Proposal Would End Alternate Side Parking After Street Cleaner Passes

New York City councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) is hoping to change alternate side parking regulations, giving locals and commuters more access to parking.

Current regulations ban parking for a period of time – approximately 90 minutes – so that street sweepers can pass through.

Under the new regulations, drivers will be able to park their cars after the sweepers pass through, eliminating the no-parking time period drivers have to wait until they can park their cars.

Rodriguez first introduced the bill in 2010. Despite support from the majority of the Council – including Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Manhattan) – the bill did not progress.

Rodriguez is hoping that Mark-Viverito’s new position as speaker of the NYC Council will help the bill to pass. A Mark-Viverito spokesman would not comment on whether she will support the bill.

The Department of Sanitation is concerned that officers writing traffic violations for alternate-side parking won’t know if a sweeper has passed by or not.

Last year’s parking ticket revenues totaled $70 million, with $1.2 million of that revenue coming from alternate-side parking violations.

12 Comments

  • Seriously?

    How will this help on my block when the sanitation sweeper comes only once a month, so if they never come we can’t park just for the purpose of getting ticketed?

    I suggest that for every cleaning day that the sweeper doesn’t come the city should get ticketed and pay all the tickets that were issued on that block for that day (in other words cancel all the tickets issued), then maybe at least the sweepers will come and we’ll get some cleaner streets or we’ll save on tickets.

    Mostly I personally don’t suffer that much because I have a private driveway, but this alternate parking business under the disguise of cleaning streets, when in reality it happens maybe 5% of the time, is an absolute crime and probably unconstitutional as in “cruel & unusual punishment”…..

    • Marcelo

      I totally agree with you, i got a street cleaning ticket with piles of snow on the road…

  • Chaim

    “The Department of Sanitation is concerned that officers writing traffic violations for alternate-side parking won’t know if a sweeper has passed by or not.”

    Gosh, If the street is clean that means the sweeper passed by! But that makes too much scene, it all boils down to giving out tickets.

  • nsker

    This is what they always do in more civilized cities like S Francisco. The traffic agent rides just before the sweeper.

    In some places it is legally possible to have the sweepers themselves ticket the car in his way or maybe photograph it and get the ticket sent by the city later. NYC bus drivers can already do it to cars parked in bus stops.

    All of which would mean that there will be no ticket without the sweeper.

    • Uncivilized

      If I were asked to think of a civilized city San Francisco wouldn’t come to my mind.

  • Mendy W

    This bill will only help those pathetic losers who sit in their cars for the duration of alternate side parking. They really need to get a life – a life not centered around their cars.

    But will this actually help them? No. Any effort to make car ownership easier will be rewarded with… You guessed it: More cars! Then the whole musical chairs parking waltz continues ביתר שאת וביתר עז!

    What gets me about drivers who whine about alternate side parking is that a) these trucks clear the road from debris that can puncture YOUR tires, and b) the streets are not your personal driveway for free parking. Curbside parking is meant for people to temporarily park at their travel destinations, not to leave it there 24 hours thereby blocking others from legitimate use of the parking space. Rent some garage space off the street to store your private vehicle or don’t get one at all! The public space can be better used for things like plants or greenways.

    ונזכה זעהן זיך…כו

    • Milhouse

      Curbside parking is meant for people to temporarily park at their travel destinations, not to leave it there 24 hours

      Says who? Where did you get this notion? Which oracle told you what the space is “meant for”? And who “meant” it? You have invented a premise from whole cloth, and draw strange conclusions from it.

  • Double Parking Disaster

    It would be quite easy for the street sweepers to leave a “simon” that they had passed, but it would create great confusion and may render many streets impassible in places where they tolerate people double parking during street cleaning time. They would thus have to also crack down on the double parking in many places, so there’s no net gain, and probably a net loss.

  • Duh!@#$

    Why not just mount enforcement cameras on the street sweepers, so that a vehicle is only ticketed if / when it is in violation of obstructing the street cleaning process. The city seems to have done a fine job of enforcement other traffic rules this way.

  • A better idea

    Why not make street cleaning only 2 days a week – one time on each side. Do we honestly need the streets cleaned 4 x a week???

  • Adrienne

    I really hope that they will pass this props all because a lot of people will be happy, that we wouldn’t have to wait until the time is up. AL so Like IN Most Boroughs THE Only Move Their cars once a week. That law should be every where.