The parking picture in New York can be as crowded and confusing as Times Square on a matinee day.
With the City Council demanding five-minute grace periods at meters, Mayor Bloomberg calling for everything from high-tech parking gadgets to a ticket amnesty program to sensitivity training for traffic agents, and drivers crying out for relief amid the holiday gridlock, the NYCity News Service examined at the state of parking in the city.
Unlike parking spaces, stories aren’t hard to come by:
•Amnesty Plan Tackles Fine Mess: Mayor Bloomberg wants to raise millions with an amnesty program to forgive parking summonses penalties. But not everybody is ready to write a check.
•Citations With a Smile: Courtesy classes could be on tap for city traffic agents. But ticket writers say it’s motorists who need a lesson in manners.
•Tech Spurs (Parking) Space Race: Imagine getting a text message before your parking meter expires – and then plunking in a few virtual quarters remotely from a cell phone. The technology is out there – but will New York get it anytime soon?
•Merchants Sour on Lollipop Meters: Shopkeepers along Brooklyn’s Myrtle Avenue want the old-school “lollipop meters” to be replaced with Muni Meters so more vehicles can fit on the strip.
