2 Comments so far

1. Sobeit Union on December 5, 2007 11:42 pm

   I must confessed that I was quite shocked when Mario urged everyone to eschew driving in favor of biking.

   But on further reflection, could the fact that he owns three cars running 24 cylinders, weighing 18,000 pounds, and averaging 11 MPG and 15 feet in length each make him eager to forestall rivals for these precious spaces?

   An while his carbon footprint rivals that of a Sasquatch, Mario was right on about about Manhattanites who use our streets as long-term parking when they go away on vacation — two $35 parking tickets beats five times that for garage space or long-term airport parking. If I had a restaurant or business here, I’d be very upset at how that might hurt my business.

   Being a big believer in better living thorugh data extrapolation, could the city institute a “repeat offender” premium on parking tickets so that if you get tagged twice in same spot on consecutive weeks, you get a $100 surcharge? If you’re from Manhattan and do it in another borough, tack on an extra C-note.

   I can’t see Mayor Mike and Beep Marty not chortling in glee at the prospect of a ticket blitz that improves quality of life/business.

   Let’s give the politicians what they want!

   SU(no v)

2. Sobeit Union on December 12, 2007 3:27 am

   The Daily News’s Michael Daly recently had a great piece on multiple car owners in the city — and they even described a classic case of one driver hogging two spots in Carroll Gardens.

   http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/04/24/2007-04-24_there_auto_be_another_law.html

   snip/excerpt:

   But more than 300,000 households have two or more cars registered.

   And some 80,000 have three or more.

   If just the 80,000 with more than two were restricted to one, that would cut the number of cars by more than 160,000. The same restriction applied to those with two could cut another 300,000, for a total of 460,000 cars.

   And these startling numbers are based on the 2000 census. Many more multiple car owners have since moved into areas such as Park Slope in Brooklyn, where burgeoning traffic long ago killed the venerable game of stickball.

   One recent arrival was seen to park on Carroll St. the other day in such a way as to take up two parking spots. He later returned with a second car. He moved up the first and backed in the second.

   “Did you really just do that?” he was asked.

   “I have two cars,” he replied.

   end snip.

   Now I must confess to doing this several times myself in the past. But it’s gotten harder as sometimes you’ll return to find a Vespa, Mini Cooper (or in future, a Smart two-seater) occupying one half of your saved spot.