May 1, 2008 7:10 pm US/Eastern
Bloomberg Slashes Free Parking For City Employees
About 25,000 Permits Eliminated, A 32 Percent Cut
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Thousands of New Yorkers who'd been parking for free around the city may find themselves limited to the privilege only on a Monopoly board now.
CBS
There's no such thing as a free lunch, and now for city workers, there's no free parking either.
Thousands of city employees had their parking permits yanked by Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday as part of a major overhaul to help unclog city streets.
"It's just not something that's fair," Bloomberg said.
And with those words, the mayor abolished the time-honored perk for thousands of city bureaucrats. About 25,000 permits were eliminated, a 32 percent reduction.
"It's very good," said Brooklyn resident Joe Lichtenstein. "The whole neighborhood is full of cars which are unnecessary for the regular person."
For years, CBS 2 has crusaded against city workers abusing their parking privileges. Parking at expired meters, fire hydrants, and blocking delivery trucks are just some of the daily offenses. Former CBS 2 reporter Brendan Keefe did many of those stories.
"This was indefensible," Keefe told CBS 2. "To hand out half a billion dollars worth of parking tickets a year, 8 million parking tickets a year – one for every man, woman, and children in the city – we saw that as hypocrisy and that's why we kept chasing them."
As part of the overhaul, the mayor's office banned city agencies from issuing their own placards. Only the NYPD and the Department of Transportation can issue them now. Still, CBS 2 found many parked on the streets Thursday illegally.
One Chevy Caprice we found had one of the new placards, but was parked on White Street, blocks from any city agency, leaving one to wonder whether it was parked appropriately.
"It is appropriate to give a placard to somebody who for their job, for the city, has to find a place to park quickly to do their job," Bloomberg said.
Traffic experts praise the mayor for daring to go where no other mayor's have dared to go, but they want him to do more.
"I think that's terrific, but we must consider it a first step. I think we can go even further in slashing the number of placards. I'd like to see zero placards for teachers," said former New York City Transportation Commissioner.
This is not the end of the issue, however. County officials said they are going to do another round of placard reductions by the end of the year. And to show just how serious he is, Bloomberg has even eliminated more than 100 permits for people working in his own office.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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