Wednesday afternoon my street was overtaken with three charter busses parked illegally. As luck would have it, a traffic agent was approaching on foot. I showed him the buses, the regulation, indicated that a legal bus parking was located on the other side of the avenue, and asked him if he would write tickets. A bizarre exchange then took place, The agent: ” I wonder what this bus is doing here?” Me: ” It is parked illegally, that’s what!”. Finally after a bit more prodding the agent wrote a ticket.
When I asked him to ticket the second bus, he looked at me as if he was doing me a huge favor by doing his job and said he did not have time ( OK maybe his shift was over) .
This is the third time this happens to me. The second time it took 7 city officials and myself to convince an officer who was refilling his van at a gas station to ticket a Cadillac SUV parked on the sidewalk, obstructing the path to the school. The question the agent posed then was ” Who does this car belong to ?”. You can see the first time here.
So when the council passes laws to relieve excessive parking ticketing, I have no idea to which groups they are pandering to . Certainly not the law abiding citizens who have to beg for tickets to be issued to scofflaws .
I feel the same way – especially when vehicles are blocking the 8th Av. bike lane. Sometimes I’ll go out of my way to call these violations to the attention of a nearby cop or traffic agent, but who are often reluctant to do much, if anything about it.
Ken Stewart suggests taking the badge # of the officer and reporting it to your elected.
I know ! It’s exhausting…
I’m wondering if we can establish metrics here — ie, how many tickets in our neighborhood have been issued for these charter buses parked illegally? I have numerous photos of these transgressions — how many tickets in 2010, 2011, 2012?
Enforcement is one of two underlying issues here — not only for charter buses — but for cars blocking the “intersection boxes” — I have lived in our neighborhood for 15 years and I have never seen an illegal bus ticketed, or a vehicle ticketed for blocking the “intersection box.”
The other underlying issue with the charter buses — DOT has no long term plan for the 500 tourist/charter buses “per day” who utilize the HK and 34th Street area for their business. We are all proponents of economic development –we need the tourist revenue. But I’m wondering if DOT has sidelined their responsibility with managing these tourist /charter buses in favor of the more “fun” bike lanes. It’s a great legacy to have installed bike lanes — but if DOT wants to address healthy alternatives for our streets — get rid of the idling buses spewing out exhaust in our mid town residential neighborhoods….. First things first.
Right on . CB4 sent a letter to Nypd on enforcement , an Wednesday CB 4 will vote on a comprehensive letter on buses.