"Mayor Mamdani swept into Gracie Mansion on the promise of ending widespread corruption around policing and street safety. He can do both by laser-focusing his efforts on eliminating the prevalent abuse and forgery of parking placards. Mamdani has a rare chance to permanently halt this dangerous and criminal practice, and, in doing so, radically alter the balance of power in New York City. For the past decade, under the handle @placardabuse, we've documented how a large contingent of car drivers misuse their parking privileges -"
"or invent those privileges altogether - in order to break nearly every law that pertains to parking in the five boroughs. We have published more than 40,000 photos from a broad range of anonymous contributors. We did not expect this to continue for 10 years, since an honest and competent government could fix the problem in less than 10 months."
Mayor Mamdani can eliminate widespread corruption and improve policing and street safety by targeting abuse and forgery of parking placards. A decade-long campaign under @placardabuse collected over 40,000 photos showing drivers misuse or invent placard privileges across the five boroughs. Activists submitted thousands of 311 complaints, reported evidence to Internal Affairs and the Department of Investigation, and pushed five City Council bills in 2020. The problem endures because placard abuse functions as a systemic fraud and favor-trading mechanism that concentrates raw power; ending it would shift power dynamics and curb entrenched municipal corruption.
Read at Streetsblog
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