May 19, 2008 7:44 pm US/Eastern
Investigation: Mayor's Parking Crackdown Failing
CBS 2 HD Finds Several Examples Of Officials Leaving Their Cars Wherever They Want And Not Getting Ticketed
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
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's message of zero tolerance for government officials who abuse their parking privileges is apparently being ignored. Officials are still parking where they want.
And what's worse … A CBS 2 HD investigation has found that traffic agents are letting them.
Bad habits die hard. On May 1, Bloomberg cancelled the free parking permits of 25,000 bureaucrats, but they are still clogging the streets of lower Manhattan, parking illegally and not getting tickets.
"It's really messed up," Jose Bello of Brooklyn said. "I don't know why they do that."
CBS 2 HD cameras discovered numerous violations. People with official cars who had their permits yanked are just parking in no parking zones without permits and are getting away with it.
CBS 2 HD spotted two Department of Transportation cars on Franklin Street. We also found court officers and court clerks parking with placards issued by their unions, which are also not legal.
One of the cars the traffic agents didn't see fit to ticket on Monday was a Honda Element. Why should it get a ticket? Well, first of all it is parked next to a hydrant. It also has a police placard, but the license plate on the police placard doesn't match the license plate on the car.
But get this. CBS 2 HD cameras watched as a traffic enforcement agent drove right by the car at the hydrant, and a half-dozen other official cars parked illegally. The only ticket the agent gave out was to the car of a regular one.
"That's the way it is – special privileges around here," New Yorker Paul Darcy said. "It's not right at all, not right at all. We have trouble parking because of these incidents … cops and firemen and people who know cops and firemen."
For years CBS 2 HD has crusaded against city workers abusing their parking privileges. On Monday, we asked NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly about our latest findings.
"We've issued over 2,000 summonses to those cars," Kelly said. "We've towed over 200 cars. We as an agency have reduced our plates by over 32 percent, so all I can tell you is if people are parking down there they very much run the risk of being ticketed or having their car towed away."
CBS 2 HD also found another problem with the mayor's new program. Thousands of new placards limit official parking in no parking zones to three hours, but there's little practical way to enforce it. Officials are still parking all day and not getting ticketed.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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