Showing posts with label Meter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meter. Show all posts
Monday, September 8, 2008
Meter Man In The Can
New Yorkers hate feeding parking meters. What car driver in any city could possibly be happy about parking meters? Well, Maurice Mizrahi of Brooklyn loves them. He must because he was arrested by the NYPD with 87 of them in his home! It’s believed that they were illegally hijacked in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn. This makes Mizrahi’s eighth arrest for copping these coin collectors. Residents say Mizrahi would go up and down their blocks, shaking meters until he found a full one. It’s believed that later in the evening, he’d back his car up to knock the meter out of the ground. Sometimes he’d simply drill into the meter to take off the top. Meters can carry up to $90 in cash. They cost the city $500 each. DOT has no estimate on the amount of money Mizrahi may have stolen. It’s a safe bet that Gravesend motorists want Mizrahi out of jail and back on their streets again ... before they park again!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Public Meters Matter To The Parking Public
Believe it or not, the city is considering a plan to increase parking meter rates to as much as $15.00 an hour; all in an effort to reduce traffic. Metered parking in midtown now costs $2.00 an hour for cars and $9.00 an hour for trucks. Muni-Meters currently cost $2.00 an hour, $5.00 for two hours and $9.00 for three hours. Nevertheless, outside consultants and city planners are looking for still more. What a surprise!
A significantly higher parking rate would unfairly target moderate and lower income drivers. It’s one thing for private garages and parking lots to charge high fees. It’s the driver’s choice to park in these lots. However, it’s quite another thing for public parking meters to be setup with exorbitant rates. In so doing, they’ll create private parking spots for the rich by making these spots financially prohibitive to the general public of generally lesser means.
We know “Free Parking” is easier to find on a Monopoly board than in midtown Manhattan any day of the week. A reasonable meter fee is acceptable. With $15.00 meters on city sidewalks though, finding cars nearby valued under $10,000 will become a rarity … kind of like finding a parking spot now while circling around and around. We urge the Department of Transportation and other city officials to come up with a more creative plan to reduce traffic. Maybe we can reduce the fleet size of city vehicles as a start?
A significantly higher parking rate would unfairly target moderate and lower income drivers. It’s one thing for private garages and parking lots to charge high fees. It’s the driver’s choice to park in these lots. However, it’s quite another thing for public parking meters to be setup with exorbitant rates. In so doing, they’ll create private parking spots for the rich by making these spots financially prohibitive to the general public of generally lesser means.
We know “Free Parking” is easier to find on a Monopoly board than in midtown Manhattan any day of the week. A reasonable meter fee is acceptable. With $15.00 meters on city sidewalks though, finding cars nearby valued under $10,000 will become a rarity … kind of like finding a parking spot now while circling around and around. We urge the Department of Transportation and other city officials to come up with a more creative plan to reduce traffic. Maybe we can reduce the fleet size of city vehicles as a start?
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