Parking

For the night of the Heat vs. the Nets, a small team of AYW volunteers surveyed the state of illegal parking and idling in the vicinity of Barclays Center.  Above is a photo of a TLC driver sleeping in his car while parked in a crosswalk on the north side of Atlantic Avenue near South Oxford Street.

The study began at 8:30 and concluded at 10:30 PM.  The streets were each only surveyed once.  They are listed in the order they were surveyed.  The survey preceded the end of the game which is by far the most impactful period of arena operation.

Based on our experience and AYW incident reports, the same locations are used over and over by drivers parking and idling illegally.  We used a slightly larger set of boundaries for this survey than our previous survey on December 5th.  Our western boundary was 4th Avenue in Park Slope and Fort Greene Place in Fort Greene; the southern boundary was St. Mark's Avenue in Park Slope and Prospect Heights.  The eastern boundary in Prospect Heights was Vanderbilt Avenue;  in Fort Greene it was South Portland Avenue.  The northern boundary was Hanson Place and Atlantic Avenue.

In total, we witnessed 77 parking and/or idling violations.  65 were parking and 12 were idling violations.  In December we found 83 violations.  64 of those were for parking and 19 were for idling.  Vehicles cited below as idling were not timed to see if they were idling for longer than the 3 minutes allowed in NYC, although in many cases the drivers appeared to sleeping, on the phone, or watching television.  We did not file complaints with 311.  Many of the illegally parked cars had out of state licenses.  

3 NYPD vehicles (1 marked, 1 unmarked, 1 with placard) blocking travel lanes on Bergen Street. Patrol car and unmarked car parked next to bike lane. Ford Fusion Flex (personal vehicle?) parked in curbed lane. This busy block with a bus stop was reduced to 1 travel lane. No NYP personnel in site.

Images attached

Had gotten used to the quiet over the past few days. Oh well.....

72 5th Ave: SUV parked at hydrant
70 5th Ave: 2 cars parked in no parking zone
Black car idling at hydrant on corner of St. Marks Ave

A quick run by the block between New Year's Eve procedures found two uninterested patrolmen and a slew of illegal parkers:

446C Dean: two cars parked or idling in the No Standing zone
41 5th Avenue bus stop and hydrant at 39: white van parked at hydrant, 3 limos in bus stop. One is a white stretch Lincoln, NY lic T625342C
53 5th Avenue: black Mazda parked at hydrant

68-70 5th Avenue (at St. Mark's): two sedans parked in No Parking Zone

Alerted two patrolmen who shrugged and asked why that should bother me.

Happy New Year!

Stretch limo black NY T601352C .

I was amazed to get emails saying all my reports were closed and that action had been taken, which led me to run around the block and see proof -- which I did, in the form of either empty spots or cars with tickets (in most cases). THis all happened within a 20 minute period. 311 works!

2 sedans parked in No Parking zone at Woodland Restaurant.

NOte: during 15 minute walk around the block saw no TEA's on patrol. This said, my observation was only during 5 minutes and limited to a two block area.

Private limo parked at hydrant at Woodland Restaurant.

3 cars parked in bus stop at 231 Flatbush Ave

2 sedans and a white van