41–50 of 78 posts
Why do we need to vigilantize the populace? Just enforce the laws!
I lived around the corner from Midtown North police precinct and the Midtown Community Court next to it. My whole block was no parking. There is no streetsweeping on the block. It's set up that way so that NYPD and court officials have somewhere to park their personal vehicles. This even though they have a whole gated garage that takes up 1/3 of the block. Instead, for the last (at least) 40 years, the parking scheme…
This seems odd. If the situation is so bad, surely you can cover a salary for a traffic inspector to do the rounds? Even at one ticket per hour you should be able to pay the salaries of the inspectors needed to make a dent in the problem. Why do we need to vigilantize the populace? Just enforce the laws!
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This is a pretty dismissive take. The city could easily designate unloading zones in lieu of a parking space or town in the middle of most blocks. Don’t forget, bike lanes are also used for deliveries.
I lived around the corner from Midtown North police precinct and the Midtown Community Court next to it. My whole block was no parking. There is no streetsweeping on the block. It's set up that way so that NYPD and court officials have somewhere to park their personal vehicles. This even though they have a whole gated garage that takes up 1/3 of the block. Instead, for the last (at least) 40 years, the parking scheme…
Calling this a grift is doing a disservice, IMO. This is straight up corruption. And it's rampant.
I find this proposal problematic. There is a world of difference between reporting on a violation in your community because you're a concerned citizen, and directly incentivizing citizens to report on each other. I'm sure you can find some small counter examples, but by and large the US has never had a history of augmenting law enforcement by way of private citizens. We are not a country of snitches.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/abortion-law-regulatio...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a pretty dismissive take. The city could easily designate unloading zones in lieu of a parking space or town in the middle of most blocks. Don’t forget, bike lanes are also used for deliveries.
Vast majority of space, especially around the Manhattan and the dense part of Brooklyn and Bronx already is commercial unloading only Mon-Fri, yet the dynamic I mentioned is common place. Again high density implies shortage of space - you want groceries and bike/car lanes, but only get to pick one of the two.
You are really ignoring the huge opportunity cost of land that is widespread personal car use in NYC - people just tend to ignore how much land that really is because they are so used to it*. Delivery trucks wouldn't be a problem if there were a lot less cars, but cars are sarcosanct in America.
[*] The story of the original Sim City comes to mind. They originally were going to show parking lots, etc, but realized all this infrastructure actually made it look stupid and empty.
This is a huge issue- it's rare that I find a stretch of two blocks in Manhattan or Brooklyn that doesn't have a car sitting in the bike lane. Double parking seems to be a way of life (remember the Seinfeld episode?). About half the time there's someone in the car which might make this complicated, but I love that someone is raising this.
Highly dense neighborhoods will invariably have cars, and especially delivery vehicles, double parking all over because density always implies shortage of space; bike lanes are in now way special in this context, unless you're suburban transplant with a newfound IMACYCLISTNOW identity.
If there will always be a shortage of space, we should encourage the activity that uses that space more efficiently. That means bikes over cars.
I find this proposal problematic. There is a world of difference between reporting on a violation in your community because you're a concerned citizen, and directly incentivizing citizens to report on each other. I'm sure you can find some small counter examples, but by and large the US has never had a history of augmenting law enforcement by way of private citizens. We are not a country of snitches.