Meter Maids Sticking It to Residential Nabes
While overall crime rates continue to fall around the borough (even in North Brooklyn, where yesterday’s headlines focused on a rise in murders, saw 17 percent fewer robberies in the first 5 1/2 months of 2007), one threat to civilized society apparently continues to grow: scofflaw parkers. In Bay Ridge, parking violations were up 9…
While overall crime rates continue to fall around the borough (even in North Brooklyn, where yesterday’s headlines focused on a rise in murders, saw 17 percent fewer robberies in the first 5 1/2 months of 2007), one threat to civilized society apparently continues to grow: scofflaw parkers. In Bay Ridge, parking violations were up 9 percent through June 10; in Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace, 25.9 percent; in Red Hook, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, 4.3 percent; in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO, 6.6 percent. “A 25% jump is quite a jump in this community, especially when we have to move cars four times a week for alternate-side parking,” said Jeremy Laufer, district manager of Community Board 7 in Sunset Park. So are people really violating parking laws more than in the past or are the police just thinking more like bank robbers? “Why do they come to Bay Ridge?” asked Bob Cassara, president of the Bay Ridge Community Council. “Because that’s where the money is, and there’s a lot of money in ticketing people.” Exactly: A nice fat middle-class tax hike.
Parking Tickets on the Rise [NY Daily News]
Murder Up in North Brooklyn, Down in South [Brownstoner]
The anti-car crazies are children with issues. Normal children love cars and trucks.
the anti-car crazies are children who cannot imagine any situation but their own. if it’s good enough for their white-middle-class selves, then it’s good enough for anyone.
I have lived here my entire life and have never gotten a ticket and I drive all the time. Not one. I don’t double park, don’t park near a hydrant…It’s not that complicated.
a dog and a baby “on the way” make a car a necessity??
anyway. don’t park illegally.
houseowax,
the anti car crazies are loons. they are like the PETA extremists. You have to ignore them, they have their own issues of some kind.
Every single time an auto-related article comes up, some wiseass throws out the condemnation of urban car-ownership. He assumes that car owners in the city are all to lazy or precious to take public transportation.
I’ll speak only for myself, but my job requires me to move large, heavy and unwieldy objects frequently. I also have a 150 lb dog and a baby on the way. These things make having a car a necessity. To assume that I’m some impudent jackass driving everywhere out of sheer laziness is to project your situation on me, and they’re clearly quite different.
Stop breaking the law, and you’ll stop being punished.
What irks me is not that the meter maids are enforcing the laws, but that laws are enforced selectively. If every meter maid in Greenpoint went up to Manhattan Ave. and ticketed the cars, vans, and trucks that parked illegally, double parked, parked in bus stops – all of which create actual, real traffic problems during rush hour – they’d have a bonanza.
My favorite is the armored car that is driving south down Manhattan Ave. When it gets to Calyer, it crosses the yellow line and parks – facing the wrong way – on Manhattan in front of the Dime savings bank. It does this at least once or twice a week, if not every day.
Anon 9:51 and 10:04, I suppose you’re the same. Look, I am not an advocate of driving over public transportation, not by a long shot, but it’s a free country and cars are a huge convenience that can improve livability. As someone who lived a year mobility impaired, I have a new appreciation for their existence in the urban landscape. The point is that the city is devoting a huge chunk of change to wringing every last cent out of taxpayers. In many areas that are blitzed with parking tickets, bad parking is nowhere on the list of residents’ complaints. The city is not investing in improving quality of life for taxpayers, but in nickling and diming them–probably to help pay for the fleet of gas-guzzlers and army of bodyguards it offers even its lowliest public officials.
As for recycling–that’s not an egregious fine for a pretty blatant (and lazy) violation. Recycling fines have been out there, but, for the most part, not crazy.