Closing Bell: Alt-Side Holiday Spreading From the Slope
Starting today, the city is temporarily putting the brakes on alternate-side street parking regs in Gowanus, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill. Far as we know, the lack of alt-side rules in Park Slope (party’s over next Monday) for the past couple months has had little noticeable effect on street cleanliness or spot availability…
Starting today, the city is temporarily putting the brakes on alternate-side street parking regs in Gowanus, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill. Far as we know, the lack of alt-side rules in Park Slope (party’s over next Monday) for the past couple months has had little noticeable effect on street cleanliness or spot availability in the neighborhood. Some people interviewed by the Times last week, however, had plenty of gripes. Slopers with cars care to comment? And are people in the new parking-free-for-all zones worried or excited about the hiatus?
How Will the Great Slope Parking Experiment Play Out? [Brownstoner]
Photo by redxdress.
I do want to say I am not happy about how they broke the days up. I liked it much better when it was back to back!
I live on 9th St near the park and I have not noticed any differnece with the parking and I drive every day. It takes 5-10 minutes to find parking after work on weekdays and 10-20 minutes to find parking in the evenings and weekends.
Dumping the car in Park Slope during vacation almost backfired. I showed up Sunday upon my return and found that cars were going to be towed at 8 pm on Prospect Park West. Just made it.
Glad it’s ending. Parking has been growing steadily more constipated. Now that school is out there is little to no turnover for daytime parking. and the streets are now getting pretty scummy especially storm drains at the corners. Can’t wait for parking rules to return.
I’ve always liked the way that Paris streets are cleaned. A Human being with a broom and water. No noise from that insane thing that cleans the streets. No emissions into the air, and a job and a few streets for someone to take pride in….
Instead what we get is some company pushing its line of street cleaners and service to the city, that in reality just spread crap and disgusting liquid all over what was a pretty clean block.
I lived at park slope near methodist and parked anywhere from 4th to 7th ave during the alternate parking days.
I commuted everyday to work with my car.
A good many of the double parkers on cleaning day were obnoxious and acted privelaged about the double parking thing.
It was my problem for needing my car after I was boxed in. Comments like, don’t park here or you’ll get boxed in. Yes, I planned around this privelage and generally I would arrive at least 15 minutes before cleaning time to start the commute. Sometimes I would be boxed in well before the 8:00 AM crunch, and the home owner would get huffy when I asked them to move their car. Once someone with a nice Saab boxed me in and didn’t leave any number on the dash. The homeowner was quick to point out it must not be a homeowner, but someone at the hospital.
In any case, I was young them. Thinking back, the few times I was blocked in with no phone number, I should have called the traffic police and gotten the selfish bastard towed and ticketed.
Careful Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens parkers…it’s not the whole neighborhoods. I checked the nyc.gov website to find out that the suspension is on the east side of Court St. The every Tuesday side-switching parking ballet continues….
Amen to that, about out-of-state registration, 5:36. And I’ll add to that list Florida and South Carolina, in my neck of the woods. *Always* SUVs, too.
Parking is always at a premium around Methodist Hospital and has been MUCH harder to find during the alt-side rule suspension, so I think the answer to your question depends on where you live in PS. Having been in the midst of repairs, it’s been much harder to cart debris or bring heavy materials to the curb without a good amount of parking luck combined with cooperative neighbor car-jockeying and space-manipulating. Conscientious clean-up by residents and repeated downpours washed away much of the street debris from the top of the slope, and contributed to the floods and misery near 4th and 5th Aves. I agree with other posters about confusion and revenue generation in the change of dates, turning a Thursday side into a Friday, and a Friday into a Tuesday. One thing the suspension demonstrated is that without the absolute requirement to move their cars for alternate side, many owners will opt not to use them, or use them far less. Though I support congestion pricing, alt-side suspension has shown itself as a more viable (though not more lucrative) solution to reducing the number of cars on the road. Final gripe: too many cars with Pennsylvania, Georgia, Delaware and Connecticut plates, sitting for weeks without moving and almost certainly belonging to New Yorkers. Time for residential parking permits, which would be a very effective and long-overdue cure to out-of-state registration.