""Parking in general is one of the areas where New York City is a bad joke," said Jon Orcutt, a former planning official at the Department of Transportation during the Bloomberg administration, who now directs advocacy at Bike New York. "De Blasio didn't have the heart to do anything about it and Adams embodied the bad joke, so the question is what's the new boss going to do.""
"Little has changed under any mayor since Mike Bloomberg slightly cut the number of placards distributed to city employees. His successor, Bill de Blasio, restored those cuts and added tens of thousands more. And the current mayor has been a notorious placard apologist, which he was even before he moved to Gracie Mansion. Even after a scathing investigation last year proved that placards remain out of control, City Hall and law enforcement have done little to clamp down on the proliferation of the parking perk, which undercuts street safety efforts and eroded trust in government."
"Placards encourage driving in the sole American city where most people don't own a car, and their abundance has inspired motorists to chance their luck by leaving a smorgasbord of paraphernalia in their dashes, such as hi-viz vests, police handbooks, bibles, logbooks, or even handwritten notes admitting guilt but offering some vague cop-friendly excuse."
Placard distribution across administrations has expanded or been restored after minor cuts, leaving the parking privilege widespread and poorly controlled. City Hall and law enforcement have made limited efforts to curb the proliferation despite a scathing 2024 investigation showing out-of-control placard use. Abundant placards encourage driving in a largely carless city and prompt motorists to deploy improvised paraphernalia to avoid enforcement. Free-parking passes for a municipal elite function as a form of corruption that erodes public trust. Official permits grant limited privileges, but drivers routinely exceed them, obstructing bike and bus lanes and undermining street safety.
Read at Streetsblog
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