 6 or more consecutive hours on one day per week. (Literally, it’s not a sign restricting parking at all — it permits parking — and even if you infer it to be a restriction, it applies to more than one day per week, not one, nor does it apply on alternate days.) Therefore you may not park on that side on any other day except a Wednesday, even if street-cleaning rules are suspended.

Nowhere in the law does it say that these two types of signs, on opposite sides of the street, are paired for purposes of what happens during a street-cleaning suspension.

In fact, NOWHERE in the traffic law does it talk about alternate SIDES of streets at all. (It sometimes talks about alternate DAYS, which could apply either to swapping no-parking from one side to the other depending on the day, OR to having one day on, one day off on the same side.) The city is well aware that not all streets are suited to symmetrical treatment on both sides, and the law is intentionally written NOT to treat both sides the same by default. Each side can have its own treatment, which is governed by the signage on site.

Oh I completely agree that DOT has hopelessly muddled the situation with the wording of that law, which is very obtuse even if intentionally written that way. It took me 8 dense paragraphs to describe it! How ridiculous.

I also think the substance is dumb. Either a street is too narrow to allow parking on both sides, or it’s not. It shouldn’t have anything to do whether the city has decided to suspend street-cleaning rules on some other streets.

Also, I continue to believe that that widths of some Heights streets that have the special 1-sided parking signage are no narrower than the widths of some Cobble Hill streets, where two-sided parking is almost always allowed. Where’s the sense in that?